27 January 2020
This is my Great Aunt, her story was very popular in our Holt family. I remember meeting her when I was very young. Not until I started researching my family history and networking with others did I learn the other side of this story.
Anna, her younger brother Tom (my grandfather) and the other siblings grew up in Clayton and Fayette counties, GA. If you are familiar with Gone With the Wind. It was that time frame and that very area.
The General in Anna's story was not Sherman but Gen John A Logan of the 15th Corps. His story of Anna's birth was published first on the front page of the National Tribune, (Washington, DC) Jul 10, 1884. by a unnamed doctor that was present and assisted in Anna's birth. Logan was campaigning, to be a candidate on the Democratic ticket for President of US. He was selected as a VP candidate and lost to Grover Cleveland.
Logan came along the road, shortly after her birth and the doctors pressed him into being her God Father. The family was of the Baptist faith and probably knew little about infant christening and perhaps she never knew of the ceremony or of the $5.00 gold piece he left as a gift. The story was secondly printed in a personal history of his life and can be found as "Life and Services. Gen. John A. Logan, as Soldier and Statesman" by George Francis Dawson. 1887. His version can be Searched on-line and you can read the entire article.
