MARCHING TO SAVANNAH.
MARCHING TO SAVANNAH.
“All the barracks were laid in ashes, and a black veil of dense smoke hung over the war-desolated city nearly all day, arising from the smouldering ruins.
“Owing to the great lack of railroad transportation, General Corse was obliged to destroy nearly a million of dollars’ worth of property, among which was a few thousand dollars’ worth of condemned and unserviceable government stores. Nine rebel guns, captured at Rome by our troops, were burst, it being deemed unsafe to use them. One thousand bales of fine cotton, two flour mills, two rolling mills, two tanneries, one salt mill, an extensive foundry, several machine shops, together with the railroad depots and storehouses, four pontoon bridges, built by General Corse’s pioneer corps for use on the Coosa and Etowah rivers, and a substantial trestle bridge, nearly completed for use, were destroyed. This trestle, constructed by the Engineer corps, I am told, would have cost fifty thousand dollars North. Recollecting the outrages perpetrated upon Colonel Streight by the ‘Romans,’ our troops, as soon as they learned that the town was to be abandoned and a portion of it burned, resolved to lay Rome in ashes in revenge. The roaring of the flames, as they leaped from window to window, their savage tongues of fire darting high up into the heavens, and then licking the sides of the buildings, presented an awful but grand spectacle, while the mounted patrol and the infantrymen glided along through the brilliant light like the ghostly spectres of horrid war.”
Concentrating at Atlanta, the last use made of the stronghold and cherished hope of the Confederacy was the finishing work of getting a vast army in motion—a grand start into hostile country, away from the base of supplies.
After the men had bivouacked for the night, the following orders, issued by General Sherman, were read to the troops, and were greeted with many manifestations of approbation by the veterans, who, in so many bloody battles, have followed the lead of Sherman:
“Headquarters, Military Division of the Mississippi,}In the Field, Kingston, Ga.,Nov. 8, 1864. }“The General commanding deems it proper at this time to inform the officers and men of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth Corps, that he has organized them into an army for a special purpose well known to the War Department and to General Grant. It is sufficient for you to know that it involves a departure from our present base, and a long and difficult march to a new one. All the chances of war have been considered and provided for as far as human sagacity can. All he asks of you is to maintain that discipline, patience and courage which have characterized you in the past, and he hopes, through you, to strike a blow at our enemy that will have a material effect in producing what we all so much desire, his complete overthrow. Of all things the most important is, that the men, during marches and in camp, keep their places, and not scatter about as stragglers or foragers, to be picked up by hostile people in detail.“It is also of the utmost importance that our wagons should not be loaded with anything but provisions and ammunition. All surplus servants, non-combatants, and refugees should now go to the rear, and none should be encouraged to encumber us on the march. At some future time we will be enabled to provide for the poor whites and blacks who seek to escape the bondage under which they are now suffering.“With these few simple cautions in your minds, he hopes to lead you to achievements equal in importance to those of the past.“By order of“Major-GeneralW. T. Sherman.”
“Headquarters, Military Division of the Mississippi,}
In the Field, Kingston, Ga.,Nov. 8, 1864. }
“The General commanding deems it proper at this time to inform the officers and men of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth Corps, that he has organized them into an army for a special purpose well known to the War Department and to General Grant. It is sufficient for you to know that it involves a departure from our present base, and a long and difficult march to a new one. All the chances of war have been considered and provided for as far as human sagacity can. All he asks of you is to maintain that discipline, patience and courage which have characterized you in the past, and he hopes, through you, to strike a blow at our enemy that will have a material effect in producing what we all so much desire, his complete overthrow. Of all things the most important is, that the men, during marches and in camp, keep their places, and not scatter about as stragglers or foragers, to be picked up by hostile people in detail.
“It is also of the utmost importance that our wagons should not be loaded with anything but provisions and ammunition. All surplus servants, non-combatants, and refugees should now go to the rear, and none should be encouraged to encumber us on the march. At some future time we will be enabled to provide for the poor whites and blacks who seek to escape the bondage under which they are now suffering.
“With these few simple cautions in your minds, he hopes to lead you to achievements equal in importance to those of the past.
“By order of
“Major-GeneralW. T. Sherman.”
The grand army, of more than fifty thousand men, was divided into two wings, although in some of its movements arranged in three or more separate columns. General Slocum commanded the left wing, composed of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps, and General Howard the right wing, made up of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps. The dashing, brilliant Kilpatrick was chief of a cavalry force. The marching orders were issued, and flew along the extended battle front, meeting with a glad welcome from the troops. The clear directions of the chieftain will present the line and method of march:
“In the Field, Kingston, Ga.,November 9, 1864.“I. For the purpose of military operations, this army is divided into two wings, viz.: The right wing, Major-General O. O. Howard, commanding the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps; the left wing, Major-General H. W. Slocum, commanding the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps.“II. The habitual order of march will be, whenever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible, and converging at points hereafter to be indicated in orders. The cavalry, Brigadier-General Kilpatrick commanding, will receive special orders from the Commander-in-Chief.“III. There will be no general trains of supplies, but each corps will have its ammunition and provision train, distributed habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance; behind each brigade should follow a due proportion of ammunition wagons, provision wagons, and ambulances. In case of danger, each army corps should change this order of march by having his advance and rear brigade unencumbered by wheels. The separate columns will start habitually at sevena. m., and make about fifteen miles per day, unless otherwise fixed in orders.“IV. The army willforage liberally on the countryduring the march. To this end each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route travelled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command; aiming at all times to keep in the wagon trainsat least ten days’ provisions for the command and three days’ forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellingsof the inhabitants or commit any trespass; during the halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and drive in stock in front of their camps. To regular foraging parties must be intrusted the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road travelled.“V. To army corps commanders is intrusted the powerto destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoodswhere the army is unmolested, no destructionof such property should be permitted; but should guerillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army corps commanders should order andenforce a devastation more or less relentless, according to the measure of such hostility.“VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit; discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, when the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts; and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance.“VII.Negroes who are able-bodied and can be of service to the several columns, may be taken along; but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very important one, and that his first duty is to see to those who bear arms.“VIII. The organization at once of a good pioneer battalion for each corps, composed, if possible, of negroes, should be attended to. This battalion should follow the advance guard, should repair roads and double them if possible, so that the columns will not be delayed after reaching bad places. Also, army commanders should study the habit of giving the artillery and wagons the road, and marching their troops on one side; and also instruct their troops to assist wagons at steep hills or bad crossings or streams.“IX. Captain O. M. Poe, chief engineer, will assign to each wing of the army a pontoon train, fully equipped and organized, and the commanders thereof will see to its being properly protected at all times.“By order of Major-GeneralW. T. Sherman.”
“In the Field, Kingston, Ga.,November 9, 1864.
“I. For the purpose of military operations, this army is divided into two wings, viz.: The right wing, Major-General O. O. Howard, commanding the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps; the left wing, Major-General H. W. Slocum, commanding the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps.
“II. The habitual order of march will be, whenever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible, and converging at points hereafter to be indicated in orders. The cavalry, Brigadier-General Kilpatrick commanding, will receive special orders from the Commander-in-Chief.
“III. There will be no general trains of supplies, but each corps will have its ammunition and provision train, distributed habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance; behind each brigade should follow a due proportion of ammunition wagons, provision wagons, and ambulances. In case of danger, each army corps should change this order of march by having his advance and rear brigade unencumbered by wheels. The separate columns will start habitually at sevena. m., and make about fifteen miles per day, unless otherwise fixed in orders.
“IV. The army willforage liberally on the countryduring the march. To this end each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route travelled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command; aiming at all times to keep in the wagon trainsat least ten days’ provisions for the command and three days’ forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellingsof the inhabitants or commit any trespass; during the halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and drive in stock in front of their camps. To regular foraging parties must be intrusted the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road travelled.
“V. To army corps commanders is intrusted the powerto destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoodswhere the army is unmolested, no destructionof such property should be permitted; but should guerillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army corps commanders should order andenforce a devastation more or less relentless, according to the measure of such hostility.
“VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit; discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, when the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts; and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance.
“VII.Negroes who are able-bodied and can be of service to the several columns, may be taken along; but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very important one, and that his first duty is to see to those who bear arms.
“VIII. The organization at once of a good pioneer battalion for each corps, composed, if possible, of negroes, should be attended to. This battalion should follow the advance guard, should repair roads and double them if possible, so that the columns will not be delayed after reaching bad places. Also, army commanders should study the habit of giving the artillery and wagons the road, and marching their troops on one side; and also instruct their troops to assist wagons at steep hills or bad crossings or streams.
“IX. Captain O. M. Poe, chief engineer, will assign to each wing of the army a pontoon train, fully equipped and organized, and the commanders thereof will see to its being properly protected at all times.
“By order of Major-GeneralW. T. Sherman.”
The feeling of the troops is expressed in the words of another who was with them: “They do not stop to ask questions. Sherman says ‘Come,’ and that is the entire vocabulary with them. A most cheerful feature of the situation is the fact that the men are healthful and jolly as men can be, hoping for the best, daring to do the worst.
“Behind us we leave a track of smoke and flame. Half of Marietta was burned up, not by orders, however, for the command is that proper details shall be made to destroy all property which can ever be of use to the rebel armies. Stragglers will get into these places, and dwelling-houses are levelled to the ground. In nearly all cases these are the deserted habitations formerly owned by rebels, who are now refugees.
“Yesterday, as some of the men were marching toward the Chattahoochie River, they saw in the distance pillars of smoke rising along its banks; the bridges were in flames. Says one, hitching his musket a bit on the shoulder in a free and easy way, ‘I say, Charley, I believe Sherman has set the river on fire.’ ‘Reckon not,’ replied the other, with the same indifference. ‘If he has, it’s all right.’ And so they pass along, obeying orders, not knowing what is before them, but believing in their leader.”
The foraging parties were to bring in from the country along the war-path, supplies for the long cavalcade, sweeping over a belt of land twenty to seventy miles wide, right across the proud State of Georgia.
The regulations respecting retaliation for outrages were wise and humane, because they prevented the very ruin which the rebels, unrestrained by fear, would have drawn upon themselves. It was not an idle threat, but proved to be a most timely, useful one.
November 12th, you might have seen the magnificent spectacle a great war alone affords. Mounted on his steed, his cork hand on the rein, General Howard led the right wing in bristling ranks, to the sound of martial airs, from Atlanta. And here I must tell you about that cork hand. You may recollect that the heroic chief lost his arm at Fair Oaks, fighting under General McClellan. He returned soon after to his home in Lewiston, Maine. It happened that I was there upon a beautiful summer day, when the Sabbath-school children had a meeting in Rev. Mr. Adams’s church, at Auburn, across the river. General Howard was present, the first time he had attended a public gathering since the wound was received. And many hearts were touched to hear him talk earnestly of truth and duty, while the yet unhealed stump would try to gesticulate, as the arm did of old. He is a complete man, and appreciated by his general-in-chief.
The imposing pageant of the advancing host was repeated on the 14th, when General Slocum marched at the head of the left wing from the doomed city. Then General Sherman, with his staff and body-guard, gave a last look, and took his road to Macon. “Let Hood go North; our business is down South,” was his brief comment upon the rebel general’s movements.
The torch was applied to the public buildings and railroad depots, flinging at night a lurid light over the dismantled ruined fortifications, and upon the surrounding hills. The scene was grand and awful, memorable to all who witnessed this burning of the “Gate City.” No private residences were designedly given to the flames. “The evidence of the rebels themselves has since appeared to show, that though Atlanta had been besieged, captured, and depopulated, there was no heartless or unavoidable destruction of private property, such as the enemy have delighted to charge upon General Sherman. Thus abandoned, it was left in the rear of our army, whose face was now seaward, and the hand of time, with a higher degree of civilization, can only efface the marks inflicted by a warlike occupation. Before the war Atlanta was one of the most thriving inland cities of the South, and contained 12,000 inhabitants.
“The rebels at Richmond received their first news of Sherman’s departure from Atlanta, from the North, but refused to place confidence in it. ‘It is a big Yankee lie,’ said the RichmondExaminer, ‘and if Sherman really has burnt Atlanta, it is to cover a retreat northward, to look after Hood.’ ‘But if Sherman is really attempting this prodigious design,’ it continued, ‘his march will only lead him to the “Paradise of Fools.” ’ The more Southern papers, those of Augusta, Savannah, etc., were alike incredulous with those of Richmond, upon the receipt of the first news of Sherman’s movement. ‘It is rumored that Atlanta is evacuated,’ said the AugustaChronicle, of November 15, ‘and we trust the rumor will prove correct.’ The same paper of November 18, implores the citizens of Augusta to ‘look at the situation without nervousness or fear—pray to God, but keep your powder dry—meet the storm like men—it’s always darkest just before day.’
“It is only necessary to follow Sherman’s course, to note the precision with which he moved, the width of country which he covered, and the directness of his march upon his objective point, to realize the impotency of all the shrieks, invocations, and proclamations that only spoiled so much valuable paper in the Confederacy.”
While the heavens hung like curtains of glowing crimson above and around the circular theatre of ruin, whose cinders shot through the hot atmosphere continually, the fine band of the Thirty-third Massachusetts were playing, “John Brown’s soul goes marching on!” The effect was awfully grand; the strange stirring anthem rising over the advance of that mighty host whose way was flashing with the torchlights of burning buildings.
Let us suppose we were upon an eminence near Atlanta, with power of vision to look away over the “heart of Georgia,” the goal of General Sherman’s moving columns. Running through it are two railroads, the only lines traversing the State of Georgia, and forming the chief link of railway connection between Virginia and the States of Alabama and Mississippi, now the southwestern limit of the so-called Confederacy. One of these railroads is the Georgia Central, running from Savannah to Macon, 190 miles, thence to Atlanta, by the Macon and Western Railroad, 101 miles, making the total distance from Savannah to Atlanta by railroad, 291 miles. The other is the Georgia Railroad, running from Augusta to Atlanta, at from 40 to 60 miles north of the Georgia Central Railroad, and making the distance to Atlanta, from Augusta, 171 miles. At Millen, on the Georgia Central road, 79 miles north of Savannah, is the junction of a branch road, called the Waynesboro’ Railroad, which connects with Augusta, 53 miles distant, and makes the distance by rail from Savannah to Augusta 132 miles. Along these lines of travel the country is thickly settled, and richly productive. Cotton, wheat, and corn fields, with forests and streams, mansions and slave huts, make a southern landscape inviting to a great army, whose thousands of men must have food to eat, and plenty of it. To cover the railroads and destroy them as the troops advanced, making Milledgeville, the capital, a point of rendezvous, was the first object of the commander. General Kilpatrick’s splendid cavalry protected flank and front—“the eyes of the army.” On, on, the extended wings move; while a cavalry force sweeps off toward Macon, where General Cobb commands the rebel militia, to make him believe an attack upon him is designed. The “fire-eater” is awake to his perilous position, and ready to defend “Southern rights;” when, lo! the horsemen suddenly disappear. Their enterprise seems a serious joke, provoking a laugh; for it was to keep at Macon the only force that could dispute the way, excepting some cavalry brigades at Macon, till left fairly in the rear. This being done, General Sherman cared little where the Confederate hero went. The enemy was amazed and bewildered—the bold invader’s plans baffled his attempts to decipher them. An extract from a Richmond paper will be both a curious and interesting illustration.
TheSentinelwith assurance declared: “It is not Sherman’s object to make his way to the Atlantic to assist Meade, leaving Thomas heir to his far higher honors and responsibilities in the West. If he shall succeed in penetrating the circle that now surrounds him, and escaping to Port Royal, his first anxiety, like Kilpatrick’s, will be for ships to take him away. Steam to Annapolis, and steam to Nashville, if Nashville be not already fallen, will be all too slow to quiet his impatience and to mollify his chagrin. While his own course through Georgia will have been that of an arrow through the air, or a ship over the sea, leaving no track behind; while his exploits and his honors will have been those of the baffled fox hounded from the barn-yard, or the disappointed wolf, chased and pelted by the shepherds; he will return to Tennessee to find Hood, we trust, in possession of the State. He will return to find that his campaign into Georgia, so boastfully entered upon, has but lost the territories won by his predecessors.”
While the editors and other leading minds at the Confederate capital were thus speculating and wondering, General Sherman was having a most auspicious start on the long march over rebel soil. “The right wing moved directly south from Atlanta, which is in Fulton County, to Rough and Ready and Jonesboro’ stations on the Macon and Western Railroad, in Fayette County. On November 16th one column of the right wing passed through Jonesboro’, twenty-six miles south of Atlanta, Wheeler’s cavalry and Cobb’s militia retiring upon Griffin. Another column of the right wing occupied McDonough, November 17th, the county seat of Henry County, some distance east of Jonesboro’, and about thirty-five miles southeast of Atlanta. Henry County is one of the largest and richest of Georgia, and here our forces found large supplies of provisions and forage. On the 16th Wheeler engaged our cavalry at Bear Creek station, ten miles north of Griffin, and telegraphed General Hardee that he had ‘checked the Yankee advance.’ The very same evening, at six o’clock, his ragged troopers fell back through Griffin, in the direction of Barnesville, where Cobb’s militia had already preceded him. Our cavalry occupied Griffin, which is the county seat of Spalding County, on the 17th, and on the 18th drove Wheeler out of Barnesville, in Pike County, and through Forsyth, the county seat of Monroe County, seventy-six miles south of Atlanta and twenty-five miles northwest of Macon.”
Turning to the map you will see the Ocumulgee River, on whose banks Macon is situated, northeast of which, on the Oconee, is Milledgeville, the State capital. November 20th General Sherman crossed the former stream with his face toward the seat of government; this was the first intelligence the rebels had of his purpose to pass by Macon. Meanwhile General Howard’s columns moved rapidly through Monticello, the shire town of Jasper County, burning the courthouse, thence to Hillsboro’, the county seat of Jones County, to reach the Georgia Central Railroad at Gordon, where the branch track to Milledgeville has its junction. Thus General Sherman left General Cobb behind, and sending to Griswoldville a rear-guard of infantry, pushed on the 21st to Milledgeville, with General Howard’s troops ready to join him.
The march, so far, had averaged thirteen and a half miles each day, making ninety-five miles from Atlanta. There was no need of great haste, and the strength of the men was spared for the vast enterprise before them. “General Sherman camped on the plantation of Howell Cobb. We found his granaries well filled with corn and wheat, part of which was distributed and eaten by our animals and men. A large supply of syrup made from sorghum, which we have found at nearly every plantation on our march, was stored in an out-house. This was also disposed of to the soldiers and the poor decrepit negroes, which this humane, liberty-loving major-general, abandoned to die in this place a few days ago.
“General Sherman distributed to the negroes with his own hands the provisions left here, and assured them that we were their friends, and they need not be afraid that we were foes. One old man answered him: ‘I spose dat you’se true; but, massa, you’se’ll go way tomorrow, and anudder white man will come.’ He had never known any thing but oppression, and had been kept in such ignorance that he did not dare put faith in any white man. The negroes were told that as soon as we got them into our power, they were put into the front of the battle, and we killed them if they did not fight; that we threw the women and children into the Chattahoochie, and when the buildings were burned in Atlanta, we filled them with negroes, to be devoured by the flames.
“General Sherman invited all able-bodied negroes (others could not make the march) to join the column, and he takes especial pleasure when they join the procession, on some occasions telling them they are free: that Massa Lincoln has given them their liberty, and that they can go where they please; that if they earn their freedom they should have it, but that Massa Lincoln had given it to them anyhow. Thousands of negro women join the column, some carrying household truck; others, and many of them there are, who bear the heavy burdens of children in their arms, while older boys and girls plod by their sides. All these women and children are ordered back, heartrending though it may be to refuse them liberty.
“But the majority accept the advent of the Yankees as the fulfilment of the millennial prophecies. The ‘day of jubilee,’ the hope and prayer of a lifetime, has come. They cannot be made to understand that they must remain behind, and they are satisfied only when General Sherman tells them, as he does every day, that we shall come back for them some time, and that they must be patient until the proper hour of deliverance comes.”
The enemy finding our army had deceived them and was gone, General Cobb sent a force from Macon to attack the rear-guard at Griswoldsville, a part of which had been employed to threaten Macon, where a sharp skirmish resulted in a loss to them of several hundred killed and wounded; the severest battle of all the march. General Slocum’s left wing had pressed on through De Kalb County to Covington, burning railroad buildings on the way. Near this town, while foraging in the fine fertile country, a force from one of the brigades of the Twentieth Corps was assailed by a party of “bushwhackers,” and one of our soldiers killed. Then followed the execution of General Sherman’s threat of devastation, involving in it the burning of the Methodist College at Oxford. The large libraries, the cabinets and apparatus, all were swept away by the fires of war, the charred ruins of an institution which cost nearly a million of dollars, only remaining in the wake of relentless Mars. General Slocum pushed forward his troops, living on the “fat of the land,” destroying railways, and flinging on his path the flames of burning warehouses, markets, and bridges. The same day that General Howard reached Gordon, General Slocum was at Eatonton, the northern terminus of the branch railroad. The troops came together at Milledgeville, General Howard entering it first with his troops; because the far-seeing commander-in-chief found that the best point for crossing the Oconee was there.
The legislature, which was in session on the 18th, hearing of the advance of General Sherman’s resistless columns, prepared to flee before them. Governor Brown departed in his private carriage for Macon, taking with him the public papers, funds, and whatever of personal effects he could convey. Never was such a stampede of the law-making chivalry of Georgia dreamed of by them. Members of this terrified body hurried away to Augusta, and others followed the Governor to Macon; some in carriages, some on horses, and others on foot, not having Confederate currency enough to pay for other means of escape. Two of the honorable fugitives paid one thousand dollars to be carried eight miles. Scarcely had Governor Brown reached Macon when he hastened to the City Hall and issued a flaming proclamation—chanticleer crowing after he is driven from the field by his rival in the fight.
Catching the contagious alarm, in the wake of the fugitive legislature, the citizens able to get away, carrying with them to the depot their household treasures, then also fled, until the infirm and the negroes only represented the just now proud and defiant population. The latter were wild with joy, embracing the soldiers, and exclaiming, “Bless de Lord! tanks be to Almighty God, the Yanks is come; the day of jubilee hab arrived!” Such was their simple recognition of God in the war, and of the friends of liberty. General Sherman’s headquarters were at the Executive Mansion, its former occupant having, with extremely bad grace, in fleeing from his distinguished visitor, taken with him the entire furniture of the building. As General Sherman travels with a roll of blankets, and haversack full of hard tack, which is as complete an outfit for a life out in the open air as in a palace, this discourtesy of Governor Brown was not a serious inconvenience.
The campaign toward the sea was now fairly opened, and successful in all its details: “At first, moving his army in three columns, with a column of cavalry on his extreme right, upon eccentric lines, he diverted the attention of the enemy, so that he concentrated his forces at extreme points, Macon and Augusta, leaving unimpeded the progress of the main body. In this campaign it was not the purpose of the General to spend his time before fortified cities, nor yet to encumber his wagons with wounded men. His instructions to Kilpatrick were to demonstrate against Macon, getting within five miles of the city.
“With that ignorance of danger common to new troops, the rebels rushed upon our veterans with the greatest fury. They were received with grape-shot and musketry at point blank range, our soldiers firing coolly while shouting derisively to the quivering columns to come on, as if they thought the whole thing a nice joke. The rebels resumed the attack, but with the same fatal results, and were soon in full flight, leaving more than three hundred dead on the field. Our loss was some forty killed and wounded, while their killed, wounded, and prisoners, are estimated to exceed two thousand five hundred. A pretty severe lesson they received. It is said, ‘Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte.’ This first step has been a most expensive one, and judging from the fact that we have not heard from them since, they seem to have interpreted the proverb otherwise than in the recognized sense.”
Gov. Brown reluctantly left in Milledgeville three thousand muskets and several thousand pounds of powder, to be destroyed by our troops. Then came a comic episode in the march. A number of officers and men took possession of the State House, elected a speaker, a clerk, and a chaplain, and went to work upon bills and resolutions in earnest. Calls to order, deciding between members claiming the floor, and humorous hits, filled up the time. When in the midst of the amusing excitement, a courier rushed in, saying, the “Yankees are coming!” then there was a sudden suspension of business, a panic, and a run for the doors. This was succeeded by an uproar of laughter.
Somehow the entreaty of the politicians and editors of the Confederacy to burn and otherwise destroy property likely to fall into our hands, did not move the hearts of traitors. Each waited to see his neighbor commence the havoc, and excepting what the army appropriated, and the rebels carried off, but little damage was done. The enemy was completely in the mist of mystery, and General Sherman’s skilful, blinding movements, successfully deluded his antagonists. Their blows were always hesitating, and, when given by them, were equally ineffectual. It was evident, however, that the Oconee River must be passed at some point by our troops. Accordingly, the enemy posted himself where the railroad crosses the river, five miles east of Gordon, and here burned the bridge. Wednesday, the 23d, brought our troops well up to the river.
The people along the line of march seldom expressed their sentiments to the army. A few illustrations from those who saw and heard for themselves, will give the general feeling: “When they do speak it is not in vain eulogy of the rebel army and the cause in which they are engaged. They are broken in spirits, and the haughty secession ladies, who by force of ‘arms’ and tongue drove their brothers, sons, and lovers, into the army, are now as meek as singed kittens, and only too glad to smile upon a good-looking Yankee. They all frankly admit that their cause is hopeless—that subjugation awaits them in the future, and all they now wish is for the storm to burst and pass; that peace with them, crushed beneath the Yankee heel, is preferable to the present state of things.
“ ‘Great God!’ exclaimed one very intelligent Milledgeville lady, whose all had been taken, ‘little did I think, when I bade my dear boys, who now sleep in their graves, good-bye, and packed them off, that this day would come, when old, impoverished, and childless, I must ask the men whom they fought against for a meal of victuals to satisfy my hunger. But it serves me right; I was deceived, drove them to battle, death, and infamy, and here I stand, their murderer.’
“Riding up to a house one day, I met an old woman and three grown-up daughters at the door uttering frantic appeals for help. I inquired what was wrong, when the old woman pointed to a burning cotton gin, and exclaimed, ‘Put it out! You uns are burnin’ me child!’ I asked where the child was, and succeeded in learning that it was in the burning gin house. Away I went, with some men, to rescue the innocent, and at the door met a ten year old boy, who, badly singed, issued forth from the fiery furnace. Returning to the house, I inquired how the boy came there? Putting the pipe between her lips, to compose her nerves, the old lady at last ventured an explanation: ‘Well,’ said she, ‘we uns heard that you uns killed all the little boys, to keep them out from growing up to fight ye, and we hid ’em.’ Strange as this may seem, among the poor, ignorant dupes of Davis, it is a common belief that the Yankees slay all the male children. We found many infant Moseses and Jeffs hid away in cellars and corn-cribs, but none in bulrushes. An officer called upon a lady in Effingham County, whose plantation had been stripped of every thing, and found her in tears and her children crying for bread. He endeavored to soothe her, when she lifted up her beautiful eyes beseechingly, and implored, ‘Give me something for my starving children.’ Away the officer went to his mess and fed the children from his private larder. On the following morning he was quite chagrined to witness two oak boxes, one barrel of flour, four trunks, and other articles exhumed from the garden by the soldiers.”
The eight days’ march to Millen, seventy-five miles from Milledgeville, was full of varied and remarkable interest. General Kilpatrick, with his “ubiquitous cavalry,” galloped away to the Central Railroad bridge, over the Oconee, twenty-five miles southeast of Milledgeville, where General Howard was trying to build a pontoon bridge, which the rebel General Wayne, with a brigade of released inmates of the penitentiary, and of militia, was determined to prevent; a battle followed, and the enemy was driven back. Then again the unrivalled trooper acted as “a curtain” upon the extreme left, having covered in the same way the right wing in the earlier part of the campaign; while all the time he had the nobler aim, if possible, to reach Millen in time to rescue our incarcerated and dying prisoners of war. “The stockade or coop in which our prisoners were confined, after their removal from Andersonville, was located in a dense pine forest, six miles from Millen station, on the Savannah and Augusta Railroad. It was a square of fifteen acres, enclosed by pine logs set upright in the ground, very close together. At intervals of twenty feet along the palisades were the sentry boxes, fifteen feet from the ground; access to them could only be had by means of ladders on the outside. The palisade logs were uniformly ten inches thick, and so straight and close were they that all view of the pine woods beyond them was shut out from the unfortunates within. Entering at the broad gate they crossed the ‘dead line’ (single rail fence) fearlessly, and approached the burrows or adobe huts where the ‘Yankees’ had slept in confinement. These were not filthy, because no considerable amount of filth could accumulate during the three weeks our men were kept there; but they were cheerless and comfortless. There was no attempt at regularity in laying out this village of Kennel. In one of them the dead body of a Union soldier, name unknown, was found unburied. Decidedly the most comfortable looking appendage to the stockade was the brick cook-house near the centre, with accommodation for a dozen or fifteen men to work at a time. At the southeast angle of the stockade, on the outside, stood a square earthwork, built to command with its guns both the burrows inside and the approaches to the logs on the outside. In the hospital huts, a quarter of a mile from the pen, were good accommodations for three hundred men, and there were evidences that they were not sufficient. A fine large spring, where excellent water bubbled out, completed the lists of objects familiar to the brave boys who had lived in that silent clearing in the pine woods. The dead prisoners were buried in rows, a short distance from the hospital, graves being numbered as high as six hundred and fifty. The prisoners were kept at Millen only three weeks.”
November 29th the “boys” kept Thanksgiving upon the luxuries of Georgia plantations. The Ogeehee was crossed on November 30th. It is a stream sixty yards wide, where the troops passed over on a bridge which was put in repair, and with pontoons.
In a sketch from a reliable source, we have an explanation of the false charge made by a distinguished orator against General Sherman, that he removed a bridge, and left unprotected negroes to the enemy. He knew nothing of the sad affair when it occurred:
“From the time we left Atlanta, with fifty or one hundred contrabands, the ‘colored brigades’ continued to swell in numbers until we arrived at the Ogeechee River, when fully ten thousand were attached to the various columns. They represented all shades and conditions, from the almost white housemaid servant, worth $15,000 in rebel currency, to the tar black, pock-marked cotton picker, who never crosses massa’s door sill. A very large majority of them were women and children, who, mounted on mules, sometimes five on an animal, in ox wagons, buggies, and vehicles of every description, blocked the roads and materially delayed the movement of the columns. It was no unusual sight to behold a slave mother carrying two young children and leading a third, who, in a half nude state, trudged along the thorny path to freedom. Columns could be written descriptive of the harrowing scenes presented by this unfortunate class of fugitives. So much difficulty did General Davis find in moving his column, that at the Ogeechee River, as a military necessity, he placed a guard at the bridge, who halted the caravan of contrabands until the rear of the column passed, and then removed the pontoon. The negroes, however, not to be frustrated, constructed a foot-bridge and crossed. Next day the column had its full complement of negroes.
“Arriving at Ebenezer Creek, the same method was taken to clear the column, with better success. The creek runs through a half mile of swamp, which is covered by water, and can only be crossed by a narrow bridge. This bridge was taken up, and the moment our forces disappeared the brutal Wheeler was in our rear. Next day only a few darkies came up. Another day passed and still fully two-thirds were missing. Inquiries elicited the information that Wheeler, on finding the defenceless negroes blocked, drove them pellmell into the water, where those who escaped say they struggled to reach the opposite bank, amidst heartrending shrieks; but most of the mothers went down in the water with their children clasped to their bosoms, while Wheeler and his inhuman band looked on with demoniac smiles. How far true this may be I know not, but all the negroes who escaped, with whom I have talked, seem to agree in their account of the hellish slaughter.”
The bridges over the Oconee and Fisher’s Creek were burned behind the army. The rebels were compelled to speak well, on the whole, of General Sherman’s command. I shall add their testimony, given at the time:
“In their route they destroyed, as far as possible, all mills, cribs, and gin-houses, cotton screws and gins, cotton implements, etc., and carried off all stock, provisions, and negroes. When their horses gave out they shot them. At Eatonton they killed over one hundred. At Milledgeville they only destroyed the arsenal, depot, and penitentiary. They did not burn the factory near that place. The right wing of the Federal army, under General Howard, crossed the Ocmulgee River between Adams’s Ferry and Macon. It is said that the town of Forsyth was completely demolished. The Federals expressed great astonishment at the rich country they were passing, and the abundance of provisions in it. General Slocum gave orders to the citizens along his route to shoot down his stragglers without mercy. One punishment inflicted by some of the Federal generals for plundering, was severe whipping. A portion of Major Graham’s command reached this city last night. They report that they visited Atlanta several days since, and found it completely evacuated and burned. They state that the Federals took all the cattle and forage in their route, but did not molest those who stayed at home.”
“The most pathetic scenes occur upon our line of march daily and hourly. Thousands of negro women join the column, some carrying household truck; others, and many of them there are, who bear the burden of children in their arms, while older boys and girls plod by their sides. All these women and children are ordered back, heartrending though it may be to refuse them liberty. They won’t go. One begs that she may go to see her husband and children at Savannah. Long years ago she was forced from them and sold. Another has heard that her boy was in Macon, and she is ‘done gone with grief goin’ on four years.’
“The other day a woman with a child in her arms was working her way along amongst the teams and crowds of cattle and horsemen. An officer called to her kindly: ‘Where are you going, aunty?’
“She looked up into his face with a hopeful, beseeching look, and replied:
“ ‘I’se gwine whar you’se gwine, massa.’
“At a house a few miles from Milledgeville we halted for an hour. In an old hut I found a negro and his wife, both of them over sixty years old. In the talk which ensued nothing was said which led me to suppose that either of them was anxious to leave their mistress, who, by the way, was a sullen, cruel-looking woman, when all at once the old negress straightened herself up, and her face, which a moment before was almost stupid in its expression, assumed a fierce, almost devilish, aspect.
“Pointing her shining black finger at the old man, crouched in the corner of the fire-place, she hissed out: ‘What for you sit dar? you spose I wait sixty years for nutten? Don’t yer see de door open? I’se follow my child; I not stay. Yes, nodder day I goes ’long wid dese people; yes sar, I walks till I drops in my tracks.’ A more terrible sight I never beheld. I can think of nothing to compare with it, except Charlotte Cushman’s Meg Merrilies. Rembrandt only could have painted the scene, with its dramatic surroundings.
“It was near this place that several factories were burned. It was odd to see the delight of the negroes at the destruction of places known only to them as task-houses, where they had groaned under the lash.
“Pointing to the Atlanta and Augusta Railroad, which had been destroyed, the question was asked, ‘It took a longer time to build this railroad than it does to destroy it?’
“ ‘I would think it did, massa; in dat ar woods over dar is buried ever so many black men who were killed, sar, yes, killed, a working on dat road—whipped to deth. I seed em, sar.’
“ ‘Does the man live here who beat them?’
“ ‘Oh no, sar; he’s dun gone long time.’
“I have seen blind and lame mules festooned with infants in bags, and led by fond parents so aged and weak they could hardly totter along. ‘Mars’r Sherman was a great man, but dis am de work ob de Lord,’ they said.”
The swampy borders were belted with “corduroy,” and their heavy fogs hung over the halting columns. At evening the spectacle was weird-like in its wild romance. “A novel and vivid sight was it to see the fires of pitch pine flaring up into the mist and darkness, the figures of men and horses looming out of the dense shadows in gigantic proportions. Torchlights are blinking and flashing away off in the forests, while the still air echoed and reëchoed with the cries of teamsters and the wild shouts of the soldiers. A long line of the troops marched across the foot-bridge, each soldier bearing a torch, their light reflected in quivering lines in the swift running stream. Soon the fog, which settles like a blanket over the swamps and forests of the river bottoms, shut down upon the scene, and so dense and dark was it that torches were of but little use, and men were directed here and there by the voice.”
Not far from this spot the troops encountered a singular character. He had been depot-master before the railroad was destroyed—a shrewd, intelligent old man, so far as the war is concerned. He said to the soldiers: “They say you are retreating, but it is the strangest sort of retreat I ever saw. Why, the newspapers have been lying in this way all along. They allers are whipping the Federal armies, and they allers fall back after the battle is over. It was that ar’ idee that first opened my eyes. Our army was allers whipping the Feds, and we allers fell back. I allers told ’em it was a humbug, and now by —— I know it, for here you are right on old John Wells’s place; hogs, potatoes, corn, and fences all gone. I don’t find any fault. I expected it all.
“ ‘Jeff. Davis and the rest,’ he continued, ‘talk about splitting the Union. Why if South Carolina had gone out by herself, she would have been split in four pieces by this time. Splitting the Union! Why, the State of Georgia is being split right through from end to end. It is these rich fellows who are making the war, and keeping their precious bodies out of harm’s way. There’s John Franklin went through here the other day running away from your army. I could have played dominoes on his coat tails. There’s my poor brother, sick with small-pox at Macon, working for eleven dollars a month, and hasn’t got a cent of the stuff for a year. Eleven dollars a month and eleven thousand bullets a minute. I don’t believe in it, sir.
“ ‘My wife came from Canada, and I kind o’ thought I would some time go there to live, but was allers afraid of the ice and cold; but I can tell you this country is getting too hot for me. Look at my fence-rails burning there. I think I can stand the cold better.
“ ‘I heard as how they cut down the trees across your road up country and burn the bridges; why, one of your Yankees can take up a tree and carry it off, tops and all; and there’s that bridge you put across the river in less than two hours—they might as well try to stop the Ogeechee as you Yankees.
“ ‘The rascals who burnt this yere bridge thought they did a big thing; a natural born fool would have more sense than any of them.
“ ‘To bring back the good old time,’ he said, ‘it’ll take the help of Divine Providence, a heap of rain, and a deal of hard work, to fix things up again.’ ”
It is interesting to look over the sea and get a glimpse of the impressions of our Englishfriendsregarding the “wandering host.” The organ of the army and navy said: “It is clear that, so long as he roams about with his army inside the Confederate States, he is more deadly than twenty Grants, and thathe must be destroyed if Richmond or any thing is to be saved. Lee will probably be forced by this condition of affairs to assume the offensive, because he cannot afford to let Grant hold his hands whilst Sherman is committing burglary in the Southern mansion. If Sherman has really left his army in the air, and started off without a base to march from Georgia into South Carolina, he has done either one of the most brilliant or one of the most foolish things ever performed by a military leader.”
The great leader and his intelligent troops must have enjoyed the mystery in which both friends and foes were living; knowing well that in public and private circles, in the periodical press and the national councils, the speculations and theories about him, the fears and hopes, were manifold and often ludicrous, while his battalions were having a triumphal march over the proudest portion of the Confederacy. “The great army, over the lands and into the dwellings of the poor and rich alike, through towns and cities, like a roaring wave, swept, and paused, revelled and surged on. In the day-time, the splendor, the toil, the desolation of the march; in the night-time, the brilliance, the gloom, the music, the joy and the slumber of the camp. Memorable the music ‘that mocked the moon’ of November of the soil of Georgia; sometimes a triumphant march, sometimes a glorious waltz, again an old air stirring the heart alike to recollection and to hope. Floating out from throats of brass to the ears of soldiers in their blankets and generals within their tents, these tunes hallowed the eves to all who listened.
“Sitting before his tent in the glow of a camp fire one evening, General Sherman let his cigar go out to listen to an air that a distant band was playing. The musicians ceased at last. The general turned to one of his officers; ‘Send an orderly to ask that band to play that tune again.’
“A little while, and the band received the word. The tune was ‘The Blue Juniata,’ with exquisite variations. The band played it again, even more beautifully than before. Again it ceased, and then, off to the right, nearly a quarter of a mile away, the voices of some soldiers took it up with words. The band, and still another band, played a low accompaniment; camp after camp began singing; the music of ‘The Blue Juniata’ became, for a few minutes, the oratorio of half an army.
“Back along the whole wide pathway of this grand march from border to coast, the eye catches glimpses of scenes whose savage and poetic images an American, five years ago, would have thought never could have been revived from the romantic past.”
History records no war scenes so full of poetic interest, with so little bloodshed, as those along the path of this advancing host.