Evangelist Samuel Porter Jones

The Jones Brothers
The original photo mis-identifies these brothers as serving in the GA 32nd Cavalry Regiment for which there is no record. Some of them transferred into Phillips Legion Cavalry.
Samuel Porter Jones was born in 1847. When war came he was too young to join, although others of his age are found in the records especially later in the war. His father, uncle, and brothers all served in the GA 22nd Infantry Regiment. As war threatened Cartersville, Sam found himself swept up as a refugee in Kentucky where he befriended a couple of unionist families and ended up after the war marrying Laura McElwain, daughter of one of the families who had taken him in.

Sam studied to become an attorney in Felton's Chapel, the little place built and maintained by Dr. W. H. Felton and his wife Rebecca. In later years Mrs. Felton remembered Sam.

Sam graduated with honors from the Euharlee School in 1867 (Stilesboro?) where he gave the valedictory address reflecting the outlook of his generation which came of age in the ashes of the Southern Confederacy. He started his practice of law in Cartersville, but soon took to alcohol. Sam's life went from bad to worse. Jones became heavily indebted with no future prospects. He appeared destined to be one of those young men so full of potential who waste their lives. In later sermons, Jones vividly described one morning after a night's debauchery. Lying in the sawdust covered with vomit, he begged the barkeep for the remnants of whiskey remaining in the dirty glasses.

In August, 1872, there was a dramatic change. News came while he was on a six-week drinking binge that his father was seriously ill. On his deathbed, his father's words pierced the heart of young Sam. "My poor, wicked, wayward, reckless boy. You have broken the heart of your sweet wife and brought me down in sorrow to my grave. Promise me, my boy, to meet me in Heaven." Overcome with emotion, Sam fell to his knees and took his dying father's hand, and shouted "I promise, I'll quit drinking and set things straight. I'll meet you and mother in heaven." The father died and Sam kept his vow. He tells about his last encounter with drink:

I went to the bar and begged for a glass of liquor. I got the glass and started to drink and looked into the mirror. I saw my hair matted, the filth and vomit on my clothes, one of my eyes totally closed, and my lips swollen. And I said, "Is that all that is left of the proud and brilliant lawyer, Sam Jones?" I smashed the glass on the floor and fell to my knees and cried, "Oh God! Oh God, have mercy!" The bartender ran to my side and thought I was dying ... and I was. I said, "Just let me alone." I picked myself up and staggered to my cheap rooming house and said to the ladies running it, "Would you do me a favor?" They answered in the affirmative. I asked them to bring me a pot of black coffee. I went through three days and nights of hell, but when the morning came, something had happened to old Sam Jones. I went down to the clothing store and said, "I want you to give me a new suit. I got saved last night. Sam Jones is coming back." Not only did I get a suit, but shirts, ties, coat, everything I needed and as I left, the merchant stuck a $100 bill into my hand. I went to the barber for I had not had a shave in over a month. I asked for a bath, a shave, a haircut. I put on my new clothes, looking pale and weak I left to go to my wife whom I had beaten till she was black and blue. She didn't even recognize her own husband. I said, "Honey, God has given you a new husband and the children a new daddy, and I wonder if you will forgive me and start all over again." She grabbed me in her arms and cried, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I have been praying for this!" And I have been going round the country bragging about Jesus ever since.

Sam was twenty-four years old. A week later in the agony of keeping his vow, he walked down the aisle of the little country church where his grandfather, Samuel G. Jones was preaching and said, "Grandfather, I take this step today. I give myself, my heart, and life, what is left of it, all to God and His cause."

His grandfather, Samuel Jones, told Sam that he was called to preach. In a wonderful line, the older minister said: "You are called to preach, you can come willingly into it, or you can be whipped into it, or you will lose your religion if you refuse!" A week after his conversion, Sam preached his first sermon at New Hope Church two miles outside of Cartersville. He decided to become an ordained Methodist minister in the North Georgia Annual Conference.