With Fire and Sword

by S. H. M. Byers

Then forward, boys, forward to battle,
We marched on our wearisome way,
And we stormed the wild hills of Resaca,—
God bless those who fell on that day—
Then Kenesaw, dark in its glory,
Frowned down on the flag of the free,
But the East and the West bore our standards,
And Sherman marched on to the sea.

Still onward we pressed, till our banners
Swept out from Atlanta's grim walls,
And the blood of the patriot dampened
The soil where the traitor flag falls;
But we paused not to weep for the fallen,
Who slept by each river and tree;
Yet we twined them a wreath of the laurel
As Sherman marched down to the sea.

O, proud was our army that morning
That stood where the pine darkly towers,
When Sherman said: "Boys, you are weary,
This day fair Savannah is ours."
Then sang we a song for our chieftain
That echoed over river and lea,
And the stars in our banner shown brighter
When Sherman marched down to the sea.

[Sherman's March to the Sea.—From Eggleston's Famous War Ballads.—General Sherman, in a recent conversation with the editor of this collection, declared that it was this poem with its phrase, "march to the sea," that threw a glamour of romance over the campaign which it celebrates. Said General Sherman: "The thing was nothing more or less than a change of base; an operation perfectly familiar to every military man, but a poet got hold of it, gave it the captivating label, 'The March to the Sea,' and the unmilitary public made a romance out of it." It may be remarked that the General's modesty overlooks the important fact that the romance lay really in his own deed of derring-do; the poet merely recorded it, or at most interpreted it to the popular intelligence. The glory of the great campaign was Sherman's and his army's; the joy of celebrating it was the poet's; the admiring memory of it is the people's.—Editor.]

As stated, I slept nights now on the floor of the prison hospital. This added comfort, however, did not tempt me to stay in prison, if I could get away. Once more we heard that the prisoners were to be carted away to some safer place, out of the line of Sherman's army, now turned North and moving rapidly toward us. A night or two before this move of prisoners really commenced Lieutenant Devine of Philadelphia joined me in an effort to get away. The walls of the least used room of the hospital were made of joined boards. By the use of an old case knife, hacked into a saw, or auger, we managed to cut a hole sufficiently large to permit us to pull ourselves through and out into an attic above a little porch. We repaired the boards as best we could and crept out into the dark hole. It was the attic of the same porch on which our Glee Club stood when they sang my song. It was a little cramped up place we were in, where we could neither sit erect nor lie at full length. There were no guards inside the prison hospital; the night was very dark; the sick prisoners seemed to be sleeping. A dim lamp hung from the ceiling. We were not detected. The next night at midnight, when the prisoners were being marched away, two of them were missing. What a night and day and part of another night that was for us, crooked and cramped as we were, in the top of that little porch.

At the next midnight, when every soul, prisoners, guards and all, seemed to be gone far away and dead silence was upon the place, Devine and I crept down from our hiding place. The big gate was closed and locked. By the aid of a scantling I managed to get up onto the high brick wall. My surprise was immense to see guards waiting for us outside, and to know that we were discovered. One of the guards rushed up to his post at the top of the wall, but he was too late to shoot; we were already in hiding among the empty board huts and barracks.[B]

In a moment the big gate opened and a hundred men rushed in, looking for the escaping Yankees. They howled, they cursed at us, they set the barracks on fire. Then amid the mêlée and excitement in the dark my comrade and myself pulled our gray blankets about us, picked up a water bucket each, and pushed up to the guard at the gate. We were "going for water," we said. "The lieutenant says the fire must be put out." Without waiting a reply we hurried out in the darkness. There were some vain shots after us.

Shortly we heard the tramp of horses coming toward us. A friendly culvert in the road into which we dodged afforded us protection while a whole company of Johnny Rebs rode over our heads. What would they have thought, that night, had they known it as they went skipping along with arms and jingling sabers, to confront Sherman's advance guards?

We were gone. After a while, in the outskirts of the city, we saw a light in a cabin and a negro walking up and down by the window. Every negro we knew to be a loyal friend. This one we called out among some rose bushes in the dooryard. Instantly, and without fear, we told him who we were and that we were in his power. There is not a question but he would have been well rewarded had he betrayed us to the Confederate soldiers in the city that night. Few words were spoken. That morning two escaped prisoners were secreted under some bean stalks in the garret of the negro's cabin. The negro's sick wife lay in the single room below. Had we been discovered now that negro would have been hanged from his own door lintel. And well he knew it.