The forage which we thus gathered was the salvation of our animals and beef cattle. The mules had been on half rations of grain all summer, quite without hay, and the whole country in the vicinity of Atlanta had been grazed over until it was as bare as a city street. The beeves that had been driven down from Louisville, had for weeks nothing to eat save the leaves and sprouts on the bushes. It was a standing joke among the men that the commissary always killed for beef those animals that could not survive until the next day.
The March to the Sea
On October 29 came the first through trains from Chattanooga, after the movement of Hood to the North. On the same day came orders to reduce baggage and prepare for marching. Soon, rumors were spreading about the camp that we were to start on a fifty days' campaign, without communications. On November 4 we were ready to move. I wrote numerous letters of good-bye to friends at home, telling them that they would hear from me next at Charleston or Savannah. I hoped that it would be Charleston, for I wanted the people of South Carolina who started the war to feel its effects and to reap their share of the horrors.
On November 5 we started out and marched three miles from town. The next day, however, we returned in order to wait until the Army of the Tennessee might be paid off. This gave us a chance to vote in the Presidential election, which we had come very near missing. Our Regiment gave Lincoln 304 votes and McClellan 21. For another full week we remained in Atlanta, our Regiment being occupied the entire time in tearing up railroad tracks and destroying everything of value in the city. By the time we were ready to leave, Atlanta was worth little more to the Confederates than any other piece of ground of similar size. On November 15 we started out in earnest on the now famous "March to the Sea." Our last view of Atlanta, the prize for which we had so long struggled, was a column of dense smoke from its burning buildings; we had destroyed everything in town except the churches and private residences.
Our expedition numbered about 50,000 men, under the command of Sherman. Thomas's army remained behind to look after Hood. We took with us only about twenty days' rations, for the country through which we passed was expected to furnish the remainder of our needs. The army proceeded in two columns—the right wing under Howard making for Macon; the left under Slocum making for Augusta. Each corps, also, took a different route in order to be able to subsist more easily on the country.
Our Corps proceeded along the Augusta railroad, which we destroyed as we went along by burning the ties and twisting the heated rails. Parts of the country were poor and furnished little forage. Other portions, however, compensated by giving us an abundance of sweet potatoes and pork, with occasional lots of corn meal, flour, and sorghum, and, for the first arrivals on the plantation, chickens and turkeys. On our route we found plenty of good horses and mules, and all the forage that we could carry off. Occasionally, also the enterprising forager would capture some apple-jack or corn whiskey.
At Madison we turned and took the road to Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia. Geary's Division, however, followed up the railroad to the Oconee River, and destroyed the Oconee bridge. We entered Milledgeville on the 22nd without opposition, and camped in the state-house yard. During our stay, our Regiment and the One Hundred Seventh New York guarded the city. I took up my quarters with an acquaintance of one of my Wisconsin friends, and saw to it that his house and family were not molested. He had several hundred bales of cotton stored near town, which Sherman had consented to have bonded; but some zealous officer or officious "bummer," had set fire to it before it could be saved.
Upon our approach to Milledgeville, Governor Brown of Georgia, had released all of the convicts in the State Prison at that place. In celebration of their freedom, their first act was to destroy the old prison. Our first work was to destroy the Milledgeville arsenal, in which was stored a large quantity of Confederate arms and ammunition. We carried out and threw into the river, all of the ammunition in the magazine, and burned up all of the arms and equipment. Besides several thousand stands of good arms, there were a lot of old-fashioned rifles and shot-guns, and thousands of pikes and bowie knives that had been manufactured by the State for the militia, with which to repel Yankees. In the state-house were millions of dollars of Georgia State money, in bills of all denominations and to these the men helped themselves without limit. All of the cotton in the vicinity that could be burned without endangering good buildings, was destroyed, and that which was stored in the city was bonded not to be turned over to the Confederate Government, or used for its benefit. I was sent out with a detachment of men to search the stores for tobacco, and found enough to load several wagons, which kept the army supplied with that article until we reached Savannah.