Here is another question for ChatGPT

Also in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind there is a scene where Rhett Butler refers to the Georgia State Guards as Joe Brown’s Pets. What was that all about?

The reason why I asked this question is because my great great grandfather David Judson Dobbs was in the Georgia State Guards during the time depicted in the novel and the movie by the same name.

It’s that scene in the movie where Rhett and Scarlett are sitting in the buggy in the center of Atlanta watching a troop of very rough looking Confederate troops marching past.

“My child, Sherman has twice as many men as Johnston, and he can afford to lose two men for every one of our gallant laddies. And Johnston can’t afford to lose a single man. He needs reinforcements badly and what is he getting? ‘Joe Brown’s Pets.’ What a help they’ll be!”

-Rhett Butler – Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

Here’s the response:

That’s a great question — and Margaret Mitchell was actually drawing on a real historical nickname that Georgians used during the Civil War.

When Rhett Butler refers to the Georgia State Guards as “Joe Brown’s Pets,” he’s referring to a long-running feud between Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown and the Confederate government in Richmond — and to a very unpopular military policy that came out of it.

Here’s what was going on:

---

🔹 Background: Governor Joe Brown vs. the Confederacy

Joseph E. Brown was the governor of Georgia during the Civil War and one of the most defiant of the Confederate governors. He constantly clashed with President Jefferson Davis over states’ rights and control of Georgia’s troops.

• Brown argued that the state militia should defend Georgia and not be sent out of state.
  
• Davis wanted those troops absorbed into the Confederate Army to fight where needed.
  

---

🔹 “Joe Brown’s Pets”

To protect his control, Brown created and maintained a state militia separate from the Confederate army. These men were often older, younger, or otherwise exempt from Confederate service — and many were drawn from comfortable or politically connected families.

• Their main duty was to guard local facilities, such as prisons, railroads, and supply depots, particularly around Atlanta and Macon.
  
• Because they were seen as avoiding front-line combat, Confederate soldiers at the front mocked them as “Joe Brown’s Pets.”
  

---

🔹 In Gone With the Wind

Rhett Butler uses the term in the same spirit that Confederate veterans did — as a sarcastic jab at men who were safe at home while others suffered in the trenches. In the novel, it captures both:

• The bitterness of soldiers and civilians toward those perceived as “shirking” duty.
  
• And Mitchell’s realism in showing how divided and cynical the Confederacy had become by 1864.
  

---

🔹 Historical Outcome

Ironically, in 1864, when Sherman’s army invaded Georgia, those “Pets” did end up fighting.

• Brown’s State Guards were called into emergency service to defend Atlanta and later Milledgeville and Macon.
  
• Despite their reputation, they fought bravely in some actions — but the nickname stuck permanently.
  

---

So when Rhett sneers about “Joe Brown’s Pets,” he’s channeling that old soldier’s contempt for men who (in his view) had an easier war thanks to politics and privilege — one of the many realistic touches Margaret Mitchell wove into Gone With the Wind.