General Sherman’s army was marching through Georgia.
At daybreak the pillar of cloud went before him, and at night great bonfires of burning homes lit up their rearward. The strong fled at their approach, and the weak trembled and prayed.
There was a day when the foragers of the victorious veterans reached the home of an old couple who lived with their few slaves in the path of the devourer. They had but returned from the burial of a little baby boy, a colored baby whose mother was the faithful old cook, Mary Ann, and whose father was a brother of the Chronicle’s Joe in Charleston. They were standing under the vine-colored doorway looking at a dense smoke rising in the direction of a neighbor’s, when a squad of soldiers in blue came up.
“Old woman, we are hungry. Got anything to eat?”
The best the white-haired grandmother had was set before them, and when it was gone—more. At last one of them said:
“Madam, you had best hide everything you have, or by this time to-morrow you will have nothing.”
“Shet up, ol’ Secesh!” said another.
When the men had gone, they dug little holes and hid their few treasures; a dozen knives and forks and as many spoons, and the old man took his watch and put it far up the chimney. By the time it was done, blue-coated soldiers were swarming all over the premises.
“Old man, come out here!”
When he followed some men into the bushes, they made merry with the grandmother.