The campus of Augusta State University frequently receives visitors curious to see the results of transforming a federal arsenal into
an academic institution. The recent construction of a History Walk at the university which includes information on the arsenal, the
Summerville neighborhood, and the city of Augusta has increased interest in the Walker Family Cemetery which is located on the western
boundary of the campus and which predated the arsenal. When Freeman Walker sold the adjoining land to the government for the arsenal,
he retained one acre for the family cemetery. Included in this document are historical sketches of seven of the prominent members
of the family who were buried in the Walker Cemetery during its first seventy years.
The tract acquired by the government for
an arsenal had been the property of Freeman Walker, who was born in Charles City, Virginia, in 1780. During the post-revolutionary
period a number of Virginians came south and settled in this region rather than follow the westward trend. In 1797, Freeman Walker
and his younger brother Valentine came to Augusta to study law.(1) Two elder Walker brothers George and Robert were already practicing
attorneys in the city. Law and public service proved successful careers for these young men.(2) By the time Freeman and Valentine
arrived, George Walker had served in the Georgia Assembly and, in 1798, he was elected to the first town council established by charter
that year as well as being returned to the State House of Representatives. Only thirty-eight when he died in 1804, George was the
first to be buried in family cemetery.(3) Robert Walker served as solicitor general of the Superior Court from 1804-1808, and judge
of the same court from 1813-1816. He died in 1825 of "pulmonary disease," a common cause of deaths recorded during the period and
was interred near his brother George.(4)
The youngest of the Walker brothers Valentine also had a distinguished career as a practicing
attorney, a justice of the Inferior Courts of Richmond County and a state senator for several terms. During the War of 1812, he served
as a major general with the Georgia Militia. When President James Monroe visited Augusta in 1819, Major General Walker and General
Thomas Glascock took him on a tour of the U.S. Arsenal being constructed beside the Savannah River.(5) In 1832-1833, Valentine Walker
was in the midst of local tensions created by the Nullification Crisis. When South Carolina declared a tariff passed by Congress as
"null and void" in that state because it would hurt the southern economy, President Andrew Jackson replied that he would meet civil
disobedience with force and threatened to use troops to collect the tariff in South Carolina. Valentine spoke against nullification
and in support of national unity over individual state action. Although many other speakers disagreed, his position was accepted as
the majority opinion at a town meeting.(6) Valentine Walker, who was influential and respected until his death in 1852, was eulogized
by the Daily Chronicle and Sentinel as a "gentleman of the Old School."(7)
Among the Walker brothers, Freeman Walker achieved
the greatest political success. In addition to serving in the Georgia Assembly several terms, he was also mayor of Augusta and a U.S.
senator. Shortly after arriving from Virginia in 1797, he began studying law with his brother George. Five years later he was admitted
to the bar and started a local practice. Freeman Walker entered the political arena in 1807 and was elected first to the state legislature
as a representative and then as a senator. He was the first to be called "mayor" of Augusta, for his election in 1817 coincided with
the transfer of the title from intendant to mayor. Following two additional one-year terms, Walker was appointed to the U.S. Senate
to fill the vacancy caused by fellow Augustan John Forsyth's resignation to accept a position with the State Department.(8) During
his tenure as a U.S. senator, Freeman Walker served on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Judiciary Committee.(9) In 1821, he resigned
from Congress, returned to his law practice, and, two years later, again became mayor of Augusta.(10)
In 1817, the year he first
became mayor, Freeman Walker acquired "400 acres, more or less . . . being the late residence of the deceased George Walker, and known
as the Bellevue Tract" from Abraham and Amaranth Louisa Walker for $2,000.(11) It was seventy-two acres of this land that he sold
to the government for an arsenal in 1826 for $6,000.(12) But, he retained an acre within the boundaries of the sale for a family cemetery,
which already contained the graves of several relatives. The following year, Freeman Walker died at the age of forty-seven and was
interred in Walker Cemetery. Noted poet, mayor, congressman, law professor and personal friend Richard Henry Wilde wrote his epitaph.(13)
In tribute to this famous Georgian, Walker County in the northern part of the state was named for him.(14)
Freeman and Mary Garlington
Creswell Walker had nine children, five of whom survived childhood. Sons William Henry Talbot and John David pursued military careers
rather than the legal profession so prevalent among the Walker family men. John David Walker, who enlisted in 1846, fought in the
Mexican War and was wounded at Churubusco. Later, he joined in the filibustering forces of William Walker (unrelated to the Augusta
Walkers), in the latter's attempt to gain control of Nicaragua. Early in the Civil War, John David enlisted in the Army of the Confederacy.
As a major in 1862, he commanded the First Georgia Regulars and was wounded in August of that year in the second battle of Manassas.
The leg injury became gangrenous and resulted in his death. Although he was originally buried near the battlefield, later in 1871,
he was interred in Walker Cemetery.(15)
William Henry Talbot Walker , who was born in 1816, graduated from West Point in 1837;
commissioned a second lieutenant, he served under Colonel Zachary Taylor in the Seminole War during which he was wounded three times.
Walker also saw action in the Mexican War when in a two-year span, 1846-1847, he received three promotions, the last being to lieutenant
colonel. Again wounded in combat, his recovery from this injury required over a year. To honor his bravery in both conflicts, the
State of Georgia presented him with a sword.(16) When he was able to return to duty, W.H.T. Walker was at first an instructor at West
Point and later assigned to the frontier.(17)
Upon Abraham Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860, Walker resigned
from the army and became active in the secession movement. When moderates obviously controlled an Augusta town meeting at the City
Hall in December, Walker led the secessionists from the building to rally on the steps.(18) The following month, Georgia seceded and
the U.S. Arsenal on "the Hill" became a Union enclave. At first refusing a call to surrender, Commandant Arnold Elzey reversed his
earlier decision when local militia units began to assemble in the downtown area. He requested that he be allowed to relinquish his
sword to W.H.T. Walker, a former classmate at West Point.(19)
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)
The home
of the "Madame" Le Vert , or "the Countess of Mobile," as she came to be called, was a magnet for the political, social and intellectual
elite who visited the city. Her summers were spent in the cooler climate of Saratoga and Newport. Over the years she numbered among
her friends such individuals as William Wadsworth Longfellow, Edwin Booth, Edward Everett, Millard Fillmore, Alexander Stephens and
Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, the daughter of the Duke of Rutland.(31) Her friendship with Lady Emmeline prompted Octavia Walton Levert
to expand her travels to Europe. On her first trip in 1853, Dr. Le Vert stayed in Mobile; however, he did accompany her in 1855. While
she toured Europe, Mrs. Le Vert was introduced to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Benjamin Disraeli, Pope Pius IX, Emperor Napoleon
III and Empress Eugenie, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and Alphonse de Lamartine, the French statesman and historian who
encouraged her to publish her travel journal. Following his recommendation, the two-volume Souvenirs of Travel was printed in 1857.(32)
Through
her discussions and correspondence with Henry Clay, Octavia Walton Le Vert came to believe that compromise was far better than conflict.
Therefore, when the talk around Mobile turned to secession, she supported the preservation of the union through compromise. Most of
Mobile turned on her and rumors even circulated that she was a "Yankee" spy, who had searched the papers of Confederate General P.G.T.
Beauregard while he was a house guest. Upset over the accusations, the general wrote a denial of the rumors.(33) But, "Madame" Le
Vert keenly felt the resentment she endured in Mobile both during and after the war. After several years of periodic travel, even
two years touring as a public reader, she returned to her birthplace, Augusta. Octavia Walton Le Vert died on March 12, 1877, and
was buried in the Walker Cemetery. As the years passed, the people of Mobile forgot the gossip and remembered her with admiration
and respect. In the restored "Oakleigh" House, a room was dedicated to the memory of the lady who had been called the "Countess of
Mobile."(34)