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Acknowledgments Several years ago I told the luncheon guests of the Washington–Wilkes County Women’s Club that I know well many people of their Georgia community . The problem for me, I told the women, the Wilkes County people I know are long buried to the south of town in Resthaven Cemetery. Nevertheless , and in spite of the long stillness of many of my Washington-Wilkes sources, I hope that the lives represented in this and earlier works will provide the twenty-first century with a better understanding of the Georgia of the nineteenth. Judge Andrews and his family have held my attention and influenced my priorities for years, and through these years a number of people have supported the projects. I am certain our efforts have contributed to a better understanding of the past. I am especially indebted to Professor Charlotte Ford of Athens, Georgia. Professor Ford’s dedication to Andrews family scholarship, especially to the life of Judge Andrews’s daughter, Fanny, adds significantly to our understanding of the family’s place in our culture and society. Without Charlotte’s years of research and writing, and her willingness to share her knowledge , my work would not be possible. I am indebted, too, to former Wilkes County Library director Celeste Stover. Celeste knows so much of the history of Wilkes and its people. She graciously shared her knowledge and her time with our research, and she made her library my library. Celeste’s former library colleague and mentor, the late Charles Irvin, was a treasure of Wilkes County history. Charles died during the final stages of this book’s preparation . The loss of his generous spirit and wealth of knowledge creates a permanent emptiness and gives reality to the African proverb that an older person’s death is like a library burning to the ground (William Ferris, “An Introductory Comment,” U.S. Society & Values, Electronic Journal of the Department of State 5, no. 1 [February 2000]; http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itsv/0200/ijse/ ferris.htm [accessed July 26, 2008]). Wilkes County historian Skeet Willingham’s earlier work with Judge Andrews’s Reminiscences of an Old Georgia Lawyer demonstrated an appreciation of a formative time in Georgia’s history on which we continue to build. Skeet has been an attentive, helpful host and guide during my visits to Washington and in my studies of the Andrewses of Georgia and Tennessee. Acknowledgments [viii] Colonel and Mrs. Charles Longer continue to be sources of encouragement and advice in my work, especially during times of frustration. My regular review meetings with Colonel Longer are sessions of contemplation and analysis. His scientific objectivity and practicality often bring back to reality my romantic musings and assumptions. University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) library archivist Steven Cox always is available and willing to answer the most arcane questions about archival research and document evaluation. The many other librarians and archivists with whom I work are invaluable resources. The young workers in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina provide critical assistance each time I visit their Chapel Hill treasure house, and I sincerely appreciate their willingness, if not outright encouragement, to make digital copies of what to me are priceless artifacts. The attendants at the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah provided help and advice, as did the cooperative and knowledgeable staffers of the Chattanooga Bicentennial Library and the University of Georgia special collections. My good friend Dr. Douglas Cupples, a historian of the first order, invited me to share with his University of Memphis graduate students preliminary findings and some early concepts on which the organization of this current book is based. Our discussions provided important insights in helping place some of the judge’s and his daughter’s beliefs and attitudes into an appropriate and realistic historical context. Dr. Cupples was especially helpful in his willingness to examine with me the problems associated with viewing nineteenth-century attitudes and beliefs through twenty-first-century eyes. Workplace colleague and friend Kelly Griffin assisted in scheduling, paying bills, and providing emotional support and encouragement in extremely difficult times in a very stressful environment during the research and editing of this project. I am also grateful to the University of Chattanooga Foundation and to several members of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga faculty committees who saw value in my work and elected to support me with two research grants. The grants made possible the travel necessary to collect and to assess archival material...

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