Mildred Lewis Rutherford

Mildred Lewis Rutherford

Mildred Lewis Rutherford

Active member of the Athens Ladies Memorial Association, Mildred Lewis Rutherford, a.k.a. "Miss Millie", was a prominent historian for the Confederate telling of the Civil War.

Kendall Hallberg

Kendall Hallberg

Mildred Lewis Rutherford was born July sixteenth, 1851 to a prominent family in Athens, Georgia. Her father was a professor at the University of Georgia and both her parents were members of the elite class in Georgia. Her family directly participated in the Civil War and was active in memorializing its heroes. Her uncle, T.R.R. Cobb was killed during the Civil War and her Mother aided Confederate Soldiers. Mildred’s mother, Laura Cobb Rutherford, worked to aid soldiers and veterans alike and was the founder of the Athens Ladies Memorial Association. Though she was young during the Civil War, she inherited a sense of duty to honoring the generation before her and the cause that they had fought for. Attending the Lucy Cobb Institute, Mildred graduated and began teaching in Atlanta until she returned to head the Institute as president. She was a major advocate of the school, an author of several books, and a speaker calling for the respect and fair treatment of the South’s contributions to American history. She founded the Athens chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and was the Historian-general at both the State and National level. Her dedication to the truth was often seen in the way she spoke about the historical contributions of the South before and after the Civil War.

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