Campfire and Battlefield / An Illustrated History of the Campaigns and Conflicts of the Great Civil War

by Rossiter Johnson; Selden Connor; John Brown Gordon; Henry W. B. Howard; O. O. Howard; John Tyler Morgan; John Clark Ridpath

CHAPTER XLI.

THE MARCH TO THE SEA.

SHERMAN MAKES ATLANTA A MILITARY DEPOT—HIS PECULIAR POSITION—DISAFFECTION IN THE CONFEDERACY—HOOD ATTACKS THE COMMUNICATIONS—DEFENCE OF ALLATOONA—THOMAS ORGANIZES AN ARMY—SHERMAN DETERMINES TO GO DOWN TO THE SEA—DESTRUCTION IN ATLANTA—THE ORDER OF MARCH—SHERMAN'S INSTRUCTIONS—THE ROUTE—INCIDENTS—DESTRUCTION OF THE RAILROAD—KILLING THE BLOODHOUNDS—THE BUMMERS—CAPTURE OF FORT McALLISTER—HARDEE EVACUATES SAVANNAH, AND SHERMAN OFFERS IT AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO THE PRESIDENT—BATTLE OF FRANKLIN—BATTLE OF NASHVILLE—HOOD'S ARMY DESTROYED.

Before Sherman's army had been a week in Atlanta he determined to send away all the inhabitants of the city, giving each the choice whether to go South or North, and furnishing transportation for a certain distance. His reason for this measure is given briefly in his own words: "I was resolved to make Atlanta a pure military garrison or dépôt, with no civil population to influence military measures. I had seen Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, and New Orleans, all captured from the enemy, and each at once was garrisoned by a full division of troops, if not more, so that success was actually crippling our armies in the field by detachments to guard and protect the interests of a hostile population." Of course this action met with a vigorous protest from the people themselves, from the city authorities, and from General Hood, between whom and General Sherman there was a sharp correspondence discussing the humanity of the measure and to some extent the issues of the war.

General Sherman also received a letter signed by the mayor and two of the councilmen, in which they set forth the difficulties and sufferings that the people would encounter, and asked him to reconsider his order for their removal. This he answered at length, presenting a broad view, not of Atlanta only, but of the entire country, and the state of the war, and the effect that this would have upon it. There were few generals on either side who understood the entire aspect, military, political, moral, and economical, as thoroughly, or describe it as clearly, as Sherman. He said:

"I give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter, and therefore deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course I do not apprehend any such thing at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do; but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the National Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion; but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.

"You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable; and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride. We don't want your negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or anything that you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and, if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it. You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat, then, that, by the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent carloads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes and under the government of their inheritance. But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then I will share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter."

Among the considerations that influenced General Sherman's action at that time, two appear to have been paramount—one a hope, the other a fear. The fear was, that some portion of Hood's army would make a serious break in his communications by destroying portions of the long, single-track railroad over which he drew all his supplies from Chattanooga. The hope was, that Georgia, seeing any further prosecution of the war to be useless, would withdraw her troops from the Confederate armies and practically secede from the Confederacy. Some color was given to this from the fact that Gov. Joseph E. Brown had recalled the Georgia militia from Hood's army, while Mr. Davis, on a flying visit to that army, had made a speech in which he threw the blame for the recent disasters upon General Johnston and Governor Brown, and told the soldiers they were about to set out on a campaign that would carry them to Tennessee and Kentucky. Sherman sent word to Governor Brown that if Georgia's troops were withdrawn from the Confederate service, he would pass across the State as harmlessly as possible, and pay for all the corn and fodder that he took; but if not, he would devastate the State through its whole length and breadth.

HON. JOSEPH E. BROWN, Governor of Georgia.	ALL THE LIVE STOCK LEFT ON McGILL'S FARM.

In North Carolina there had been a strong movement for peace this year, the only difference of opinion being as to the method in which peace should be sought. The governor, Zebulon B. Vance, as a candidate for reëlection, represented those who held that the State should only act in coöperation with the other States that were engaged with her in the war. The other party, whose candidate was William W. Holden, held that North Carolina should assert her sovereignty and negotiate peace directly and alone with the United States. Governor Vance probably presented the decisive argument when he said: "Secession from the Confederacy will involve us in a new war, a bloodier conflict than that which we now deplore. So soon as you announce to the world that you are a sovereign and independent nation, as a matter of course the Confederate Government has a right to declare war against you, and President Davis will make the whole State a field of battle and blood. Old Abe would send his troops here also, because we would no longer be neutral; and so, if you will pardon the expression, we would catch the devil on all sides." At the election in August, Governor Vance received fifty-four thousand votes, against twenty thousand for Mr. Holden.

Georgia did not secede from the Confederacy, but Hood did attack the communications. At every important point on the railroad there was a strong guard, and at the bridges there were block-houses with small but well-appointed garrisons. About the 1st of October Hood crossed the Chattahoochee, going northward to strike the railroad. Sherman hurried after him, and on the 5th looked down from Kenesaw Mountain upon the fires that were burning the ties and heating the rails of a dozen miles of his road. Anticipating an attack on Allatoona, which was held by a small brigade under command of Lieut.-Col. John E. Tourtellotte, he signalled over the heads of the enemy a message to Allatoona conveying an order for Gen. John M. Corse, then at Rome, to go to the relief of Tourtellotte with a strong force. Corse obeyed promptly, going down with all the men he could obtain transportation for, and arriving at midnight. In the morning the garrison, now nearly two thousand strong, were summoned to surrender immediately, to avoid a needless effusion of blood. General Corse answered, "We are prepared for the needless effusion of blood whenever it is agreeable to you," and at once his men were attacked from all sides. They were driven into their redoubts, and there made so determined a resistance that after five hours of desperate fighting the Confederates withdrew, leaving their dead and wounded on the field. Corse had lost seven hundred and seven men out of his nineteen hundred and forty-four, including Colonel Redfield, of the Thirty-ninth Iowa, killed, and had himself suffered the loss of an ear and a cheek-bone. The total Confederate loss is unknown; but Corse reported burying two hundred and thirty-one of their dead, and taking four hundred and eleven prisoners, which would indicate a total loss of sixteen hundred. This successful defence of Allatoona was one of the most gallant affairs of the kind in history.

General Thomas had previously been sent to Nashville with two divisions, General Slocum was left in Atlanta with the Twentieth Corps, and with the remainder of his forces Sherman pursued Hood through the country between Rome and Chattanooga and westward of that region. But he could not bring the Confederates to battle, and had little expectation of overtaking them. He thinks he conceived of the march to the sea some time in September; the first definite proposal of it was in a telegram to General Thomas, on the 9th of October, in which he said: "I want to destroy all the road below Chattanooga, including Atlanta, and to make for the sea-coast. We cannot defend this long line of road." In various despatches between that date and the 2d of November, Sherman proposed the great march to Grant and to the President. Grant thought Hood's army should be destroyed first, but finally said: "I do not see that you can withdraw from where you are, to follow Hood, without giving up all we have gained in territory. I say, then, go on as you propose." This was on the understanding, suggested by Sherman, that Thomas would be left with force enough to take care of Hood. Sherman sent him the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps, commanded by Generals Stanley and Schofield, and further reinforced him with troops that had been garrisoning various places on the railroad, while he also received two divisions from Missouri and some recruits from the North. These, when properly organized, made up a very strong force; and, with Thomas at its head, neither Sherman nor Grant felt any hesitation about leaving it to take care of Tennessee.

ALLATOONA PASS, LOOKING NORTH. (From a war-time photograph.)

Sherman rapidly sent North all his sick and disabled men, and all baggage that could be spared. Commissioners came and took the votes of the soldiers for the Presidential election, and departed. Paymasters came and paid off the troops, and went back again. Wagon trains were put in trim and loaded for a march. Every detachment of the army had its exact orders what to do; and as the last trains whirled over the road to Chattanooga, the track was taken up and destroyed, the bridges burned, the wires torn down, and all the troops that had not been ordered to join Thomas concentrated in Atlanta. From the 12th of November nothing more was heard from Sherman till Christmas.

The depot, machine-shops, and locomotive-house in Atlanta were all torn down, and fire was set to the ruins. The shops had been used for the manufacture of Confederate ammunition, and all night the shells were exploding in the midst of the ruin, while the fire spread to a block of stores, and finally burned out the heart of the city. With every unsound man and every useless article sent to the rear, General Sherman now had fifty-five thousand three hundred and twenty-nine infantrymen, five thousand and sixty-three cavalrymen, and eighteen hundred and twelve artillerymen, with sixty-five guns. There were four teams of horses to each gun, with its caisson and forge; six hundred ambulances, each drawn by two horses; and twenty-five hundred wagons, with six mules to each. Every soldier carried forty rounds of ammunition, while the wagons contained an abundant additional supply and twelve hundred thousand rations, with oats and corn enough to last five days. Probably a more thoroughly appointed army was never seen, and it is difficult to imagine one of equal numbers more effective. Every man in it was a veteran, was proud to be there, and felt the most perfect confidence that under the leadership of "Uncle Billy" it would be impossible to go wrong.

MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN M. CORSE.

On the 15th of November they set out on the march to the sea, nearly three hundred miles distant. The infantry consisted of four corps. The Fifteenth and Seventeenth formed the right wing, commanded by Gen. Oliver O. Howard; the Fourteenth and Twentieth the left, commanded by Gen. Henry W. Slocum. The cavalry was under the command of Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. The two wings marched by parallel routes, generally a few miles apart, each corps having its own proportion of the artillery and trains. General Sherman issued minute orders as to the conduct of the march, which were systematically carried out. Some of the instructions were these:

"The habitual order of march will be, wherever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible. The separate columns will start habitually at seven A.M., and make about fifteen miles a day. Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance. Army commanders should practise the habit of giving the artillery and wagons the road, marching the troops on one side. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, who will gather 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 wagons at least ten days' provisions. Soldiers must not enter dwellings or commit any trespass; but, during a halt or camp, they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock in sight of their camp. To corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc. Where the army is unmolested, no destruction of 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 commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless, according to the measure of such hostility. 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 and industrious, usually neutral or friendly. In all foraging, the parties engaged will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance."

Thus equipped and thus instructed, the great army moved steadily, day after day, cutting a mighty swath, from forty to sixty miles wide, through the very heart of the Confederacy. The columns passed through Rough and Ready, Jonesboro', Covington, McDonough, Macon, Milledgeville, Gibson, Louisville, Millen, Springfield, and many smaller places. The wealthier inhabitants fled at the approach of the troops. The negroes in great numbers swarmed after the army, believing the long-promised day of jubilee had come. Some of them seemed to have an intelligent idea that the success of the National forces meant destruction of slavery, while most of them had but the vaguest notions as to the whole movement. One woman, with a child in her arms, walking along among the cattle and horses, was accosted by an officer, who asked her, "Where are you going, aunty?" "I'se gwine whar you's gwine, massa." One party of black men, who had fallen into line, called out to another who seemed to be asking too many questions, "Stick in dar! It's all right. We'se gwine along; we'se free." Major George Ward Nichols describes an aged couple whom he saw in a hut near Milledgeville. The old negress, pointing her long finger at the old man, who was in the corner of the fireplace, hissed out, "What fer you sit dar? You s'pose I wait sixty years for nutten? Don't yer see de door open? I'se follow my child; I not stay; I walks till I drop in my tracks."

The army destroyed nearly the whole of the Georgia Central Railroad, burning the ties, and heating and twisting the rails. As they had learned that a rail merely bent could be straightened and used again, a special tool was invented with which a red-hot rail could be quickly twisted like an auger, and rendered forever useless. They also had special appliances for tearing up the track methodically and rapidly. All the depot buildings were in flames as soon as the column reached them. As the bloodhounds had been used to track escaped prisoners, the men killed all that they could find.

The foraging parties—or "bummers," as they were popularly called—went out for miles on each side, starting in advance of the organizations to which they belonged, gathered immense quantities of provisions, and brought them to the line of march, where each stood guard over his pile till his own brigade came along. The progress of the column was not allowed to be interrupted for the reception of the forage, everything being loaded upon the wagons as they moved. The "flankers" were thrown out on either side, passing in thin lines through the woods to prevent any surprise by the enemy, while the mounted officers went through the fields to give the road to the troops and trains.

The only serious opposition came from Wheeler's Confederate cavalry, which hung on the flanks of the army and burned some bridges, but was well taken care of by Kilpatrick's, who generally defeated it when brought to an encounter. There was great hope that Kilpatrick would be able to release the prisoners of war confined in Millen, but when he arrived there he found that they had been removed to some other part of the Confederacy. When the advance guard was within a few miles of Savannah there was some fighting with infantry, and a pause before the defences of the city.

Fort McAllister, which stood in the way of communication with the blockading fleet, was elaborately protected with ditches, palisades, and chevaux-de-frise; but Gen. William B. Hazen's division made short work with it, going straight over everything and capturing the fort on the 13th of December, losing ninety-two men in the assault, and killing or wounding about fifty of the garrison. That night General Sherman, with a few officers, pulled down the river in a yawl and visited a gunboat of the fleet in Ossabaw Sound. Four days later, having established full communication, Sherman demanded the surrender of the city of Savannah, which Gen. William J. Hardee, who was in command there with a considerable force, refused. Sherman then took measures to make its investment complete; but on the morning of the 21st it was found to be evacuated by Hardee's forces, and Gen. John W. Geary's division of the Twentieth Corps marched in. The next day Sherman wrote to the President: "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." Sherman's entire loss in the march had been seven hundred and sixty-four men.

MAJOR-GENERAL PETER J. OSTERHAUS.	BRIGADIER-GENERAL BENJAMIN HARRISON. BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM T. WARD. COLONEL DANIEL DUSTIN. BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM COGGSWELL.

That phase of war which reaches behind the armies in the field and strikes directly at the sources of supply, bringing home its burdens and its hardships to men who are urging on the conflict without participating in it, was never exhibited on a grander scale or conducted with more complete success. This, in fact, is the most humane kind of war, since it accomplishes the purpose with the least destruction of life and limb. Sherman's movement across Georgia naturally brings to mind another famous march to the sea; but that was a retreat of ten thousand, while this was a victorious advance of sixty thousand; and it was only in their shout of welcome, Thalatta! thalatta! ("The sea! the sea!") that the weary and disheartened Greeks resembled Sherman's triumphant legions.

CONFEDERATE WORKS BEFORE ATLANTA. (From a Government photograph.)

The condition of affairs in Georgia, as seen by the residents, just before and at the time of Sherman's great march, has been vividly described by the Rev. J. Ryland Kendrick, who was pastor of a church in Charleston when the war broke out, and two years later removed to Madison, Ga. He says:

"In passing from South Carolina to Georgia one could hardly fail to be immediately conscious of breathing a somewhat larger and freer atmosphere. The great mass of the people in the latter State were perhaps no less ardent in their zeal for the Confederate cause than those of the former, but still there was among them more latitude of opinion, and criticisms on the political and military status were not so rigorously repressed. Owing to her greater extent of territory, her less aristocratic civil institutions, and her more composite population, Georgia had long been characterized by a broader spirit of tolerance than South Carolina, and she manifested that spirit during the war. Not a few might be found in almost any community who had no heart in the pending conflict, and little faith in its successful issue. Besides, her governor, Joseph E. Brown, early showed a disposition to do his own thinking, and to take ground which was not always pleasing to the autocratic will of Jefferson Davis. This naturally encouraged freedom of thought and utterance among the people at large.

"At the beginning of 1863 I received a call to the pastorate of the Baptist church in Madison, a village on the Georgia railroad, and made my home there for the remainder of the war. It was an ideal refuge amidst the storm and stress of the time, especially for a man with my peculiar convictions. The village was one of the pleasantest and most attractive in the State, comprising in its population a considerable number of wealthy, educated, and refined families, a large share of which belonged to my church. In the ante-bellum days it had been distinguished as an educational centre for girls, with two flourishing seminaries—one Baptist, the other Methodist. When I went there the war had closed both of them. Just on the line which divides the upper from the lower country, Madison was as remote from the alarms of war as any place in the war-girdled South could well be, and fairly promised to be about the last spot which the invaders would strike. To its various attractions Madison added, for me, one other, which at the time was not generally esteemed an attraction at all, but rather a serious reproach. I refer to its reputation for somewhat lax loyalty to the Confederacy. It was known throughout the State as a town much given to croaking and criticism, with a suspicion of decided disaffection on the part of some of its leading citizens. Foremost among these sullen and recalcitrant Madisonians was Col. Joshua Hill, familiarly known as 'Josh Hill,' confessedly the most prominent man in the community, and about as much at odds with the Confederate Government as one could well be without provoking the stroke of its iron hand. He had been a member of the United States Congress when the secession fury began, and having stuck to his post as long as possible finally retired from it in a regular and honorable way.

"Preaching as I did only on Sunday mornings, I often availed myself of the opportunity to attend, in the after-part of that day, the religious services of the colored people; sometimes preaching to them myself, but more commonly listening to the preachers of their own race. While, as might be expected, there was a sad lack of any real instruction in their pulpit performances, there was superabundance of fervor and not a little of genuine oratorical effectiveness.

"It interested me especially, in these meetings of the colored people, to watch their attitude toward the pending war, in whose issues they had so great a stake, and by which they were placed in an extremely delicate relation to their masters. Their shrewdness was simply amazing. Their policy was one of reserve and silence. They rarely referred to the war in their sermons or prayers, and when they did mention it they used broad terms which meant little and compromised nobody. Of course they could not betray sympathy for the invaders, but they certainly exhibited none for the other side. To any keen observer their silence was significant enough, but nobody cared to evoke their real sentiments. The subtlest sagacity could not have dictated a more prudent line of conduct than that which their instincts chose. Indeed, the conduct of the colored people through the whole war, whose import they vaguely but truly divined, was admirable, and such as to merit the eternal gratitude of the Southern whites. Under the most tempting opportunities, outrages upon women and children were never fewer, petty crimes were not increased, and of insurrectionary movements, so far as I knew, there were absolutely none, while the soil was never tilled with more patient and faithful industry. No doubt their conduct was largely determined by a shrewd comprehension of the situation, as well as by their essential kindliness of nature. They understood that bodies of soldiery were never far away, and that any uprising would be speedily and remorselessly crushed. They knew, too, that it was wiser to wait for the coming of 'Massa Linkum's' legions, whose slow approach could not be concealed from them.

"If the colored people dimly saw that their deliverance was approaching with the advance of the Federal armies, the faith of the whites in the perpetuity of the divine institution lingered long and died hard. It seemed to them impossible that this institution should come to an end. Indeed, there was manifested on the part of some very good and devout people a disposition to hazard their faith in the veracity of God and the Bible on the success of the Southern arms. The Bible, they argued, distinctly sanctioned slavery, and if slavery should be overthrown by the failure of the South the Bible would be fatally discredited.

"In those trying days some few compensations came to us for the deprivations inflicted by the blockade. For one thing, the tyranny of fashion was greatly abated. Style was little thought of, and fine ladies were made happy by the possession of an English or French calico gown. For another thing, cut off from magazines, reviews, and cheap yellow-covered literature, and with newspapers so curtailed of their ordinary proportions that they were taken in at a coup d'oeil, we were driven back upon old standard books. I suspect that among the stay-at-homes a larger amount of really good, solid reading was done during the war than in the previous decade. Now and then a contraband volume slipped through the blockade, and was eagerly sought after. Somehow, a copy of Buckle's 'History of Civilization' got into my neighborhood, and had a wide circulation. Victor Hugo's 'Les Misérables' appeared among us in a shocking edition, printed, I think, in New Orleans.

"The ever-beginning, never-ending topic of conversation was the war, with its incidents and prospects. We breakfasted, dined, and supped on startling reports of victories or defeats, and vague hints of prodigious things shortly to occur. It is noteworthy that our reports were almost uniformly of victories, frequently qualified by the slow and reluctant admission that, having won a brilliant success, the Confederate forces at last fell back. This trick of disguising defeat came, after a while, to be so well understood, that 'to conquer and fall back' was tossed about as a grim jest.

"As the tide of war surged southward, and at last reached Chattanooga, our village, like nearly all others on railway lines, became a hospital station, and the large academy was appropriated to the sick and wounded.

"After the battle of Chickamauga great trains of cars came lumbering through our town, crowded with Union captives. They were a sad sight to look upon. Standing one day by the track as such a train was slowly passing, the irrepressible prisoners shouted to me, 'Old Rosey will be along here soon!' 'Old Rosey' never came, but 'Uncle Billy' in due time put in an unmistakable appearance, which more than fulfilled what at the moment seemed the prediction of mere reckless bravado.

"During the summer of 1864 our secluded little village was rudely shaken by its first experience in the way of invasion. After steadily pushing back the Confederate columns, Sherman had at last reached Atlanta, and his hosts were in fact only about seventy miles away from us. In certain conditions of the atmosphere we could hear the dull, heavy thunder of his guns. Yet, strangely enough, this proximity of war in its sternest form created no panic among us. In fact, a kind of paralysis now benumbed the sensibilities of the people. The back of the Confederacy had been definitely broken in the preceding summer by the battle of Gettysburg. Nearly all discerning persons were conscious of this, and but for the foreordained and blind obstinacy of Jefferson Davis and his satellites efforts would have been made to save the South from utter wreck. Alexander H. Stephens was understood to entertain very definite ideas as to the hopeless and disastrous course of events under Davis's policy.

"On a hot July morning I was sitting, Southern fashion, with a number of gentlemen before a store just outside of the public square. We were canvassing a strange rumor which had just reached us, to the effect that Yankee soldiers had been seen not far from the town. At that moment a man from the country rode up to our group, and, hearing the topic of conversation, generously offered to 'eat all the Union soldiers within ten miles of Madison.' Scarcely had he uttered these reassuring words when a man in uniform galloped into the square. Now, we said, we shall get trustworthy information, thinking that this was a Confederate scout. In a moment, however, another cavalryman dashed around the corner, and fired a pistol at a fugitive clad in Confederate gray. The truth instantly flashed upon us, and with a cry of 'Yankees!' we all sprang to our feet. Not much alarmed myself, I called to my friends, 'Don't run!' but the most of them, disregarding my advice, took themselves off in remarkably quick time. The strange intruders, coming upon us as suddenly as if they had dropped out of the summer sky, now poured into the square and overflowed all the streets. Boldly standing my ground, I approached the first officer I could make out, and requested permission to go at once to my home on the outskirts of the village. He informed me that I must wait until the arrival of the colonel in command. So it was that for a space of five or ten minutes I may be said to have been a prisoner under the flag of my country. The colonel soon rode up, a stalwart, square-built, kindly-faced Kentuckian—Colonel Adams, as I afterward learned—who promptly granted my request, and directed an officer to see me safe through the crowd of soldiers. At my gate I found two or three soldiers, quietly behaved, and simply asking for food. Gratefully receiving such as we could give them, they departed, leaving us quite unharmed.

By permission of Dick & Fitzgerald, New York. From "Twelve Decisive Battles of the War."

"In November an important ministerial service called me to southwestern Georgia, and, as all seemed quiet about Atlanta, I hesitatingly ventured, accompanied by my wife, upon the journey. Starting homeward after a few days, we reached Forsyth, and paused there on the edge of the desert. For a desert it was that stretched for some sixty miles between us and Madison, a terra incognita, over which no adventurous explorer had passed since Sherman's legions had blotted out all knowledge of it. Only wild rumors filled the air. At last a friend took the serious risk of letting us have his carriage, with a pair of mules and a negro driver, for the perilous journey. Having crossed the Ocmulgee, we at once struck the track of Sherman's army, his right, under Howard, having kept near the river. In that day's ride we met on the road but one human being—a negro on horseback. A white woman rushed frantically from her little cabin to inquire if any more Yankees were coming, a question which I ventured to answer with a very confident negative. Rather late in the afternoon, as we were passing a pleasant farm-house, a gentleman came out to our carriage and with a very solemn voice and manner warned us against going any further. He had just been informed that ten thousand Yankee soldiers were at somebody's mills, not far away, and he declared that we were driving straight into their ranks. This staggered me for a moment. But a little reflection convinced me of the violent improbability of the rumor, and a little further reflection determined me to go on. From that moment to the evening hour when we drew up before a planter's house to spend the night, we saw not a human being, scarcely a living thing. Indeed, the wide, dead silence was the most marked sign that we were in the path over which a few days before a great army had passed. The road here and there was considerably cut up, showing that heavy wagons had recently gone over it. Fences were frequently down or missing, and two or three heaps of blackened ruins, surmounted by solitary chimneys, denoted that the torch had done some destructive work. The next day, in passing through Monticello, I saw the charred remains of the county jail, but the signs of conflagration were surprisingly few.

"The family with whom we spent the night had had the strange experience of being for a while in the midst of an encamped army. The soldiers, they informed us, had swarmed about them like bees, but had behaved as well as soldiers commonly do. The planter's horses and cattle had been freely appropriated, and as much of his corn and vegetables as were needed; but there was no complaint of violence or rudeness, and an ample supply of the necessaries of life was left for his household. Indeed, from my observations in this trip across the line of Sherman's march, that march, so far from having been signalized by wanton destruction, was decidedly merciful. No doubt bummers and camp followers committed many atrocities, but the progress of the army proper was attended by no unusual incidents of severity. The year had been one of exceptional bounty, and there was no want in Sherman's rear. Such was the plenty that I believe he might have retraced his steps and subsisted his army on the country.

"On reaching Madison we found the place substantially intact. Not a house had been destroyed, not a citizen harmed or insulted. The greatest sufferers from the invasion were the turkeys and chickens. The country was thickly strewn with the feathers of these slaughtered innocents. When I expressed to a friend some doubt as to Sherman's ability to reach the sea, he replied, 'If you had been here and seen the sort of men composing his cohorts, you would not question that they could go wherever they had a mind to.'

"Our life between the time of Sherman's march and Lee's surrender, with the scenes and incidents that attended and followed that surrender, was as strange and abnormal as a bad dream. We had, indeed, an abundance of the necessary articles of food and clothing. I have hardly ever lived in more physical comfort than during the last year of the war. The few fowls that had escaped the voracious appetites of the invaders soon provided a fresh supply of chickens and eggs. Coffee at twenty-five dollars a pound (Confederate money), and sugar at not much less cost, were attainable, and I managed to keep a fair supply of them for my little family. But though our physical conditions were tolerable, life was subject to a painful strain of uncertainty and anxiety, relieved only by the conviction that the war, of which all were weary and sick unto death, was nearly over. When the end came, confusion was confounded in a jumble so bewildering as scarcely to be credited with reality. The town streets and country roads were full of negroes, wandering about idle and aimless, going they knew not whither—a pitiful spectacle of enfranchised slaves dazed by their recent boon of liberty. Presently Union soldiers were everywhere. A German colonel, lately a New York broker, moved among us in the spick-and-span bravery of his uniform, the sovereign arbiter of our destinies. The world had rarely presented such a topsy-turvy condition of things, half tragical, half comical.

"As soon as matters had sufficiently quieted down to warrant it, I resolved on a visit to my Northern friends, toward whom my heart yearned. My point of departure was Atlanta, still a desolation of falling walls, blackened chimneys, and almost undistinguishable streets. How queer it was to be again in the great world! How splendid Nashville, Louisville, and Cincinnati appeared, with their brilliant gaslights, crowded thoroughfares, showy shop windows, and fashionably dressed people! Evidently war here, whatever it had meant of sorrow and deprivation, had not been war as we had known it in the beleaguered, invaded, blockaded South. This prosperity was all but incredible when contrasted with Southern poverty, distress, and desolation."¹

¹ Atlantic Monthly for October, 1889.

POTTER HOUSE, ATLANTA—SHOWING EFFECT OF ARTILLERY FIRE. (From a Government photograph.)

When Hood found that he could not lure Sherman away from Atlanta, or make him loose his hold upon that prize of his long campaign, he turned toward Nashville, under orders from Richmond, hoping to destroy the army that Thomas was organizing. He was hindered by heavy rains, and it was late in November when he arrived at Duck River, about forty miles south of the city. Here he found a force, under Gen. John M. Schofield, which was easily flanked by crossing the river, whereupon Schofield fell back to Franklin, on Harpeth River, eighteen miles from Nashville, intrenched a line south and west of the town, with both flanks resting on bends of the river, and got his artillery and trains across the stream, placing the guns where they could play upon any attacking force. Schofield had about twenty-five thousand men, and Hood over forty thousand. In the afternoon of November 30 the attack was made. Schofield's rear guard, consisting of Wagner's brigade, instead of falling back to the main body, as ordered, so as to permit the fire of the whole line to be poured into the advancing enemy, attempted to withstand the Confederate onset. Of course it was quickly swept back, and as the men rushed in confusion into the lines they were closely followed by the enemy, who captured a portion of the intrenchments. From a part of the line thus seized they were driven in turn, but they clung tenaciously to the remainder, and Schofield established a new line a few rods in the rear.

BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOSEPH W. FISHER.	CAPTAIN JOSEPH B. FORAKER. (Afterward Governor of Ohio.)

Hood's orders to his corps and division commanders were that they were to drive the National army into Harpeth River, while Forrest's cavalry was to cross the river above, sweep down upon the trains, and destroy or capture whatever remnant should have succeeded in crossing the stream. General Schofield did not believe that the attack upon so strong a position would be made in front; he looked for a flank movement, and accordingly, when the battle took place, he was on the north side of the river making arrangements for an adequate means of crossing in case of such movement. But he gave Hood credit for more generalship than he ever possessed. Hood never seemed to have a conception of any method of conducting a battle except by driving his men straight up against the guns and intrenchments of the enemy. In this instance, although he possessed an abundance of artillery, only two batteries were with him. Schofield's line was about a mile and a half long, running through the suburbs of the little town which lay in the bend of the river. The town was approached by three roads, from the southeast, south, and southwest, and along these converging roads Hood pushed the twenty-two thousand men that he brought into the fight. The immediate commander on the field of the National forces was Gen. Jacob D. Cox, who showed himself a masterly tactician and inspiring leader. The works were well planned and very strong, and as the reckless Hood pushed his doomed men up against them they were swept down by front-fire and cross-fire, musketry and artillery, in ghastly heaps along the whole line. When the advanced line was driven back and the centre temporarily broken, the exultant Confederates imagined they were to have everything their own way; and as their divisions came in on converging lines they were crowded together in great masses, through which the fire of the artillery from right and left, as well as the musketry, played with terrible effect. Two companies of one Kentucky regiment were armed with repeating rifles, and their fire alone was equal to that of five hundred ordinary infantrymen. A participant describing the scene at this time says: "From Stiles's and Casement's brigades a blaze of fire leaped from the breastworks and played so incessantly that it appeared to those who saw it as if it had formed a solid plane upon which a man might walk;" and a Confederate staff officer describes it as "a continuous living fringe of flame." Lieutenant Speed, of the Twelfth Kentucky Regiment, says: "The artillery in the line played incessantly, hurling double charges of grape over the field. From Casement and Stiles to the left there was an unabated roar of musketry, which now was continued with intensified fury along Reilly's line up to the pike, and swelled with terrific grandeur along the front all the way to Carter's Creek pike. Along Reilly's line it was a desperate hand-to-hand conflict. Sometimes it seemed that the masses of the assailants would overwhelm all opposition. The struggle was across and over the breastworks. The standards of both armies were upon them at the same time. Muskets flashed in men's faces. Officers fought with the men, musket in hand. The Confederates were at a disadvantage on account of the ditch outside the works, which they could not cross under the blinding storm of lead. Bewildered and confused, they, who had a moment before shouted the cry of victory, could now only receive death and destruction in the most appalling form. In this immediate front the Confederate loss was heavier than at any other point. Here Cleburne fell, almost up to the works; also Granberry and Quarles. The ditch outside the works was filled with killed and wounded men. Confederate officers who witnessed their removal next morning have stated that in places they were piled five deep." The Confederates made in rapid succession so many charges against the new line of works where they had broken the first line, that witnesses differed as to their number. Some counted fourteen, and none counted fewer than ten. But all were in vain. In this action the National troops expended a hundred wagon loads of ammunition, and as the smoke did not rise readily it seemed as if the darkness of night were coming on prematurely. No doubt this circumstance contributed largely to the terrible losses of the Confederates. Forrest's cavalry, which was expected to cross the river and capture Schofield's trains, did not accomplish anything. The reason given for its inaction was lack of ammunition. In this brief and bloody encounter Hood lost more than one-third of his men engaged. His killed numbered one thousand seven hundred and fifty. The number of his wounded can only be computed, but it is not probable that they were fewer than seven thousand. Major Sanders, of the Confederate army, estimates the loss in two of the brigades at sixty-five per cent. These losses included Major-Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne and Brig.-Gens. John Adams, Oscar F. Strahl, S. R. Gist, and H. B. Granberry, all killed; also six general officers wounded and one captured; and more than thirty colonels and lieutenant-colonels were killed or wounded. Schofield lost two thousand five hundred men, and his army took seven hundred prisoners and thirty-three stands of colors. At midnight Schofield crossed the river and retreated to Nashville. Hood followed him, and there confronted the whole of Thomas's army. Schofield has been criticised for thus retreating after his victory; but if he had remained at Franklin the conditions for a battle the next day would have been materially changed. Hood brought up all his artillery in the night, intending to open upon the works in the morning, and it is not probable that Forrest's vigorous cavalry would have remained inactive another day.

SHERMAN'S FORAGERS ON A GEORGIA PLANTATION.

Everybody complained of Thomas's slowness, and he was in imminent danger of being superseded; but he would not assume the offensive till he felt that his army was prepared to make sure work. When all was ready, he still had to delay because of bad weather; but on the 15th of December (one day after Sherman reached the sea) the long-meditated blow was given. Thomas's army advanced against Hood's, striking it simultaneously in front and on the left flank. The weight of the attack fell upon the flank, which was completely crushed, and a part of the intrenchments with their guns fell into the hands of the National forces. In the night Hood retreated a mile or two, to another line on the hills, made some new dispositions, and awaited attack. He was seriously embarrassed by the absence of a large part of Forrest's cavalry, which should have been protecting his flanks. In the afternoon of the 16th, Thomas, having sent Wilson's cavalry around the enemy's left flank, attacked with his whole force. He made no headway against Hood's right, but again he crushed the left flank, and followed up the advantage so promptly and vigorously that all organization in the Confederate army was lost, and what was left of it fled in wild confusion toward Franklin, pursued by Wilson's cavalry. Thomas captured all their artillery and took forty-five hundred prisoners. The number of their killed and wounded was never reported. His own loss was about three thousand. Brig.-Gen. Sylvester G. Hill was among the killed.