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LOFTIS FAMILY - Our family has preserved an oral tradition of James Powell Loftis' flight from Atlanta during the Battle of Atlanta. The telling of this story includes the relation that when Federal troops overtook them, that an elder daughter cowered in the corner of a room in the abandoned farm house, cradling a young child, rocking it and concealing her eyes behind the brim of her bonnet so that she would not have to gaze upon the fearsome Yankee soldiers. The field commander addressed James Loftis and promised him that if the women would cooperate to make hoe-cakes of some available flour that the troops would depart and leave them unharmed, and not steal their livestock. The women complied with the request and formed cakes which they placed upon the griddle. Oral tradition says that the Yankee soldiers were so famished that they snatched the cakes off the griddle before they were fully cooked. Having secured the food, the troops departed, and as they did so, they drove away the livestock. James Loftis followed after them, and pled with the Captain to keep his word, which as an honorable man, he granted. After the war, they returned to Atlanta and resided there during the "reconstruction".
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