I encourage all list members to share their family stories. Having stories makes us more than just 'name collectors'. This is the story of Powell F. Ballard. Enlisted 4 March 1862 as a Private Served Georgia H Co. 44th Inf Reg. GA "Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia 1861- 1865 Vol IV," by Lillian Henderson: Wounded and disabled at Ellison's Mill, Va. June 26, 1862. Discharged Wounds in 1864 In 1862, when Powell enlisted, he would have been 27 years old. Family legend: In 1877 Powell Ballard was murdered. He had been to Barnesville, Georgia, carrying a bale of cotton to market. On his return home, two Negroes walking in the direction of Zebulon, asked for a ride. Mr. Ballard, being a very kind man, told them to get in the wagon. When they reached a spot in the road in the flat, one of them shot him through the back of the head and supposedly killed him instantly. They then took forty dollars out of his clothing and fled. Two or three other Negroes saw them in Mr. Ballard's wagon and gave an accurate description of them to the law. Mr. W.P. Bussey, after two or three months of hard work finally found them. He was later elected sheriff of Pike County. Mr. Ballard was the father of R.S. Ballard of the Second District, and Mrs. Elijah McKinley, of near Zebulon, on the Jackson Road, also of Mrs. Ed McKinley and Mrs. Aldine McKinley, and William Powell Ballard of the Second District. At the time of Powell's death in November, Mary Frances [his wife] was pregnant. She delivered a daughter the following April and named her [Elizabeth Bussey Ballard] in honor of the man who found the killers of her husband. This is the newspaper article written 27 years later that I recently found: Pike County Times-Journal Zebulon, Georgia Friday March 3, 1905 Pardon Asked After Many Years Tom Childs, who was sent to the Penitentiary 27 years ago from this County asks for his Freedom For the third time in three years an application for the pardon of Tom Childs, serving a life sentence for murder, has been filed with the prison commission. The application originally drawn by the late ex-governor James S. Boynton, will be called to the attention of the commission the third time by Secretary Goodloe H. Yancey at the request of the prisoner. Childs was sent up for life from this county in 1878, twenty seven years ago, since which time he has made a model prisoner. He is now in failing health, and the prison physician, it is said, fears he will die suddenly at any time. Although the petition is a negro, the case is of more than usual interest and will doubtless receive careful consideration at the hands of the prison commission. Childs and a negro named Ed Dumas, both residents of Barnesville, Pike County, were convicted at Zebulon of the murder of a white man named Ballard. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, the solicitor-general being unable to establish which of the two men actually committed the deed. This was at the spring term of the superior court in 1878. It seems Ballard was a farmer living near Barnesville. He came to town on the day of the tragedy and brought with him a large sum of money. This he displayed and the negroes saw it. They determined to commit robbery and concocted a plan for the murder of the innocent planter. In the evening when Ballard started home, Dumas accompanied him in a wagon. When they reached a lonely spot several miles from town, they were joined by Childs, who had been waiting. He got in the wagon. Presently Ballard was shot in the back of the head. He died instantly and the negroes escaped for the time being. They were captured, however, tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary. After serving fifteen years Dumas died. On his death bed he made a confession, admitting he had fired the fatal shot, but he added that Childs was implicated and would have committed the murder had he not lost his nerve. It is in the strength of this statement and his failing health that Childs begs for a pardon. (Transcribed 9/4/2002 Lynn Cunningham)