Mercer University Press Search Results

Published jointly with the Historic Chattahoochee Commission. Triumph of the Eccunna Nuxulgee is the first book to chronicle the tragic saga of Indian Removal with a specific focus on the Chattahoochee Valley of Georgia and Alabama. With candor and objectivity, William W. Winn chronicles the duplicity, political maneuvering, and military force through which the native Creeks ultimately lost their lands, illuminating latent issues of morality, sovereignty, cultural identity, and national destiny the affair brought to the surface. 

This unique book, originally published in a limited edition in 1982 and out of print for many years, is the most comprehensive collection of Civil War letters written by residents of Southeastern Alabama and Southwestern Georgia to be published. Poignant in emotion, informative in detail, and broad in scope, the correspondence contained here provides us with a unique opportunity to understand the Civil War and its effect on individuals and families from an intensely personal perspective. The writers, the great majority of them unlettered and expressing themselves in a disarmingly honest manner in their heartfelt missives, collectively paint a compelling portrait of a watershed moment in national history from a regional viewpoint. They make well-known events tangible and lesser-known sidebars illuminating.

To the Gates of Atlanta covers the period from the Confederate victory at Kennesaw Mountain, 27 June 1864, leading up to the Battle of Peach Tree Creek, 20 July 1864, and the first of four major battles for Atlanta that culminated in the Battle of Jonesboro, 31 August and 1 September 1864.

To the Gates of Atlanta also gives the important, but previously untold stories of the actions and engagements that befell the sleepy hamlet of Buckhead and the surrounding woods that today shelter many parts of Atlanta’s vast community. 

From Smyrna to Ruff’s Mill, Roswell to Vinings, Nancy Creek to Peach Tree Creek, and Moore’s Mill to Howell’s Mill, To the Gates of Atlanta tells the story of each as part of the larger story which led to the fall of The Gate City of the South.

In the Beginning highlights the history of the world’s largest religious memorial to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Inspired essays on education, social justice, nonviolence, peace, ecumenism, and civil and human rights are offered in honor of Lawrence Edward Carter, Sr., founding dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel.

This book is a lasting tribute and valuable contribution to the history and educational mission of Morehouse College.

Contributors include Lewis V. Baldwin, Thomas O. Buford, Delman L. Coates, Jason R. Curry, Norm Faramelli, Peter Goodwin Heltzel, Barbara Lewis King, Douglas E. Krantz, Bill J. Leonard, Otis A. Maxfield, Echol Nix, Jr., Harold Oliver, Peter Paris, Samuel K. Roberts, Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Harold Dean Trulear, Edward P. Wimberly, Vincent L. Wimbush, and Virgil Wood.

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas was an intelligent, spirited woman born in 1834 to one of the wealthiest families in Georgia. At the age of fourteen she began and kept a diary for forty-one years, documenting her life before, during, and after the Civil War. In 1851 she graduated from Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia. Her life is an amazing story of survival and transformation that speaks to women in our own time.

When it opened in October 1864, Camp Lawton was called “the world’s largest prison.” Operational only six weeks, this stockade near Millen, Georgia, was evacuated in the face of advancing Federal troops under General Sherman. In that brief span of time, the prison served as headquarters for the Confederate military prison system, witnessed hundreds of deaths, held a mock election for president, was involved in a sick exchange, hosted attempts to recruit Union POWs for Confederate service, and experienced escape attempts. Burned by Sherman’s troops following its evacuation in late November 1864, the prison was never reoccupied. Over the next 150 years, the memory of Camp Lawton almost disappeared. In 2010, the Confederate military prison was resurrected—a result of the media event publically showcasing the findings of recent archeological investigations. This book not only summarizes these initial archeological findings, but is also the first full-length, documented history of Camp Lawton.

This narrative provides a comprehensive history of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The book concludes that race, the Civil Rights movements, and black and white philanthropy had much affect on the development of these minority institutions. Northern white philanthropy had much to do with the start and maintenance of the nation’s HBCUs from 1837 into the 1940s. Even from 1950 to 1970, HBCUs depended upon financial support of philanthropic groups, benevolent societies, and federal and state government agencies, but the survival of HBCUs became dependent mostly on their own creative responses to the changing environment of higher education and have helped to shape our culture and society.

 

Houston Hartsfield Holloway (1844–1917) was born enslaved in upcountry Georgia, taught himself to read and write, learned the blacksmith trade, was emancipated by Union victory in 1865, and served as an ordained traveling preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1870 to 1883. He devoted the remainder of his life to his family, his blacksmith trade, and his local church. Holloway’s 24,000-word autobiography offers a rare working-class perspective on life during some of the most transformative years of US history. Footnotes provide supplementary biographical information for nearly two hundred relatives, neighbors, friends, and coworkers named in Holloway’s narrative. An appendix includes nineteen extended biographical sketches. The book is illustrated with photographs and three detailed maps of Holloway’s home neighborhoods and preaching assignments.

The Allman Brothers Band was formed in 1969 by Duane and Gregg Allman, along with Berry Oakley, Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, and “Jaimoe.” Their musical combination of the elements of rock, blues, jazz, and country was hugely successful and continues to stand the test of time. Filled with more than two hundred captioned images, this new book chronicles Jack Weston’s collection and other items of The Allman Brothers Band memorabilia from 1969–1976. Weston and Perkins discuss in detail the various categories and aspects of band collectibles from that period. The book not only highlights individual collectibles, but also explains where to find them and how to preserve them. Included are band instruments and equipment, t-shirts, apparel and merchandise, autographs, bookkeeping documents, passes, posters, tickets, programs, promotional items, vintage photographs, and more. Galadrielle Allman, daughter of the late Duane Allman, offers an introduction that is both intimate and informative. Fans of classic rock music and The Allman Brothers Band alike will find this book irresistible and prepublication interest from fans has been phenomenal.

Baptists lack a single central figure in their origins that Lutherans, Reformed, Presbyterians, and Methodists have with Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and John Wesley. Additionally, Baptists focus so heavily on the Bible for authority and key beliefs or practices like religious liberty, social justice, missions, and preaching that sometimes Baptists and other Christians forget the significant role that people play in forging and promoting those ideas and practices. This book seeks to address this shortcoming by providing an introductory text of Baptist biographies.

This book chronicles—through the eyes of a range of visitors—the first quarter century of the development of Columbus, Georgia. A planned city located at the head of navigation on the Chattahoochee River, the city underwent a remarkably swift transformation from isolated frontier town to Deep South commercial hub between its founding in 1828 and the eve of the Civil War. Included is a driving tour of historic sites that will enable readers to appreciate the town’s robust antebellum architectural heritage and better understand the contours of life within the borders of the original city carved from the wilderness nearly two centuries ago.

The Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication was founded in 1915 by Steadman Vincent Sanford who as president (1932–35) and chancellor of the University System of Georgia (1935–45), was architect of the modern University of Georgia. Its second graduate John Eldridge Drewry (1922), the school’s longest serving director and dean (1932–69), established the Peabody Awards in 1940, which remains the oldest and most prestigious award in all electronic media. This account details the evolution of a college that is among the nation’s elite, with a selective undergraduate program (juniors and seniors only) and an impressive 99.1 percent graduation rate; a national leader in its graduate research program, with study abroad programs and internships; and leadership in international research and outreach. Housed within the college are a number of centers, institutes, and certificate programs that distinguish its disciplines.