History, page 3
Walker Family Cemetery
founded 1804
Walker joined the Confederate Army as a brigadier general and after a brief assignment in Florida, he was transferred to Virginia.
Before long, he was unhappy with what he felt was preferential treatment being given to certain officers. A month after he resigned,
Georgia Governor Joseph Brown gave him command of the 2nd Georgia Brigade, assigned to protect the Savannah.(20) By the end of 1862,
disagreements over defense strategies between the high command and local officers resulted in Walker's unit being dissolved. In February
1863, Walker rejoined the Confederate Army and in May was promoted to major general.(21) He served at Vicksburg with General Joseph
E. Johnston and after that city fell, he was sent to the defend the Georgia-Tennessee border. When the southern forces were unable
to prevent the Union penetration into north Georgia, Walker and his men pulled back to Atlanta. General W.H.T. Walker was killed in
the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864. His funeral cortege from the train depot downtown Augusta to Walker Cemetery on the hill consisted
of the Palmetto Band, military units, and a long procession of carriages.(22) Walker's statue, representing the City of Augusta, is
one of the four generals depicted on the Confederate Monument on Broad Street which was dedicated in 1878.(23)
Not all of the
Walker family gained their renown through politics and /or the military. Octavia Celestia Valentine Walton, the daughter of George
Walton, Jr. and Sarah Minge Walker Walton, was born on August 11, 1811, at Bellevue, the home of her late maternal grandfather, George
Walker. Her paternal grandfather was George Walton the signer of the Declaration of Independence.(24) When she was ten, her uncle
U.S. Senator Freeman Walker secured a position for her father as Territory Secretary for Florida. According to tradition, Octavia
suggested the name "Tallahassee" (the Seminole word for "Beautiful Land") to the Florida administrative committee, which had recently
selected the site for the capital of Florida.(25)
The intelligence and charm that she exhibited as a young girl remained important
components of her character and her relationships with prominent national and international individuals. Octavia had a talent for
languages and by an early age could speak Spanish, French, Italian, and German.(26) She met and conversed in French with the Marquis
de Lafayette during his 1824-1825 visit to America at which time he predicted a "brillant career" for her.(27) While on a visit to
Baltimore in 1827, she met Edgar Allen Poe who was so impressed that he wrote the poem, "Octavia," in her honor. Several years later,
she shared a stagecoach with Washington Irving, and the two became friends and correspondents. During the time of her debut in Washington,
D.C. in 1833, she attended congressional sessions and kept notes of the proceedings. These proved to be so accurate that Henry Clay,
Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun and others called upon her to refresh their memories of debates.(28)
In 1835, George Walton,
Jr. and his family moved to Mobile where, within a year, Octavia met and married Dr. Henry Le Vert. Of the five children born to the
couple, only two daughters survived. Octavia Walton Le Vert, Jr. was nicknamed "Diddie" by the family and Henrietta Caroline, named
for Henry Clay, was called "Cara Netta."(29) For many years Octavia and Henry Clay had corresponded frequently, and he had visited
her family in Mobile. When the cornerstone was laid for a monument in his honor in New Orleans in 1856, Octavia Walton Le Vert was
asked to deliver one of the tributes to the late "Great Compromiser."(30)
