U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865
Two Enemies Loved Beautiful Jacksonville Girl
This article is compiled by Julian Williams.
As General David Blackshear and his soldiers marched down the Old River Road toward the Georgia coast to meet British invaders, the military unit stopped to camp for the night.
The encampment was around a small pond just above Fort Clark (present site of Blockhouse Baptist Church near Jacksonville).
That night one of the soldiers died. General Blackshear buried him there and the place has since been called Soldiers Pond and Soldiers Branch.
But there would be other deaths at another branch - one called Breakfast Branch.
In the spring of 1818, Joseph Burch and his son, Littleton (sometimes called Hugh), ventured across the Ocmulgee.
Hostile Indians came upon their camp and scalped the two men.
The father was killed but the son feigned death and after his attackers left, swam the river, with a poultice of moss on his bleeding head, made it to the house of John Willcox.
There, a party of men gathered at Fort Adams, crossed the river and went looking for the Indians.
They came upon them eating breakfast in a branch near what is now Bowens Mill.
Fierce fighting broke out, and with guns and superior numbers, the Indians forced the settlers to retreat.
In the party of settlers were two young men who were sworn enemies; it is said they even carried pistols for each other.
Their names: Mark Willcox and Nat Statham. Both men loved the charming and beautiful Jane Elizabeth Parramore of Jacksonville.
Only one could have her.
Now, back to Breakfast Branch. Young Mark Willcox was wounded by the Indians and lay helpless on the ground.
Nat Statham did not waste time in lifting his enemy and carrying him to safety across the Ocmulgee River.
The incident caused them to be the best of friends from then on.
Mark Willcox won the hand of the fair lass Parramore and later became a major general and famous Indian fighter.
The couple married in 1823 but Jane died in 1824.
Mark then married General John Coffee's eldest daughter, Sarah Ann Elizabeth Coffee.
She had the unique distinction of being the only person in Georgia (and a great many other states) to have a county named for both her father and husband (both major generals) and she lived to see the counties created - Coffee and Willcox (now spelled Wilcox).
Note: Many Willcox descendants have also dropped the second "l" in the family name; some, however, retain the original spelling.
General Willcox died in 1852 at the early age of 53.
Nat Statham went on to become an outstanding citizen, a captain in the militia and died at the ripe old age of 97.
An interesting note about the Battle of Breakfast Branch is that it started a national confrontation between General Andrew Jackson and Governor William Rabun of Georgia.
Needless to say, the people were very upset because the battle had taken the lives of Capt. Benjamin Mitchell Griffin, William Mooney, William Morrison, a Nobles fellow, and Michael Burch, son of the slain Joseph Burch.
The governor ordered the Indians to be punished but Captain Obed Wright destroyed the wrong village (Au-muc-cul-le) (sometimes called the Chehaw Town).
General Jackson became furious; not only were the wrong Indians killed but his honor was at stake.
He had promised to protect Au-muc-cul-le because they had befriended him on his trip to do battle with the Seminoles in Florida.
Capt. Wright was arrested but escaped to Cuba with the help of his fellow military comrade, Capt. Jacob Robinson (sometimes called Roberts).
Robinson was also in hot water because he had left his post and crossed the river to see John Willcox about building a boat for his personal use.
A courts-martial delivered upon him a guilty verdict for his part in the Chehaw affair.
Nevertheless, he was later pardoned by Governor John Clark (parties presented testimony that stolen properties, including branded cattle and a gun, belonging to Michael Burch, one of the casualties of Breakfast Branch, were found in the village).
But, the scorching letters of Jackson and Rabun are interesting.
Jackson accused Rabun of illegally exercising federal military authority and Rabun accused Jackson of ignoring his pleas for military help on the Ocmulgee frontier.
Although the Battle of Breakfast Branch was known as the last skirmish between settlers and Indians there would be more trouble.
Even though the Indians supposedly left Georgia for good around 1837, you would have a difficult time getting the Wildes family of the Ware County area to believe this.
On a fateful Sunday in July of 1838, renegade Indians, probably hiding out in the Okefenokee Swamp, massacred the Wildes family in a section of the wiregrass located between what is today Waresboro and Waycross.
As told to me by Kenny Wildes, a descendant, the Indians crept up to the cabin on the previous night and began harassing the family by throwing sticks and acorns at the cabin.
The next day they moved in to attack; fortunately, four brothers escaped the massacre, running from their attackers and hiding under a fallen tree as their pursuers ran past them.
The influence of Chief Billy Bowlegs, the six foot-four inch Seminole leader, had not disappeared.
