Watkins Banks wore this red jacket while in a Georgia militia unit. The excitement of impending war faded to gray, and he was one of three brothers killed in battle

Georgia Pvt. Watkins Banks' red jacket, his name written on interior lining (Courtesy Columbus Museum) and an ambrotype of him, at left, with first cousin Willis Butt, who also served (Courtesy John Sheftall)

Dashing young men from high society filled the ranks of volunteer militia companies across the South in the decades leading to the Civil War. They dressed smartly in stylish uniforms, rubbed elbows at social events and trained for whatever military purpose they could fulfill for their states.

The Columbus Guards in the west Georgia city by that name were considered among the best-drilled in the region. They formed in 1835 and provided more men for Confederate service than any other militia unit in the city. Its members participated in more than 30 battles as part of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

A Columbus Guards ”Red Jacket” worn by Watkins Banks at the beginning of the war is the only such jacket known to still exist. I admit to never tiring of gazing at it whenever I stop by the Columbus Museum on Wynnton Road, not far from where Banks grew up.

The bright red jacket features insignia, brass buttons and, as I noticed last week, small faux epaulets.

Banks was one of seven brothers who fought for the Confederacy and one of three to die, within months of each other, in 1864. 

There were no signs of the coming sacrifice when the Columbus Guards – who fired a small brass cannon for salutes -- traveled to Montgomery, Ala., in February 1861 for the inauguration of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Banks wore this jacket in Montgomery and during the Guards’ departure from Columbus to join the Confederate army.

“It’s quite striking in the gallery, where it rotates with Confederate Col. Peyton Colquitt’s gray coat,” Rebecca Bush, curator of history and exhibitions manager at the museum, told me several years ago.

Banks identified his jacket by writing ‘Wat. Banks’ and ‘1861’ on the coat’s interior lining, notations which are still clearly visible.

Six original buttons remain, the rest were likely cut as mementos for the family after he was killed near Atlanta in 1864. New buttons were cast. They bear the initials “CG” and an eagle.

The buttons have drawn scholarly interest, as they have never been identified on any other militia or federal uniform, despite extensive research, according to the museum.

Bush told me this week the Banks jacket has been on view since late May and will remain out for about a year.

“Most of the jacket is made of Melton cloth (or Melton wool) with white cotton lining and, of course, the brass buttons,” she said in an email. “We do not have one known maker for the jackets. In December 1861, a notice appeared in the local newspapers that ‘the goods for the uniforms’ of the Guards had arrived at the store of Ellis & Livingston, with instructions that family members should pick up ‘the goods, have the suits made and returned for packing.’ I suppose it’s possible that a similar home manufacture model was used before the war as well.”

Watkins paid a substitue, but returned to service

John and Sarah Banks, both from Elbert County, Ga., came to Columbus in the 1830s. They built The Cedars in 1836.

John Banks was a successful businessman and lawyer who owned plantations in Georgia and Alabama and about 200 enslaved people.

Photo of The Cedars in Columbus by David Seibert, HMdb.org

Columbus attorney John Sheftall, who lives in the Banks family home called The Cedars, said the couple had nine sons and three daughters. One of them, Josephine, is his great-great grandmother. (Watkins Banks is his great-great-great uncle.) Sheftall said his children are the eighth generation to live at the stately home.

Only two of the Banks boys did not serve with the Confederacy (all nine are buried in the Banks family lot at Linwood Cemetery in Columbus.)

According to one history, Watkins Banks and about 135 others joined Company G of the 2nd Georgia Volunteer Infantry when the war broke out. The unit wore the red jacket for a few months before receiving their new issue of gray. The regiment, which served in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, had its most famous moment at Antietam, where it held the heights above Burnside’s Bridge with the 20^th Georgia.

Sheftall said Banks fought in Virginia, returned home and at some point joined Nelson’s Rangers with a brother.

In 1863, the bachelor paid for a substitute, lived in Columbus and then returned to service during the Atlanta Campaign. The private was killed during a skirmish on Aug. 11, 1864, outside Atlanta.

An obituary in the Columbus Sun newspaper (right) said Watkins had a “lofty sense of honor.”

“A brother, Lt. Eugene Banks, as noble hearted a young man as ever lived, was killed in May, at Resaca, another Capt. Willis Banks, fell at Atlanta the latter part of July – three brothers killed in three months – and all young men of the finest mould. Is it not folly to speak of reconstruction or affiliation with a hated foe who thus daily is robbing the South of her noblest sons?”

Eugene and Willis Banks – also unmarried -- served with the 39^th Alabama Infantry.

A funeral for the three siblings was held Aug. 14, 1864, at St. Luke Methodist Church in Columbus.

After the Battle of Columbus in April 1865, which saw the city fall to Union forces, a potion of occupying troops camped for a few days east of The Cedars, Sheftall wrote in an email this week.

"There was one particular marauding party of soldiers who came to the house, took away lots of supplies, food, and livestock, ransacked things inside to some extent, stole some silver, and insulted John Banks, who was by that time partially paralyzed and sitting on the front porch while all of this was going on.

"(None of the sons were there, four already being dead, only John and Sarah and their three daughters, plus the slaves.) When one soldier insulted John Banks and knocked his hat off, daughter Lucy blessed them out and they left.  Subsequently, her mother, Sarah Watkins Banks, paid a call on the commanding officer at the nearby camp, and he agreed to post a guard at The Cedars, which resolved things until the Union forces left and moved east toward Macon."

The end of the war brought an end to slavery and that was keenly felt by John Banks, who wrote about his losses in an autobiography. (HMdb.org photo, left; click to enlarge)

Sheftall said about 27 enslaved people had been at The Cedars. Others worked at a plantation south of Columbus on the Chattahoochee River and at three locations in Russell and Macon counties in Alabama.

Some of the formerly enslaved stayed on with the family as laborers.

Family papers are at the University of Georgia

The Columbus Museum acquired the red jacket from Sheftall through a partial gift and purchase in 2012.

The letters CG are part of the brass buttons on the Watkins Banks' jacket (Courtesy Columbus Museum)

“After acquisition, the Museum sent the jacket to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center in Massachusetts for stabilization and restoration. This process included the insertion of a red cotton interlayer to disguise losses in the original red wool, as well as the casting of replacement buttons,” says a page about the garment.

The University of Georgia Libraries has a John Banks papers collection, including his autobiography, at the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library in Athens, Ga. The collection includes letters from Watkins during the Civil War.

Sheftall has an ambrotype (top of this post) showing Watkins Banks on the left with his first cousin, Willis Banks Butt.

“He was the son of Moses Butt and Priscilla Banks, sister to John Banks, said Sheftall. “Willis survived the Civil War, married Julia Treutlen of Eufaula, and settled there.They both lived a reasonably long life but had no children.”

Willis Butt died in 1899 at age 59.