CHAPTER XLII
General Sherman’s army was marching through Georgia.
At daybreak the pillar of cloud went before him, and at night great bonfires of burning homes lit up their rearward. The strong fled at their approach, and the weak trembled and prayed.
There was a day when the foragers of the victorious veterans reached the home of an old couple who lived with their few slaves in the path of the devourer. They had but returned from the burial of a little baby boy, a colored baby whose mother was the faithful old cook, Mary Ann, and whose father was a brother of the Chronicle’s Joe in Charleston. They were standing under the vine-colored doorway looking at a dense smoke rising in the direction of a neighbor’s, when a squad of soldiers in blue came up.
“Old woman, we are hungry. Got anything to eat?”
The best the white-haired grandmother had was set before them, and when it was gone—more. At last one of them said:
“Madam, you had best hide everything you have, or by this time to-morrow you will have nothing.”
“Shet up, ol’ Secesh!” said another.
When the men had gone, they dug little holes and hid their few treasures; a dozen knives and forks and as many spoons, and the old man took his watch and put it far up the chimney. By the time it was done, blue-coated soldiers were swarming all over the premises.
“Old man, come out here!”
When he followed some men into the bushes, they made merry with the grandmother.
“Old woman, where is your silver?”
Silence.
“Where is the silver?”
By this time the smoke-house was on fire and a half dozen bales of cotton were burning. The negro slaves gathered in terror.
Soon the white-haired man came back, his face purple, his eyes bloodshot, his step tremulous.
“Give me my watch, Mary.”
“Why, Henry, it is not theirs!”
“Give it. They have choked me nearly to death.”
The old man staggered to his chair. They had taken him to the swamp, and bending a small sapling over the road, stretched a rope upon it and said:
“Now, old man, tell where you keep your gold.”
“I have no gold, gentlemen.”
“Don’t lie to us. We’ve heard all that before. You might as well tell us first as last. See that rope, you know what it means.”
“I have told you the truth.” The old man was thin and aged.
“Swing him up, boys.”
He dangled from the end of the rope, and then they let him fall.
“Now, where is the gold?”
He did not understand at first, then he said feebly:
“The gold—oh, yes, the gold—. I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have no gold.”
“Swing him up again.”
The jerk on his neck well-nigh broke it, and the suffocation was almost too much.
“Will you remember now where it is?”
“The gold—oh, yes, gentlemen,” dazedly, “I’m sorry, but I have no gold.”.
“Swing the damned rebel once more.”
It was really useless, for he was insensible, and when he fell he looked like a dead man. His withered old hand and his thin gray hair and his weak aged heart could not stand much. He was totally unconscious.
“We nearly went too far that time, boys.”
When he came to, they were bathing his face in the brook.
“Oh, yes,” he said, involuntarily, “the gold. It is as I have said—only the watch I told you of at first. I am an old man now and have no use for gold.”
So they brought him back to the house.
“Old woman, fork out that watch.”
“I will not do it.”
“You will!”
They were coming towards her when the one whom they had called “old Secesh,” entered, and they stopped.
“Men, for shame! For shame! Don’t dare touch that old woman! The first man who touches these old people will be shot,” he continued, raising his gun, and they went sullenly out into the yard.
And when they had gone, they had taken all—the sweet potatoes in the hills, the corn, bacon, flour, the cows, cooking utensils, anything any one wanted. And “old Secesh” stayed by the aged woman’s side.
“It is a shame,” he said, apologetically. “If only Grant were our commander! This isn’t the way he and Lee fight.”
At intervals other soldiers came, and finding all taken, passed on. To one she looked up reproachfully, and said, as she listened to the groans of the negroes about their burning cabins.
“And yet you say you are the friends of our negroes?”
“We came to save the Union. Damn the niggers,” was the reply she received; and then the man continued:
“You think Georgy is havin’ a bad time of it, old woman—jes’ wait till we git to Ca’liny, we’ll grease her over and burn her up. That’s where treason begun, an’, by God, that’s where it shall end!”
“Yes, and old Columbia’ll be red, white and blue when we’re done,” chimed in another.
At sunset the aged woman went out into the empty yards and an old negro mammy was sitting on her porch, her body swaying backward and forward, as is the custom of the race when in the deepest misery. Occasionally a low moan and the ringing of hands in silent sorrow. Then seeing her mistress approaching, she cried out:
“Mistis, what kind of folks is dese here Yankees? Dey won’ eben let de daid rest in de grabe.”
“Why, Mary Ann, what is it?”
“You know my little John, what was buried yistiddy? Ain’t dey done tuk him up and lef’ him on de top o’ de groun’ fer de hogs to root?”
The soldiers had seen the fresh earth, and they mistook the new-made grave for hidden treasures, and “a little dead nigger was not worth reburying.”
So the black mother rocked and moaned in horror and agony.
And that night by the campfires not far away, a man was warming his hands and saying:
“Dees tarn rebels down here tink dey haf a hard time in Georgy—jus’ wait till we strike South Ca’liny oncet. We’ll burn ’em up all to oncet already.”
“Have you heard what Sherman says, Dutchy?” a soldier asked.
“I know what Cheneral Sherman haf say, and I will carry it oud entirely. Ve vill burn up that Columbia ven de tree rockets goes up oncet. Ve vill gif dem hell already, dey hadn’t ought ter lef’ de glorious union,” and he laughed knowingly.
“General Sherman didn’t say that.”
“Ach, mein Gott, don’t I know vat Cheneral Sherman say and tink? Ach, he ain’t say nothings, aber he think a blicky full. You jus’ vait till we burn dat Columbia, and Cheneral Sherman vill be dere and von’t say one word, py tam!”
To be continued