“But when, as I said, I got back to his house, I found the soldiers slaughtering his hogs right and left. They killed every one. So much for his lack of faith. But the worst part of the joke was, they borrowed his cart to carry off his own hogs to the wagon-train which was passing on another road half a mile away. They said they’d bring it back in an hour. As it didn’t come, he went for it, and found they’d piled rails on to it and burnt it. I had taken care of my wagons, and he might have done the same with his. But that’s the difference between a Northern and a Southern man.
“Monday I returned home, and found my family living on corn-meal bran. They had been robbed of everything. The soldiers had even taken the hat off from my little grandson’s head, six years old. They took a mother-hen away from her little peeping chickens. There were fifty or a hundred soldiers in the house all one day, breaking open chests and bureaus; and those that come after took what the first had left. My folks asked for protection, being Northern people; and there was one officer who knew them; but he could control only his own men. So we fared no better than our neighbors.”
The staging to Scarborough was very rough; but our route lay through beautiful pine woods, carpeted with wild grass. It was January, but the spring frogs were singing.
The best rolling-stock of the Central Road had been run up to Macon on Sherman’s approach, and could not be got down again. So I had the pleasure of riding from Scarborough to Savannah in an old car crowded full of wooden chairs, in place of the usual seats.
The comments of the passengers on the destruction wrought by Sherman were sometimes bitter, sometimes sentimental. A benevolent gentleman remarked: “How much good might be done with the millions of property destroyed, by building new railroads elsewhere!” To which a languishing lady replied: “What is the use of building railroads for slaves to ride on? I’d rather be free, and take it afoot, than belong to the Yankees, and ride.”
Our route lay along the low, level borders of the Ogeechee River, the soil of which is too cold for cotton. We passed immense swamps, in the perfectly still waters of which the great tree-trunks were mirrored. And all the way the spring frogs kept up their shrill singing.
At some of the stations I saw bales of Northern hay that had come up from Savannah. “There is a commentary on our style of farming,” said an intelligent planter from near Millen. “This land, though worthless for cotton, could be made to grow splendid crops of grass,—and we import our hay.”
CHAPTER LXX.
A GLANCE AT SAVANNAH.
On the 16th of November, 1864, Sherman began his grand march from Atlanta. In less than a month his army had made a journey of three hundred miles, consuming and devastating the country. On December 13th, by the light of the setting sun, General Hazen’s Division of the 15th Corps made it’s brilliant and successful assault on Fort McAlister on the Ogeechee, opening the gate to Savannah and the sea. On the night of the 20th, Savannah was hurriedly evacuated by the Rebels, and occupied by Sherman on the 21st. The city, with a thousand prisoners, thirty-five thousand bales of cotton, two hundred guns, three steamers, and valuable stores, thus fell into our hands without a battle. Within forty-eight hours a United States transport steamer came to the wharf, and the new base of supplies, about which we were all at that time so anxious, was established.
The city was on fire during the evacuation. Six squares and portions of other squares were burned. At the same time a mob collected and commenced breaking into stores and dwellings. The destroyers of railroads were in season to save the city from the violence of its own citizens.