"Three miles," said one.
"Two miles and a half, I reckon," said a second.
"Three miles and three quarters," was the estimate of a third person.
A woman, dressed in a plaid petticoat, a snuff-colored linsey-woolsey tunic, with a tawny countenance, black hair, and flashing black eyes, smoking a pipe, said: "I'll tell yer how fur it be. Savannah be a frying-pan and Thunderbolt be the handle, and I live on the eend on it. It be four miles long, zactly."
Two colored soldiers rode up, both on one horse, with "55" on their caps.
"What regiment do you belong to?"
"The Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts."
Their camp was a mile or so up river. A steamboat captain, who wished to communicate with the quartermaster, came upstream in his boat and kindly offered to take us to the Fifty-Fifth. It began to rain, and we landed near a fine old mansion surrounded by live-oaks, their gnarled branches draped with festoons of moss, where we thought to find accommodations for the night; but no one answered our ringing. The doors were open, the windows smashed in; marble mantels, of elaborate workmanship, marred and defaced; the walls written over with doggerel. There were bunks in the parlors, broken crockery, old boots,—débris everywhere.
The committee took possession of the premises and made themselves at home before a roaring fire, while the writer went out upon a reconnoissance, bringing back the intelligence that the camp of the Fifty-Fifth was a mile farther up the river. It was dark when we reached the hospitable shanty of Lieutenant-Colonel Fox, who, in the absence of Colonel Hartwell, was commanding the regiment, which had been there but twenty-four hours. The soldiers had no tents.
One of the committee rode into Savannah, through a drenching rain, to report to General Grover. The night came on thick and dark. The rain was pouring in torrents. Colonel Fox, with great kindness, offered to escort us to a house near by, where we could find shelter. We splashed through the mud, holding on to each other's coat-tails, going over boots in muddy water, tumbling over logs, losing our way, being scratched by brambles, falling into ditches, bringing up against trees, halting at length against a fence,—following which we reached the house. The owner had fled, and the occupant had moved in because it was a free country and the place was inviting. He had no bed for us, but quickly kindled a fire in one of the chambers and spread some quilts upon the floor. "I haven't much wood, but I reckon I can pick up something that will make a fire," said he. Then came the pitch-pine staves of a rice-cask; then a bedstead, a broken chair, a wooden flowerpot!