Alexander McGillivray was at one time a clerk in his countinghouse.

Secure in the esteem and accompanied by the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, upon the expiration of his term of office as Governor of Georgia General Elbert was elected Sheriff of the county of Chatham.1 Of this lucrative and responsible position was he the incumbent when overtaken by death at the early age of fortyeight years. As a soldier he was brave, active, and intelligent. Among his companions he was known as a dashing officer and a hard fighter. Never did he abandon a field which could be held by stubborn valor. Gentlemanly in deportment, handsome in person, erect and graceful in carriage, and gallant in bearing, he was magnetic in his intercourse and commanding in his influence. His social qualities were of an attractive character, and his intellectual and moral endowments of a high order. For military affairs he possessed a natural fondness and manifested uncommon aptitude. His reputation was above reproach. His benevolence was large, and his impulses were open, generous, patriotic, chivalrous and noble. He was one of those excellent and good men who, in the language of Emerson, "make the earth wholesome." By the entire community was his demise sincerely mourned, and the General Assembly of Georgia, in acknowledgment of his valuable public services and in perpetuation of his good fame, named in his honor one of the most fertile counties within the limits of this commonwealth. We conclude this sketch by reproducing from the Georgia Gazette the following contemporaneous notice of his death and burial:

"Died last Saturday, after a lingering sickness, aged 48 years,

1 The office of Sheriff was at this time esteemed of prime dignity and moment. The tradition, inherited from the mother country, that the High Sheriff should be the best man of his county, had not then been either forgotten or ignored in the youthful commonwealth.

2 November 1, 1788.

SAMUEL ELBERT, Major General of the Militia of this State, Vice President of the Society of Cincinnati, and Sheriff of the County of Chatham. His death was announced by the discharge of minute guns, and the colours of Fort Wayne and the vessels in the harbour being displayed half-mast high. An early and warm attachment to the cause of his country stimulated him to exert those natural talents he possessed for a military life throughout the late glorious and successful contest with ability and general approbation, for which he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the Army of the United States.

In the year 1785, his country chose him, by their general suffrage, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the State, which office he executed with fidelity, and discharged its various duties with becoming attention and dignity. The appointments of Major General of the Militia, and Sheriff of this County, were further marks of the confidence of his country, whose interests he had always at heart, and whose appointments he received and executed with a grateful remembrance that his conduct through life had met the approbation of his fellow citizens. In private life he was among the first to promote useful and benevolent societies. As a Christian he bore his painful illness with patience and firmness, and looked forward to his great change with an awful and fixed hope of future happiness. As a most affectionate husband and parent, his widow and six children have great cause to lament his end, and society in general to regret the loss of a valuable member. His remains were attended on Sunday to Christ Church by the Ancient Society of Masons [of which he was the Past Grand Master in this State], with the members of the Cincinnati as mourners, accompanied by a great number of his fellow citizens whom the Rev. Mr. Lindsay addressed in a short but well adapted discourse on the solemn occasion. Minute guns were fired during the funeral, and every other honour was paid his memory by a respectable military procession composed of the

Artillery and other Militia Companies. The body was afterwards deposited at the family burial place on the Mount at Rae's Hall." 1

1

The Indian grave-mound near the confluence of Pipe-Maker's Creek and the Savannah River, which a later generation appropriated as a convenient place for modern sepulture, still stands, marking the spot where, nearly a century agone, the dust of a General in the army of the Revolution, of an honored citizen, and of a Governor of this commonwealth mingled with the ashes of the ancestors of the venerable Tomo-chi-chi. Although Rae's Hall has passed into the ownership of strangers, although his memorial stone has fallen, although soulless brambles and envious forest trees have obliterated all traces of the inhumation, the name of Samuel Elbert is enshrined in the annals of Georgia, and his memory will be cherished by all who are not unmindful of the lessons inculcated by a life of virtue, of valor, of probity, of benevolence, of patriotism, and of fidelity to trust reposed.

Thus, reviving these memories as they have been gleaned amid the lights and shadows of a remote and heroic past, and grouping them into a tribute expressive of our grateful appreciation of uncommon virtue and excellence, we offer this memorial of one who deserves high place in this Hall dedicated to the perpetuation of characters and events memorable in the history of this colony and commonwealth. Due preservation of and suitable meditation upon such recollections constitute no mean part of your mission, which, if worthily pursued, will insure to the general good, and encourage in the present a generous emulation of whatever dignified and ennobled the days that are gone.

There is a history in all men's lives,

Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd;
The which observ'd a man may prophesy,

1 The Georgia Gazette, No. 302. Savannah, Georgia. November 6, 1788.

With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.

Such things become the hatch and brood of time.

-CHARLES C. JONES, JR.

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA.

SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES

I.

THE white population of Georgia, at the inception of the war of the Revolution, did not probably exceed twenty thousand, of all ages. Governor Wright,1 on the 20th of December, 1773, reported to the Earl of Dartmouth that there were then inhabiting the province eighteen thousand whites and fifteen thousand blacks. During the continuance of the struggle Georgia contributed to the Continental army two thousand six hundred and seventy-nine men. Such, at least, is the best

information which can be obtained.2

With regard to the militia, called from time to time into the field, Major-General James Jackson, who in subordinate capacities and as a major and lieutenantcolonel, was an active participant in the entire contest, furnishes this estimate. He says that during the year 1775, and until the spring of 1776, Georgia had one thousand militiamen in service. For the years 1776 and 1777 he computes the militia in active service at seven hundred and fifty, exclusive of two battalions of minutemen of seven hundred and fifty each, a state regiment of horse two hundred and fifty strong, and three additional troops of forty men each, under the command of a major. In 1778, besides the state corps, two thousand militiamen were in the field for nearly six months. During the years 1779, 1780, 1781, and 1782 he estimates the militia constantly in service at seven hundred and fifty Among these was not included his own Legion, formed by order of General Greene in 1781. When to these we add many partisans never borne upon the rolls of either the Continental or the State establishment, and who depended almost exclusively upon their own resources and exertions for arms, munitions, and subsistence, it will readily be perceived that the entire manhood of the Republican element must, at some time or other, have been actively enlisted in the warlike effort to win the independence of the confederated States. Georgia-the youngest of the thirteen colonies-certainly contributed her full quota of men and resources in the achievement of American liberty.

men.

1

1 Public Record Office, London, Am. & W. Ind., No. 235.

2 Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, v. II. p. 631.