The morning dawned bright and clear. General Grover sent out horses for us, and so we reached the city after many vexatious delays and rough experiences.
The people in Savannah generally were ready to live once more in the Union. The fire of Secession had died out. There was not much sourness,—less even than I saw at Memphis when that city fell into our hands, less than was manifested in Louisville at the beginning of the war.
At a meeting of the citizens resolutions expressive of gratitude for the charity bestowed by Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were passed, also of a desire for future fellowship and amity.
A store at the corner of Bay and Barnard Streets was taken for a depot, the city canvassed, and a registry made of all who were in want. I passed a morning among the people who came for food. The air was keen. Ice had formed in the gutters, and some of the jolly young negroes, who had provided themselves with old shoes and boots from the camp-grounds of Sherman's soldiers, were enjoying the luxurious pastime of a slide on the ice. The barefooted cuddled under the sunny side of the buildings. There was a motely crowd. Hundreds of both sexes, all ages, sizes, complexions, and costumes; gray-haired old men of Anglo-Saxon blood, with bags, bottles, and baskets; colored patriarchs, who had been in bondage many years, suddenly made freemen; well-dressed women wearing crape for their husbands and sons who had fallen while fighting against the old flag, stood patiently waiting their turn to enter the building, where through the open doors they could see barrels of flour, pork, beans, and piles of bacon, hogsheads of sugar, molasses, and vinegar. There were women with tattered dresses,—old silks and satins, years before in fashion, and laid aside as useless, but which now had become valuable through destitution.
There were women in linsey-woolsey, in negro and gunny cloth, in garments made from meal-bags, and men in Confederate gray and butternut brown; a boy with a crimson plush jacket, made from the upholstering of a sofa; men in short jackets, and little boys in long ones; the cast-off clothes of soldiers; the rags which had been picked up in the streets, and exhumed from garrets; boots and shoes down at the heel, open at the instep, and gaping at the toes; old bonnets of every description, some with white and crimson feathers, and ribbons once bright and flaunting; hats of every style worn by both sexes, palm-leaf, felt, straw, old and battered and well ventilated. One without a crown was worn by a man with red hair, suggestive of a chimney on fire, and flaming out at the top! It was the ragman's jubilee for charity.
One of the tickets issued by the city authorities, in the hand of a woman waiting her turn at the counter, read thus:—
| "CITY STORE. | |||
| Mary Morrell. | |||
| 12 | lbs. | Flour, | |
| 7 | " | Bacon, | |
| 2 | " | Salt, | |
| 2 | qts. | Vinegar." | |
Andersonville, Belle Isle, Libby Prison, Millen, and Salisbury will forever stand in suggestive contrast to this City Store in Savannah, furnished by the free-will offering of the loyal people of the North.
"At Libby," reads the report of the United States Sanitary Committee, "a process of slow starvation was carried on. The corn-bread was of the roughest and coarsest description. Portions of the cob and husk were often found grated in with the meal. The crust was so thick and hard that the prisoners called it 'iron clad.' To render the bread eatable they grated it, and made mush of it; but the crust they could not grate. Now and then, after long intervals, often of many weeks, a little meat was given them, perhaps two or three mouthfuls. At a later period they received a pint of black peas, with some vinegar, every week; the peas were often full of worms, or maggots in a chrysalis state, which, when they made soup, floated on the surface.... But the most unaccountable and shameful act of all was yet to come. Shortly after this general diminution of rations, in the month of January, the boxes (sent by friends in the North to the prisoners), which before had been regularly delivered, and in good order, were withheld. No reason was given. Three hundred arrived every week, and were received by Colonel Ould, Commissioner of Exchange; but instead of being distributed, they were retained and piled up in warehouses near by, in full sight of the tantalized and hungry captives."[75]
While these supplies were being distributed to the people of Savannah, thirty thousand Union prisoners in the hands of the Rebels in Southwestern Georgia were starving to death,—not from a scarcity of food, but in accordance with a deliberately formed plan to render them unfit for future service in the Union ranks by their inhuman treatment, should they live to be exchanged.