Joseph Frederick Waring II (September 12, 1902-April 8, 1972), was a local Savannah, Georgia, historian and preservationist. Waring, the son of Pinckney Alston and Lillie Ellis Waring, was born in Savannah where he grew up and received his early education. He was a graduate of Governor Dummer Academy in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the oldest private school in the United States, and of Yale University. He also attended Cambridge University in England and received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin. In 1953, Waring married Julianna Fitch of Hudson, Ohio. Waring taught English for 32 years at the Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio, until his retirement in 1967. During World War II, he served in the American Field Service as an ambulance driver and served with the British Eighth Army in North Africa. Following the war he taught for a year at the American Academy in Beirut, Lebanon. Following his retirement as a teacher in Ohio, Waring returned to Savannah, with his wife, where he became active in academic and community affairs. He taught for short periods at Savannah State College and Savannah County Day School. At various times he served as the curator and president of the Georgia Historical Society, vice-president of the Poetry Society of Georgia, trustee of the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, president of the Save-the-Bay Committee, a founder of the Victorian Society of Savannah, and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Wormsloe Foundation. Waring arranged the records of the Georgia Medical Society and arranged for their transfer to the Georgia Historical Society. At the time of his death he was compiling a history of Christ Church, Savannah, with the rector emeritus, the Rev. F. Bland Tucker. Waring was editor of Uncle Remus, by Joel Chandler Harris, published in England while he was a student at Cambridge, author of James W. Ellsworth, and the Refounding of Western Reserve Academy, published in 1961, and author of Cerveau's Savannah, published in 1973 by the Georgia Historical Society. Some of Waring's research included in this collection is centered on the Jeff Davis Cavalry Legion. The Jeff Davis Cavalry Legion was organized in January 1862, formed with the 2nd Mississippi Cavalry Battalion as its nucleus. The unit contained two Alabama, one Georgia, and three Mississippi companies. The Georgia company, the Georgia Hussars, was organized in 1736 in Savannah, Georgia. In 1861, the Hussars made their services available to the Confederate Government, "free of all cost to the government as far as Richmond, Virginia." The Georgia Hussars left for Richmond in September 1861. Once there, the Hussars were transferred to the Jeff Davis Legion, becoming Company F of the unit. The Jeff Davis Legion served under Generals Hampton, Butler, and P.M.B. Young. They participated in the campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia from Williarnsburg to Cold Harbor, and were active at Brandy Station, Gettysburg, and in the Bristoe Campaign. In 1865, the unit was assigned to General Logan's Brigade and surrendered with the Army of Tennessee. The unit's field officers were Colonel William T. Martin, Lieutenant Colonels William G. Conner and J. Frederick Waring I (of the Georgia Hussars), and Majors Ivey F. Lewis and W.M. Stone.
From the description of Joseph Frederick Waring II papers, 1821-1972 (Georgia Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 47198293
