Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 2889to date from March 16. On July 14, 1861, he was promoted colonel andriven the Twentieth Georgia Regiment. On March 7, 1862, he was promotedbtfeadier-general; in June he was placed in command of the district of South' Carolina with headquarters at Charleston, his command including all theforces gathered on James Island. On June 16, 1862, he commanded one•wine of the forces which, under Gen. Nathan G. Evans, fought the battleof Secessionville and won a brilliant victory. The Confederate governmenthad been urged to remove General Pemberton and put General Smith in command of the department of South Carolina and Georgia. Possibly this wouldhave been done, but the gallant officer's career was drawing to a close. Attacked with fever he succumbed to the disease and died on October 4, 1862.BRIG.-GEN. G. MOXLET SORRED, a native Georgian, entered the Confederate army without any previous military experience, as captain onthe staff of Gen. James Longstreet, and participated in the first battle ofBull Run. On September 1, 1861, he was appointed adjutant-general ofLongstreet's brigade. He served in this capacity for nearly a year, throughthe winter of 1861, and the campaign of 1862. On July 24, 1862, he wascommissioned major and appointed acting adjutant-general of Longstreet'sdivision. On June 23, 1863, Major Sorrel was promoted lieutenant-colonel,but remained as acting adjutant of General Longstreet's corps, in whichcapacity he served at Gettysburg, and in September following his chief toGeorgia and into the East Tennessee campaign."When the campaign of 1864 opened, Colonel Sorrel was commissioned fullcolonel, and was chief of staff of General Longstreet. At the Battle of theWilderness he conducted three brigades to a position from which they couldassail Hancock's left. After more than three years of long and arduousservice, in which he had discharged, in an able manner, every duty entrustedto him, he was commissioned brigadier-general, October 24, 1864. At theconclusion of the war General Sorrel returned to Georgia, located in Savannah,and spent the remainder of his life as a merchant and as an official of asteamship company.JAMES FRANKLIN ROGERS. To depict the career of one who has attainedeminence in a high calling is a privilege, and the perusal of such a recordan inspiration. The subject of this memoir, widely recognized as the leading attorney of Covington and the Stone Mountain Circuit, and often affectionately alluded to by his confreres as the Nestor of the Newton Countybar, was born in Walton County, Georgia, December 12, 1856, the son ofPerry S. and Mary (Ivy) Rogers. The paternal grandfather was EphraimRogers, a native of Delaware and member of a highly respectable and honored family. Ephraim Rogers, like most of the members of his family, wasa man of culture and refinement. A farmer by occupation, he was in antebellum days, like most of those belonging to the higher classes in the South,a slaveholder, who, however, always treated his colored dependents withkindness and Christian charity. In addition to his agricultural labors, hewas an ordained preacher in the Methodist denomination, following Mssacred calling in Walton and Morgan counties. He married a Miss Fosterof Putnam County, Georgia, who died in the early '60s. He survived hersome years, his death taking place early in the next decade, when he waseighty-seven years old.Perry S. Rogers, son of Ephraim and father of our subject, was theyoungest member of a large family. He became a successful farmer andplanter in Walton County, owning and operating a plantation of 3,000 acres.He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and took an especiallyactive part in its work during his latter years. He was first married toMary Ivy, who, like himself, was a native of Walton County, Georgia. Of