Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

3132 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANStice. He identified himself with the people of the county and rapidly rosein their confidence and esteem, doing a large share of the legal business ofthat section until the war came on.Before the war he was an ardent Union man and earnestly opposed themeasuresof secession. After the state had adopted the ordinance of secessionand war came on he entered the Confederate service as a volunteer private inCaptain Delaney's Cavalry Company, which was assigned to the famous Cobb'sLegion. He remained in active service two years in Virginia, until exposureand sickness caused him to be sent home on a furlough. While at home hewas given authority to raise a cavalry company, and succeeded in enlistingone of the largest cavalry companies ever raised in North Georgia, principallycomposed of able bodied young men who entered the service with all theenthusiasm that a love of country and the cause of the South could inspire.Mr. Bell was elected captain, and the company was assigned to the EleventhGeorgia Cavalry. Captain Bell was soon promoted to the rank of major andserved a portion of the time under General Wheeler and a portion of thetime under Gen. Howell Cobb in Georgia. In the closing months of the warhe was under Gen. P. M. B. Young. During Sherman's Georgia campaignMajor Bell was with the Confederate forces operating in the rear of the Federal armies. From Atlanta to the sea and up through the Carolinas MajorBell again and again distinguished himself as the leader of his regiment orin charge of various detachments and in South Carolina while still doggedlyfollowing Sherman's army he led his men in a gallant charge against theFederal breastworks and was still fighting when the order came to call backhis men and the announcement was made of General Lee's surrender at Appomattox.Many accounts say that this was the last charge and engagementof the Confederate troops east of the Mississippi River.Thus Major Bell enlisted early in the cause of the South and remainedtrue to that cause up to the last hour of final defeat. He was in several battles and many skirmishes, but fortunately was never captured by the enemy orwounded in any way. As a military officer he was noted for his kindness andthe zeal and energy he manifested in endeavoring to add to the comfort andwelfare of his men. He never considered any duty too hard for him. Afterthe war he accepted its issues and returned to the Village of Homer almostpenniless and with a shattered constitution. He was soon again in the possession of a liberal share of practice, and was a partner of Col. Robert McMillanof Clarksville until elected solicitor general of the county court of BanksCounty.Major Bell distinguished himself in many ways during the reconstructionperiod and especially as a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1867-68.As his biographer states, he was one of those who accepted the defeat ofthe cause of the South as the final solution of those great questions of nationalpolitics that had agitated the public mind for so many years. The Confederacy had been overpowered by superior numbers and with its failure wentdown the brightest hopes and anticipations of its gallant defenders. To berestored to the Union and to repair as far as possible the sad consequencesof secession was the great object with him. He therefore favored the reconstruction measures as proposed by Congress at that time as likely to affordthe quickest relief to the suffering people of the South. He was also uncompromisingly opposed to the relief measures proposed to be enacted at thattime because to him it was a species of dishonesty. His position on those questions was fully announced and after a warm and exciting canvass he waselected by a handsome majority as delegate and became an active and veryinfluential member of the convention. In May, 1868, he was chosen by therepublican convention of Georgia as delegate to the National RepublicanConvention at Chicago and voted in that convention for Grant and Colfaxfor president and vice president of the United States.