John Dooly - The John Dooly Story

The John Dooly Story

Early twentieth-century Georgia historian Otis Ashmore wrote that "of the many heroic men who illustrated that stormy period of the Revolution in Georgia that 'tried men's souls' none deserves a more grateful remembrance by posterity than Col. John Dooly."(n1) Ashmore's subsequent entry, however, failed to meet that need because, before the bicentennial of the American Revolution, almost all of the source material on Dooly came from Hugh McCall's The History of Georgia (1816). Collectively, what McCall wrote about the colonel formed an heroic tale of a martyred battlefield leader in the struggle for American independence who lost a brother in an Indian attack, led Patriot forces to victory over the Tories (Loyalist Americans who supported the British cause) at the Battle of Kettle Creek and, finally, died at the hands of Tories in his own home.(n2) Unintentionally, McCall gave literature its first Georgia folk hero.