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442 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
the office, the flower garden, the kitchen garden, the well-house, the smoke-house, the
kitchen, the buildings for house servants, and, not far off, the barns, the carriage
houses, the quarters, presented a typical picture of the life of the ante-bellum
planter who lived at home, making on his own acres all that was needed for those
dependent upon him. For there, as in so many other similar places throughout the
State, the tannery, the blacksmith-shop, the corn-mill, the flour-mill, the cotton gin,
the spinning wheels, the looms and the wheelwright were an essential part of the
plantation. It was a hive of industry, and it is not surprising that in time a name
should be given to the little center, nor is it strange that it should have been named
after the village in Orange County, Virginia, from which John Kucker had
come in 1785.
'' He was always called Squire Eucker. I well remember the first time I saw him.
It was in the summer of 1856. He was dressed in the old-fashioned suit of broad
cloth, a vest also of cloth, and a coat of the same material in the style called shad-
belly—somewhat like the cutaways of the present day. He wore it unbuttoned—a
watch chain with a heavy seal hanging from a fob, or watch, pocket. His neckcloth
was then and always pure white. It was not a simple tie, but a sort of folded
handkerchief, put on by laying the middle part against the throat, leading the ends
back and crossing them, then bringing them to the throat to be tied together. The
knot was plain. I am not sure that there was even a bow.
He was polite, but very reserved. He seemed to be studying me. His conversa
tion, so far as it was directed to ine, was mainly questions—chiefly about men and
women and things in Augusta—Mrs. Tubman, the Cummiugs, the Claytons, the
Gardiners, and Mr. Metcalfe—then about cotton and business prospects; but no
human being could have told from any expression of his face what effect my answers
had upon him, or what inference as to me he drew from them. Considering the time
of the year and the purpose of my visit, I must say it was a little chilly. Presently
supper came on—such a supper as only the Buckers could get up—and the conversation
took a somewhat wider range. The family were book people—Dickens was the rage
then, and I had read Dickens and Thackery, and had dipped into Cousin and various
philosophers; and at that period of my life I could talk—an art which I have un
fortunately lost. So that when the old gentleman found that I could hold my own
with Elbert and others, and that all the family treated me with sincere respect and
consideration, he seemed to thaw, little by little, concluding, I suppose, that I might
turn out to be something in my way, if I was nothing in his." "Georgia's Land
marks, Memorials and Legends," Vol. II, pp. 713-719, by L. L. Knight.
THE MILITIA DRILL.—Following the Eevolution, each county in the state, to
insure adequate protection, was divided into militia districts; and for more than
half a century one of the dominant features of life in Georgia was the semi-annual
or quarterly militia drill. On the all-important day set apart for these maneuvers
the able-bodied men of the district were required to report for duty at a given time
and place, with the requisite military accounterments; and while at first these
exercises were serious affairs they eventually degenerated into mere travesties, at
which many a shaft of ridicule was aimed by the writers of the period. The mirth-
provoking character of these evolutions can hardly be realized at the present time.
The election of a major-general, under the old militia system, was almost if not
quite as important an event as the election of a United States Senator; and there
was any amount of politics involved in the choice of some half-score of brigadiers.
The militia district still exists as one of the state's political subdivisions but without
the peculiar military significance which attached to it in ante-bellum days. To an
article in Longstreet's "Georgia Scenes," supposed to have been written by Oliver
H. Prince, afterwards a United States Senator, we are indebted for the following
ludicrous description of one of the early militia drills in Georgia. Says this writer:
"I happened, not long since, to be present at the muster of a captain's company
in a remote part of one of the counties; and as no general description could convey
an adequate idea of the achievements of that day, I must be permitted to go a little
into detail, as well as my recollection will serve me. The men had been notified to
meet at nine o'clock, 'armed and equipped as the law directs'; that is to say, with
a gun and cartridge-box at least; but, as directed by the law of the United States,