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Following information is from book, SHERMAN'S HORSEMEN: UNION CAVALRY OPERATIONS IN THE
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN by David Evans, copyright 1996.
Union cavalry made daring raids during July and August 1864 to cut railroads supplying Atlanta. During McCook's Raid federal cavalry captured Fayetteville Georgia and destroyed large Confederate wagon trains outside the town.
Over 100 Confederates were captured at Fayetteville including Col. Mial M. TIDWELL, a retired lieutenant colonel of the 30th, Georgia Infantry. He and his daughter Mattie were residents of Fayetteville.
According to David Evans, "Oral tradition in Fayetteville credits Tidwell with hanging a large Confederate flag out of his window just as McCook's men were about to set fire to the courthouse. Promptly arrested, he so distracted his captors they forgot about burning the building."
Evans adds, "Just how much truth there is to this story is hard to say, but the Official Records credits McCook's 1st Cavalry
Division with capturing a flag on July 29 bearing the inscription "Our Country Our Rights", and Fayetteville today boasts the
oldest courthouse in the state of Georgia."
The Yankee's put the 250-pound TIDWELL on a small white mule and moved him and other prisoners with their cavalry column out of Fayetteville toward Newnan Georgia. TIDWELL's jokes and remarks about his Sancho Panza-like appearance soon had captors and captures laughting.
TIDWELL would not be a POW for long; McCook's force was decisively defeated at the Battle of Brown's Mill near Newnan, Georgia on July 30, 1864. All prisoners and most military equipment was abandoned by Union soldiers as they fled the battlefield.
Phil Tidwell
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