Location:
Kelly Bridge Road
Dawson County, Georgia
N 34° 23.032 W084° 13.063
Find A Grave Cemetery ID: 1969479
Date of Visit: January 12, 2021
The following are graves in this cemetery marked with traditional Confederate soldier headstones. There were 10 graves marked by a non-military tombstone and a Confederate flag.
JG Hudlow
Burtz Co
18 Ga Inf
CSA
Feb 19, 1822
Oct 12, 1877
David Covington
Co D
40 Ga Inf
CSA
Jun 11 1835 Aug 13, 1864
Ananias Covington
Co D
40 Ga Inf
CSA
Jun 11 1835 Aug 13 1864
John H. Covington
Co I
52nd Ga Inf
CSA
David and Ananias Covington were the sons of Richard Covington and Mary Polly H. Payne. In 1860 David lived in Gordon County. Both men enlisted in the Calhoun Blues in Calhoun, Georgia in 1862. Both were captured and paroled at Vicksburg and exchanged at Mobile in 1863. In September they were absent without leave. These men were believed to have been kidnapped in Dawson County by a gang known as McCollum Scout’s. They were carried to Pickens County where one was hanged and the other shot attempting to escape on the Old Federal Road in a place that Luke Tate (1935) called Covington Hang.
Luke Tate( 1935) states that…
…the reasons for this particular act are unknown, but most of the killings and robberies done by the two gangs were directed against people who had aided the Union forces in some way. It was during the year 1864 that the two above mentioned bands flourished, the same year in which Sherman invaded and despoiled the state. In the course of his march Sherman was given information by some of the citizens sympathetic to the Union as to which of their neighbors should be raided, and informers of this sort constituted the chief class of victims of McCollum and Jordan. On the other hand, some of the actions of these gangs seemed to be in total disregard of the victim's affiliations (p.212)
A third brother, John H.Covington , served in the 52nd Georgia and survived the war.
- Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Georgia Original data from: The National Archives, Entry for David Covington 40th Georgia Infantry, Retrieved from at 3-Fold, May 17, 2021, (http://www.fold3.com).
- Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Georgia Original data from: The National Archives, Entry for Ananias Covington 40th Georgia Infantry, Retrieved from at 3-Fold, May 17, 2021, (http://www.fold3.com).
- Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14529907/john-howell-covington : accessed 17 May 2022), memorial page for John Howell Covington (21 May 1833–5 Feb 1910), Find a Grave Memorial ID 14529907, citing Mount Vernon Baptist Church Cemetery, Dawson County, Georgia, USA ; Maintained by Shanel (Covington) Troia (contributor 46820288) .
- Lulie Pitts, History of Gordon County, Georgia, (Calhoun: The Press of Calhoun Times, 1934), 141.
- Tate, Luke, History of Pickens County, Georgia (Atlanta: Walter W. Brown Publishing Company, 1935), Ancestry.com
