Trail of the Spoilsmen in the Gainesville, GA., Post Office: Essays by Helen Dortch Longstreet (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781453875940)

Helen (Dortch) Longstreet was born on April 20, 1863 in Carnesville, Franklin Co., Georgia. She grew up on her father's plantation but attended schools in Gainesville and Notre Dame Convent. As a teenager she worked on her father's newspaper, The Carnesville Tribune. She was the first woman Assistant State Librarian in the State of Georgia. On September 8, 1897, she married former Confederate general James Longstreet in the governor's mansion in Atlanta, Georgia. She served in the Spanish-American War and WWI, and after the death of her husband on Jan 2, 1904, she became a postmistress and disbursing agent in Gainesville, Ga. Later she became a Civil Rights advocate and environmental activist. Early in the twentieth century, she fought a losing battle to save Tallulah Falls, the "Niagara Falls" of the south, and eventually the Tallulah Gorge trail system was named in her honor. Just prior to WWII, she formed the Longstreet Memorial Association. One goal of the Association was to collect funds in order to erect a statue at Gettysburg to honor her husband. Later, during the war, she worked in a Bell Bomber factory as a riveter. Helen was a devoted wife. During her lifetime she wrote numerous articles, stories, pamphlets, and a book on General Longstreet. She lived to be ninety-nine years old, and died at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, on May 3, 1962, the oldest surviving wife of a Civil War Corps commander.