'Doc' Holliday's father and adopted brother served during the Civil War. Here's the Georgia city where the Western gunfighter's legend began

Did John Henry “Doc” Holliday kill nearly a dozen men, or perhaps only a few? Was Holliday’s tuberculosis contracted from his mother? Was he involved in a deadly incident at a Georgia swimming spot that foreshadowed a penchant for violence?

These questions and many more swirl around the dentist, gambler and gunman who became the stuff of legends (and dime novels and movies) relating to the Old West. One thing we know for sure: Holliday’s story begins in Griffin, Ga., where he was born in August 1851 and lived for more than two years during the Civil War.

I came upon Holliday by surprise last month when I was in Griffin to visit the site of Camp Stephens, a training center for Georgia troops during the conflict. Griffin is about 40 miles south of Atlanta.

There, along a road on the edge of surviving entrenchments, is a marker topped by a photograph of the young Holliday. It describes how his father, Confederate Maj. Henry Burroughs Holliday, once owned the land on which the camp was built.

Henry B. Holliday

The elder Holliday briefly served as quartermaster for the 27^th Georgia Infantry during the war before he resigned due to poor health.

While I have long known that “Doc” Holliday lived in Valdosta, Ga., for a few years, I was unaware he was from Griffin, where he has been remembered in a barbecue festival, a downtown bar bearing his name, a now-closed museum and “Doc Walk,” seven markers that detail aspects of his life in the town.

A local brochure aptly subtitled “Where the Legend Begins” offers a walking/driving tour for those interested in learning about Holliday’s boyhood roots.

There are so many stories about Holliday that end with, “We don’t know for sure.” An example: Some believe he is buried in Griffin, while most historians list his resting place as Glenwood Springs, Colo., where he died at age 36.

“He is mostly myth and legend. He is mostly smoke and mirrors,” says Cindy Barton, founding archivist at the Griffin-Spalding Archives and a Holliday researcher.

“Doc” Holliday grew up in comfort in Griffin. His father was a successful businessman and public servant who owned several properties on Tinsley Street, where the boy was born to Henry and Alice Jane McKey Holliday. He was baptized at the town’s Presbyterian church.

“One recollection I read said he was just an average person, he wasn’t anything that would cause attention,” says Barton. Some claim that Holliday learned to play cards and use a gun when he was growing up and visiting his uncle’s home near Atlanta.

Val Kilmer as "Doc" in "Tombstone"

A sister, Martha, died at just 6 months old before Holliday was born.

“This, however, didn’t mean the Holliday house was empty of family -- Henry Holliday had come to his marriage with one son already, a Mexican orphan boy he had found during his service in the war with Mexico and had taken home as a foster child,” wrote Holliday expert and author Victoria Wilcox in True West magazine. “Francisco Hidalgo (aka E’Dalgo) was near 15 years old when John Henry was born, but still living in Henry’s home, a kind of adopted older brother to Henry’s new son.”

When the Civil War broke out, Henry Holliday joined the 27^th Georgia, serving at Manassas and Richmond, Va., while Hidalgo enlisted in the 30^th Georgia Volunteer Infantry. (Like "Doc," Hidalgo died from tuberculosis, in 1873.)

Henry Holliday left the Confederate army in mid-1862, suffering from “watery dysentery,” according to Wilcox, and moved his family to Bemis, a community just north of Valdosta, in 1864. Alice Holliday died of tuberculosis two years later, and Henry remarried shortly thereafter, moving to Valdosta, where “Doc” attended Valdosta Institute.

“Holliday’s years in Georgia are shrouded in mystery,” states an article in the New Georgia Encyclopedia. “Family folklore involves Holliday in a shooting incident on the Withlacoochee River, northwest of Valdosta, in which he may have shot and killed one or more African Americans. Although no contemporary record of the event exists, the story fits the violent nature of his later years out West.”

(Courtesy of Griffin Spalding Archives)

No one knows for sure what happened. Some accounts said Holliday and a relative fired over the heads of those who were swimming.

At 19, Holliday attended the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, graduated in 1872 and briefly practiced at the Atlanta office of Dr. Arthur C. Ford. Barton says Holliday was known to be a talented dentist during his brief career.

Holliday returned to briefly to Griffin, and it’s possible he practiced there for a short time. The dentist sold property he inherited from his mother and moved to Dallas in 1873, where he practiced with Dr. John Seegar.

“He quickly made a name for himself as a card player, and often quarreled with other gamblers,” according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia. “In 1875, Holliday was arrested for trading gunfire with a saloon owner. Although the charges were eventually dropped, this incident along with several gaming charges, caused him to leave Dallas.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

Remnants of training fortification at Camp Stephens (Picket photo)

Holliday lived in several towns across the West, was involved in many violent encounters, and befriended Wyatt Earp. His most famous moment was the 1881 “Gunfight at the OK Corral” in Tombstone, Az. How many men did Holliday kill in all? No one knows for sure.

Barton says gambler and writer W.R. “Bat” Masterson helped create the Holliday legend. In 1907, Masterson wrote of the wayward dentist: “Holliday had a mean disposition and an ungovernable temper, and under the influence of liquor was a most dangerous man.”

“Holliday seemed to be absolutely unable to keep out of trouble for any great length of time,” Masterson continued. “He would no sooner be out of one scrape before he was in another, and the strange part of it is he was more often in the right than in the wrong, which has rarely ever been the case with a man who is continually getting himself into trouble.”

Holliday’s exploits ended in November 1887, when he died of tuberculosis. His father, Henry, died in Valdosta in 1893.

Barton, who researched and wrote text for the “Doc Walk” markers, finds Holliday’s family history as interesting as his Old West legacy. But there’s no disputing where his fame lies.

“He grew up in a turbulent time and he became a man made famous by circumstance,” she says.

Letters from Camp Stephens: Remnants of earthworks at Ga. training site survive, as well as stories of soldiers and their loved ones

Interior of training entrenchments at Camp Stephens (Picket photo)

Letter written from Camp Stevens to Sarah Brinson (Siegel Auction Galleries)

Within weeks of the April 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter, young men rushed to enlist, and training centers were soon established across the North and South. In Georgia, Camp Stephens trained thousands of eager recruits before they were sent to the front.

Remnants of trenches and breastworks built for training are still visible at two sites in a neighborhood on the northern outskirts of Griffin, a railroad city about 40 miles south of Atlanta. I made a short visit this week and walked some of the grounds on a muggy morning.

(As a side note, the land used for Camp Stephens had been owned by the father of John Henry “Doc” Holliday, a local boy who became a dentist and later gained fame as a gambler and gunman in the Old West. More on him in an upcoming Picket post.)

Several Confederate units, including the 27^th and 44^th Georgia infantry regiments, were formed at Camp Stephens. For most of the men, this was their first extended time away from home, and they became accustomed to drilling, discipline and perhaps a little homesickness.

While researching the camp, I came across envelopes of letters mailed by two soldiers, one of whom died in combat only a few months after his stint at Camp Stephens.

David Greene is believed to have enlisted with the 27^th Georgia in September 1861. Members of his Company K were from Talbot County. Columbus State University in Columbus, Ga., has several of his letters in its collection.

On Oct. 25, 1861, Greene wrote to his mother Isabella, telling her that many in the camp had the measles and he “decided to raise the price of his horse from the $250 to $350.”

The soldier wrote her again on Nov. 8, from Manassas, Va., saying his company was building a bridge over the Occoquan River. In letters from February-May 1862, Greene detailed service at Manassas and Camp Rappahannock.

In an April 23 letter, according to the university archives, Greene “tells that they have now moved to York Town.  Here he was very sick and went to Richmond to get well.  He tells of a fight in York Town in which they lost eight men and the enemy lost between 400 and 500.”

Greene’s last correspondence home may have been on May 5, 1862, telling them the army was evacuating Richmond. He was killed at Seven Pines in Virginia – the regiment’s first major battle -- on May 31, 1862. The unit broke Federal lines the next day, with more than 150 casualties in the two-day battle.

Greene was 25 or 26 when he died. Two brothers who also served in the Civil War survived.

Letter from David Greene to his mother (Siegel Auction Galleries)

My impetus to learn more about Greene was an envelope posted online by Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries. The soldier used an envelope (above) he purchased at Camp Stephens to write his mother from Tudor Hall, Va., on Dec. 2, 1861.

The sender information includes the name Capt. Hezekiah Bussey of the 27^th Georgia. According to my brief internet research, Bussey was captured and exchanged in autumn 1862 and later promoted to lieutenant colonel. He died at age 77 in Columbus in November 1917.

Another Siegel Auction Galleries envelope (top of this post) provides no clues to the Camp Stephens sender. It was simply addressed: Miss Sarah Brinson, Cannoochee (sic).

I found that a Sarah Missouri Brinson of Emanuel County married Confederate veteran James Emmett Coleman on Oct. 22, 1865, several months after the war’s end. This letter is postmarked Sept. 7 (likely in 1861 or 1862).

Sarah had two brothers who served in the Southern army and perhaps one wrote her from Camp Stephens. Or it could have been authored by Coleman while they were courting or engaged. I just don't know.

Coleman was a sergeant with the 5^th Georgia Cavalry and Sarah served as a postmistress for both the Confederate and US governments in Canoochee, according to Findagrave.com.

The couple had 10 children and the couple lived to be 74 (1912) and 77 years old (1923), respectively.

Emmett, Sarah Coleman with family (Courtesy Emanuel County Preservation Society)

Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series includes photographs gathered by the Emanuel County Historic Preservation Society. One photograph, taken circa 1895, shows the Colemans with most of their children outside the home.

The caption provides a family memory from the Civil War.

“In November 1864, Emmett was with Company E, 5^th Ga. Cavalry fighting a delaying action in front of Sherman’s army. His unit came to Canoochee, where Sarah Brinson was serving as postmistress, in time to warn her that a Yankee Cavalry unit was just behind them. Arriving soon after, the Yankee unit began loading pigs, hogs, and taking everything they could find including butter out of a butter dish. Sarah gave a masonic distress signal she had learned from her father. A young lieutenant ordered his men to unload everything and posted a guard to protect her. Sarah and Emmett were married shortly after the war.”

(Civil War Picket photo)