Life and Military Career of Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman

by P. C. Headley

“L. M. Dayton, Aide-de-Camp.”

I am sure you will read with lively interest the remarkable correspondence between General Hood, with that of the city authorities, and General Sherman. The favorite motto among literary men, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” is not quite true perhaps of our hero; for he excels in the use of both, as the Georgia campaign and letters will show. The annals of war have no finer productions of cultivated genius from the plains of death and victory. The following orders opened the spirited battle of the chiefs with the weapons of intellect:

“Headquarters, Military Div. of the Miss., }

In the Field, Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 4. }

“1. The city of Atlanta being exclusively required for warlike purposes, will at once be vacated by all except the armies of the United States, and such civilian employés as may be retained by the proper departments of Government.

“2. The chief quartermaster, Colonel Easton, will at once take possession of buildings of all kinds, and of all staple article, such as cotton, tobacco, &c., and will make such dispositions of them as are required by existing regulations, or such orders as he may receive from time to time from the proper authorities.

“3. The chief engineer will promptly reconnoitre the city and suburbs, and indicate the sites needed for the permanent defence of the place, together with any houses or other buildings that stand in his way, that they may be set apart for destruction. Colonel Easton will then, on consultation with the proper officers of the ordnance, quartermaster, medical, and railroad departments, set aside such buildings and lots of ground as will be needed for them, and have them suitably marked and set apart; he will then, in consultation with Generals Thomas and Slocum, set apart such as may be necessary to the proper administration of the military duties of the department of the Cumberland and of the post of Atlanta, and all buildings and materials not thus embraced will be held subject to the use of the Government, as may hereafter arise, according to the just rules of the quartermaster’s department.

“4. No general, staff, or other officer, or any soldier, will, on any pretence, occupy any house or shanty, unless it be embraced in the limits assigned as the camp of the troops to which such general or staff belongs. But the chief quartermaster may allow the troops to use boards, shingles, or other materials of building, barns, sheds, warehouses and shanties, not needed by the proper departments of Government, to be used in the reconstruction of quarters and barracks as the troops and officers serving with them require. And he will also provide, as early as practicable, the proper allowance of tents for the use of the officers and men in their encampments.

“5. In proper time, just arrangements will be made for the supply to the troops of all articles they may need over and above the clothing, provisions, &c., furnished by the Government; and on no pretence whatever will traders, manufacturers, or suttlers, be allowed to sell in the limits of fortified places; and if they manage to come in spite of this notice, the quartermaster will seize their stores and appropriate them to the use of the troops, and deliver the parties or other unauthorized citizens, who thus place their individual interest above that of the United States, into the hands of some provost-marshal, to be put to labor on the forts, or conscripted into one of the regiments or batteries already in service.

“6. The same general principles will apply to all military posts south of Chattanooga.