HENRY P. FARROW: RELUCTANT CONFEDERATE

, , Henry Patillo Farrow, born January 24, 1834, and one of Georgia’s best known Republicans
during the late nineteenth century, was the youngest of Patillo and Jane Stobo Farrow’s five children.
He grew up at Laurens Court House, South Carolina, where his father was a lawyer. Very little is
known about his youth, but without graduating he attended the University of Virginia during the
1853-54 session and possibly until 1855.’

Upon his return home he studied law for a year at the firm of Young, Simpson, and Simpson.
In May 1856 he and his brother James attended a Democratic meeting in Columbia which was
considering sending delegates to the national convention. Here his support for the National
Democrats and opposition to secession made him unpopular. Consequently, he soon left South
Carolina "in disgust" and moved to Cartersville, Georgia, where in February 1857 he began law
practice in partnership with J. G. Ryals. Later that year he returned to Laurens Court House to marry
(on November 19) Cornelia Finch Simpson, daughter of J ohn W. Simpson. Together, they had two
girls, Eliza and Jonine.’

During the election crisis of 1860 Farrow strongly supported Stephen A. Douglas for
president and again opposed secession. He firmly believed that the attempt by southern states to
withdraw from the union was wrong and would fail, publicly stating his views. After the National
Democratic Convention at Charleston, South Carolina, broke up, Farrow went as a Constitutional
Democratic delegate to the reconvened convention in Baltimore. But neither he nor any of his
colleagues were seated?

The war began, and at first Farrow refused to be drawn into it. But in April 1862 the
Confederate Congress passed the first conscription act, which gave him little choice. Soon after, he
was physically examined and rejected by the army because of poor eyesight. But some two months
later he was accepted. The story printed in his obituary was that he was twice arrested under the
provisions of the conscription act. At Kingston, Georgia, during his second arrest, he had a chance
meeting with Isaac M. St. John, chief of the Confederate Nitre Bureau. The Chief, upon learning
that Henry’s brother James was a Confederate congressman, tendered him the superintendency of
the Georgia district. Farrow accepted, supposedly assuring St. John that he knew the time had come
to support the South, right or wrong.’

It is not known precisely when Farrow became a captain in the Nitre Bureau. The earliest
surviving record of any association of his with the Bureau was July 29, 1862. He was then
reimbursed for the acquisition of spring steel, iron, and belts for the repair of drills and wagons at
Bartow (now known as Kingston Saltpeter) Cave, and a horse and saddle for assistants on
exploration duty in middle Tennessee. The first job he had, September 8-30, 1862, was as
superintendent of saltpeter production at Bartow Cave.”

He may have continued in the same position during October. But by November 1, 1862, he
was superintendent of the newly created Nitre District Fourteen, which took north Georgia from
Captain Fred H. Smith’s District Eight. Farrow’s territory eventually embraced the entire state and
he remained at its head the remainder of the war. His pay was originally $4.00 a day, $140.00 a
month for June 1863, and afterwards $200.00 a month.°®

Some of Farrow’s movements and duties in his district are known. On November 3 and 27,
1862, January 6, 28, February 28, March 29-31, and May 13, 1863, he visited Cave Spring Cave in
Floyd County "on official business." During some of these trips, February 28, May 13, plus April
8. 1863, he also inspected "works of Contractors." These included the potash making facilities of

J. H. McClung and Company, Massey and Company, and P. W. Merritt "to see if they were making
proper exertions." On January 23, 1863, he was ordered to report to his superior, Captain George
Arnold, at the Division Two Nitre office in Augusta, Georgia. He went to Cartersville April 28 and
June 5, 1863, "hunting Kettles," and on May 26 to "Adairsville looking after Cave [pow called
Yarbrough Cave] Near there." He periodically received cash remittances from the main office in
Richmond to be spent in the everyday affairs of his domain. He also received supplies, such as
shovels, dippers, strainers, and axes, from Augusta. On July 20, 1863, Farrow advertised for a
hundred slaves "to labor at points in... Georgia, which will be perfectly secure and remote from
the enemy."”

During the latter half of 1863 Farrow twice interrupted his official activities. On August 23
he wrote Captain Charles W. Howard of Bartow County, then on duty in Savannah, that should he
consent to run, Howard could be elected state senator "without opposition." In late September he
and others went to the Chickamauga battlefield for the sad purpose of extracting the body of his
wife’s cousin, Corporal Taliferro N. Simpson of the 3"* South Carolina Infantry.*

Kingston was generally Farrow’s headquarters. But by February 1864 he had shifted his
office to Bartow Cave, the most productive saltpeter mine in north Georgia. On the fifteenth of that
month he sought the arrest of twenty-two conscripts, mostly from the mountainous counties, who
had deserted Bartow Cave. At the same time he solicited "negro labor" for the cave, promising to
pay sixty dollars a month "for good able men" and "half that amount for women."”

Farrow stayed at Bartow Cave until at least May 7, 1864, and probably a few days more.
Soon thereafter, Sherman’s Union forces reached the vicinity and made his position untenable. By
May 24 Farrow had new headquarters at Palmetto, Georgia, on the Atlanta and West Point Railroad
about twenty-five miles southwest of Atlanta."

Palmetto was probably abandoned sometime around the fall of Atlanta, and by October 1,
1864, Farrow’s office was moved to Augusta. Soon, however, his headquarters were switched to
Milledgeville, where he was when Sherman’s legions began their famous March to the Sea. From
there Farrow "escaped with teams & effects to Quitman Ga." and briefly returned when the danger
was past. In mid-December his domestic (from underneath old buildings) saltpeter responsibilities
were expanded. He through assistants already controlled leaching installations at Lexington and
elsewhere. Other works of this kind at Milledgeville, Greensboro, Madison, Washington, and
Athens, formerly supervised by the Augusta office, were transferred to Farrow’s direct charge.
About the same time Prof. N. A. Pratt, new acting superintendent of Division Two, sent some of
Farrow’s assistants with a work force to the Atlanta battlefields to collect lead. Farrow was urged
to "give this matter" his "personal attention" and also to go there. In addition he was authorized to
impress all lead and copper scrap which could not be purchased."!

During late December Farrow did go to Atlanta, where he set up a secondary office on
Decatur Street, and points further north. Not only were the Gate City battlefields searched for metals
but apparently others as well. He reported finding "valuable property of all kinds and varieties . .
_ along the line of Railroad from Adairsville and Rome," which was rapidly being removed by
citizens. He claimed that during the last months of the war this scavenging expedition recovered
over 150,000 pounds of lead, brass, and zinc plus other useful items. The latter included "Army
forges, one twelve horse power Steam Engine, in good order... wagons and . . . cannon,” some of
which were "brought to the aid of the cause," with the residue "stored at points of safety." Farrow
ordered his agent at Kingston to remove all the telegraph wire along the railroads north of the
Etowah River, toward Rome and Resaca. This netted over 30,000 pounds of wire, half originally

strung by the Federals, which was "enough to construct a line seventy five miles long."”

Probably just before he went to north Georgia, Farrow established yet another headquarters,
this time his last, on Cherry Street in Macon. He again solicited "an additional force of Two
Hundred Negroes," and wanted "to hire or purchase a few good teams." On February 4, 1865, Prof.
Pratt urged him to make arrangements with new saltpeter contractors to deliver at least 150 pounds
monthly. The same day Farrow appealed to citizens for "Nitre, lead and copper." He alluded to the
many "plantations in the old settled parts of the state, beneath the houses of which there are hundreds
of pounds of Nitre.". He hoped the owners would work these deposits, either "by a sense of duty”
or under contract, in lieu of him having to send a government force to do so. In late March, because
of heavy losses in the February 17 Columbia, South Carolina, fire, Farrow was exhorted by Prof.
Pratt to "give the collection of potash your special attention and accumulate a supply as soon as
possible." The extent of Farrow’s success in these activities is not known. Probably, given the
difficulties of the time, it was not much, but he appears to have tried to fulfill his duties until the end
in spite of being at heart a unionist."*

On April 6, 1865, Farrow announced a new organization of his district. Milledge G.
Whitlock and W. R. Carter would respectively head the manufacture of saltpeter and potash; C.
Oliver Stillwell would collect lead, copper, brass, and zinc; and William Anderson would supply
quartermaster and commissary stores. But before this plan could be fairly implemented the war
ended. Farrow was still in Macon as late as April 14, and perhaps was there when General James
H. Wilson’s Union army, coming from Alabama, occupied the city a few days later. Farrow’ s
original opinion on the secession movement was at last borne out."

Very soon after the cessation of hostilities Farrow took the oath of allegiance, pleaded with
Georgians to accept the verdict of arms, and endorsed the Republican Party as "the only hope of the
country." He returned to Bartow County, but by December 1865 moved to Atlanta, where he opened
a law office on Whitehall Street.’

Within a few years Farrow became a prominent leader of Georgia Republicans and held a
variety of positions. Beginning in 1868 he was four years state Attorney General, eight years United
States District Attorney for Georgia, and for a time under President Chester A. Arthur collector of
customs at Brunswick. In addition, he was a U. S. Grant elector in 1868, chairman of the Republican
State Central Committee, 1872-76, and chairman of the Georgia delegation to the Republican
National Convention at Cincinnati in 1876. On October 14, 1885, he resigned the collector job and
retired to the mountains of Lumpkin County where for over a decade he conducted a mineral water
resort at Porter Springs. Finally, 1897-1904, he served as postmaster of Gainesville, Georgia. By
the end of that tenure he was a widower, and he moved back to Atlanta to live with the family of one
of his daughters. There, at 123 South Pryor Street, he died February 10, 1907.°

Henry P. Farrow, although a Presbyterian, sometimes had an impulsive temper which more
than once landed him in trouble. During the late 1860s he fought one duel, with injury to no one, and
threatened to shoot an Atlanta newspaper editor "like a mad dog" if a certain article impugning his
character was not retracted. But his honesty, "devotion to principle," and integrity gave the
Republicans of Georgia "leadership, strength and respectability." At his death even a Democratic
paper praised him as a "patriarchal figure.""”

SOURCES.

1. George L. Jones, The Political Career of Henry Patillo Farrow, Georgia Republican, 1865-1 904,

MA Thesis 1966, University of Georgia, Athens, 6-8; Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 11, 1907.

2. Ibid.; Jones, Political Career, 7-8; Cassville Standard, Mar. 5, May 7, 1857; Brent Holcomb,
Marriage and Death Notices from Upper South Carolina Newspapers 1543-1 865 (Easley, S.C., 1977), 35;
1870 Census, Fulton, Atlanta, 2"? Ward, 4.

3. Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 11, 1907; Jones, Political Career, 8-10.

4. Ibid., 10-11; Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 11, 1907.

5. Confederate Papers Relating to Citizens or Business Firms (M346, Roll 297), National Archives,
Henry P. Farrow File.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid. (M346, Rolls 297, 371, 617), Henry P. Farrow, M. L. Graves, and McClanahan & Dill Files;
Memphis Daily Appeal, July 28, 1863.

8. Rome Weekly Courier, Sept. 4, 1863; Guy R. Everson and Edward H. Simpson, Jr., eds., “far,
Far From Home" The Wartime Letters of Dick and Tally Simpson Third South Carolina Volunteers (New
York and Oxford, 1994), xi, 288-89.

9. Atlanta Daily Intelligencer, Feb. 17, 1864.

10. Ibid., May 10, 27, 1864.

11. Ibid., Oct. 5, 1864; N. A. Pratt Confederate Nitre and Mining Letterbook, 1864-65, MS302,
Hargrett Collection, University of Georgia Library, Athens, pp. 37, 79, 128, 219, 224, 225.

12. Atlanta Daily Intelligencer, Dec. 31, 1864; Macon Daily Telegraph & Confederate, Apr. 15,
1865.

13. Macon Southern Confederacy, Jan. 20, 1865; Albany Patriot, Jan. 4, 1865; Pratt Letterbook, 415,
595: Cartersville Express, Feb. 21, 1868.

14. Macon Daily Telegraph & Confederate, Apr. 17, 1865; George M. Battey, Jr., A History of
Rome and Floyd County (Atlanta, 1922), 138; Sarah B.G. Temple, The First Hundred Years: A Short History
of Cobb County in Georgia (Atlanta, 1935), 601; Pratt Letterbook, 685.

15. Jones, Political Career, 11-12; Atlanta Intelligencer, Apr. 10, 1866.

16. Jones, Political Career, 56, 127-29, 149; Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 11, 1907.

17. Ibid.; Jones, Political Career, 7, 150.