December, 2019 – In advance of interview with Travis McDaniel for an“1864 Documentary” I was working on I began researching William Clayton Fain and Captain William Jefferson Rodgers of Company D; 4th Georgia Cavalry. I found Rodgers’ service records but they were pretty spars so it led me to begin looking into the 4th Georgia Cavalry which it turns out there were two of. One in North Georgia under the command of Colonel Issac W. Avery, the future editor of the Atlanta Constitution and the other in South Georgia under the command of Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch.

While searching obscure internet links, I came across a bulletin board style website called “Civil War Talk” which mentions of the writings of one ‘Alva’ Shaw published at the beginning of the 20th Century in the Walker County Messenger (WCM).

“Have you seen the Memoir that was printed in the Walker County Messenger by Alva Shaw? First entry was on December of 1901 and runs through most of 1902. Shaw only serves in the 4th for a little over a year and then gets wounded in the Atlanta Campaign”.

To find the archives of the Walker County Messenger also took a little searching – it’s not part of newspapers.com’s extensive archive. Finally I located an online resource called the Georgia Historic Newspapers Archive. The archive is a project of the Digital Library of Georgia and a part of Georgia’s Virtual Library GALILEO, based at the University of Georgia Libraries – luckily it had scans of most WCM issues from that time period.

03.04.2020 – Begin the time-consuming task of proofing each of Arba’s articles. I have to  comparing the original copy of the newspaper against the OCR transcription – this is done TWICE through all of the articles. The OCR process is imperfect with 120 year old newspaper type so there are a LOT of errors.

After a couple of weeks, I am finally am able to string together all 55 of the articles. When it’s pieced together as a continuous manuscript this was, Arba wrote more than 40,000 words. I find it also offers an entirely different perspective and flows like his original manuscript must have done. Arba wrote his entire manuscript over a period from December, 1901 until February, 1902 and then the Walker County Messenger serialized it across 55 different article for more than one year.

02.28.2020 – Retha Williams reached out to me after I left a message for her on Ancestry.com and introduced my to Alicyne Roth another descendant who lives in Walker County. Both women descend through Arba’s sister, Parthena Shaw Whittle (1863-1937)  was born on July 11, 1863 – the same day that Arba himself returned home on a furlough being sick with what was likely dysentery.

Arba’s sister – Parthena Shaw Whittle

02.14.2020 – Probate Judge Christy J. Anderson granted me permission to take a camera into the courthouse records room – when I asked for an explanation on the “no camera rule” by the guard at the metal detector at the door is that once you have been admitted to the courthouse you might be able to take pictures of folks connected with a trial and that is not allowed. I totally understand and agree with that potentially being a problem but am thankful they allowed me access to the records area which were located in the basement.

The important missing issue of February 5, 1903 photographed inside the Walker County Courthouse.

Was able to get a copy of one other missing date plus the critical 2/5/1903 Walker County Messenger and Shaw’s article featuring his account of arriving home to his mother after the war had ended. Hard to think of how you could end the story about a soldier who survived the Civil War without this account.

Arba F. Shaw’s marker is the third from the left, the marker just to its right is his wife Rebecca F. Johnson. The Leath family, which is his daughter’s family surrounds them.

Also visited Arba’s grave at Singleterry Cemetery for the first time and using 170+ year old maps from Walker County I am able to determine the approximate area of Arba’s acreage. The plat numbers tie-in with the original Cherokee Land Lottery’s of the 1830s and were still used to identify land parcel ownership in the 1880s.

Approximate location of Arba F. Shaw’s original Cooper Height’s homestead

Having gotten most all of the articles as PDF’s I begin using Acrobat’s OCR function create editable versions of each of Arba F. Shaw’s articles. It is not a perfect process – it will require a lot of proofing to get accurate transcriptions of all of the articles based on the early 20th century font choice of the Walker County Messenger.

Now I have to find the missing articles. The library in Walker County must have sourced from the same place as the Georgia archives as they are missing the same articles.

I have determined that the LaFayette Courthouse has bound copies of the Walker County Messenger – and within a couple of days, the clerk confirms they have my missing dates, which is great, I can just go in and photograph the missing articles and then transcribe them.

Not so fast – Clerk of Superior courts says that the Probate Judge Christy J. Anderson has an issue with anyone coming into the courthouse with my camera , it’s not allowed- I provide them with a full explanation of the reasons why I need to do this and if I have to will write the transcription by hand.

Interviewing Travis McDaniel for my 1864 documentary

01.13.2020 – Today I interviewed Travis McDaniel who lives near Jasper, GA for ‘1864 Documentary’. The premise of the documentary is all of the bad goings-on that were happening in Northern Georgia and Eastern Tennessee, specifically around Fannin County in Georgia and Polk County in Tennessee. 

In researching the entire story that will make up the documentary, it seems apparent that many of the events had a cause-and-effect quality to them – with one bad thing leading to the next bad thing. I have strung all of these small stories into one big story about the Chaos of 1864.

Travis and I speak in detail about his ancestor William Clayton Fain of Fannin County (His 2X Great-Grandfather’s First Cousin). Fain was execution-style murdered on April 6, 1864 while on his way to accept his commission as a Colonel in a Union Regiment. Fain, who was an attorney in Fannin County was also one of the two delegates from the county that attended the secessionists convention in Georgia’s then capitol of Milledgeville. 

So he was a well known individual when captured by a man identified in Fain’s Widow’s Pension affidavit as Captain Rogers and shot in the back of his head.

William Clayton Fain marker in Blue Ridge, Georgia

New Years Eve and Day, 2020 – I have now downloaded all of the Walker County Messenger articles. But I soon discover several are missing including the second to last one from 2/5/1903. This missing article seems to be a critical part that ends Shaws account – now I have to figure where I can find the missing editions of the WCM.

Read through entire works and think there is something special about this – maybe write an article or perhaps a book? Set it aside for future consideration.

I never set out to write a book when I came across the writings of Arba F. Shaw. It was the chance find while researching a documentary on a series of events in North Georgia  and Eastern Tennessee that occurred through most of 1864 that led me down this path. This is my author’s diary with some select entries made during the process of researching and writing the book.