GILMER COUNTY, GA - HISTORY LETTER Civil War Draft Dodgers Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Jacqueline King fammaw1@alltel.net Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm Letter from Gilmer County from W.W. Finley to Governor Joseph E. Brown concerning actions of Confederate draft dodgers in the area Date: July 26, 1862 "According to the wish of the people of this section of the country of Gilmer County, I have been solicited to communicate some facts of what is going on in this section of Georgia. There have been for some weeks past great uneasiness suffer(ed) by the citizens of this portion of the country on account of the Tories and traitors who have taken up their abode in the mountains in this section of the county. These men have been robbing the soldiers' wives of our country. They are a-killing the stock of this country all up. There have been seventy or eight(y) seen together in company. They have (...) sent out spies into the country to reconoiter (sic) for them. They have come to the settlements and burnt up our soldiers' wives houses and threatened their lives, if molested. They are all well armed men. Some horsemen are with them. They are killing and destroying the beef cattle all up in the mountains and in some instances have come to the pastures of the citizens and kiled all of their cattle nearby and taken off with what they could carry, leaving the rest to the buzzard fowls. These men are (ones) who would have to go to war under the conscript act and have fled to the mountains. Some of our citizens is among them. And the citizens is compelled to bear their outrages without help from some source, the soldiers taken nearly all of our guns off to war, leaving us without anything to protect ourselves with, and the people of this country prays assistance from your hand." used with permission of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, The University of Georgia