Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel Prisons

by William W. Day

Sometime in the month of November, a rumor was circulated that an exchange had been agreed upon, between the two Governments, and that Savannah was the point agreed upon for the exchange. But while we were hopeful that this might be true, we were doubtful. That story had been told so many times that it had become thin and gauzy from wear. In a few days, however, a lot of prisoners came in who reported that an exchange of sick had actually been in progress, but that the near approach of Sherman’s army had discontinued it, until another point could be agreed upon.

Here was news with a vengeance. We had been told that Sherman would be annihilated, that he could never reach the coast, and here came the news that his army was not only all right, but was almost to the coast. And further that our Government was still making efforts for our relief. “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” and here for the first time, we had reasonable grounds for hope.

On the 25th of September General Hood had got into General Sherman’s rear and started north. But Sherman had anticipated just such a move and had provided for it by sending one division to Chattanooga, and another division to Rome, Ga. On the 29th Sherman sent Thomas back to Chattanooga and afterward to Nashville.

General Sherman then divided his army into two wings. The right wing in command of General O. O. Howard, and the left wing in command of General Slocum. Hood had started out to return a Roland for an Oliver. Forrest was operating in Tennessee and Kentucky, and menacing the States north of the Ohio river. Hood’s plan was to join him and while Sherman was living upon short commons in Georgia, his army would be reveling in the rich spoils of Northern States. The idea was a good one, the point was to carry it out.

On the fifth of October Hood destroyed a considerable length of railroad north of Atlanta. Sherman, from a high point, saw the railroad burning for miles. At Alatoona General Corse had a small force, among his troops was the 4th Minnesota, which earned a record, in the defense of that mountain pass which will go down to the ages yet to come, in the history of the war. From the heights of Kenesaw, Sherman’s signal officer read a dispatch, signaled from a hole in the block-house at Alatoona; “I am short a cheek bone and part of an ear, but we can whip all hell yet.

Corse,

Com’d’g.”

Tradition says that Sherman signaled “hold the fort, I am coming,” but I believe Sherman denies this. At any rate, the fact that Corse did hold the fort, and that he knew from the signal corps on Kenesaw that Sherman was coming to his aid, gave rise to the thoughts that inspired the writer of the little poem, “Hold the fort, for I am coming.”

Sherman strengthened Thomas by sending Stanley with the 4th corps and ordering Schofield with the Army of the Ohio to report to him. On the 2d of November General Grant approved Sherman’s plan of the campaign to the sea, and on the 10th he started back to Atlanta. The real march to the sea commenced on the 15th. Howard with the right wing and cavalry, went to Jonesboro and Milledgeville, then the capital of Georgia. Slocum with the left wing went to Stone Mountain to threaten Augusta.

The people of the South became frantic when they found Sherman had cut loose. They could not divine his movements. He threatened one point and when the enemy had been drawn thither for its protection, he threatened another point. Frantic appeals were made for the people to turn out and drive the invader from the soil. They took the cadets from the Military College and added them to the ranks of the Militia. They went so far as to liberate the convicts from the State Prison, on promise that they would join the army. But Sherman moved along leisurely, at the rate of fifteen miles a day, burning railroad bridges and destroying miles upon miles of track. The Southern papers, from which we had received the news at Florence, pictured the army as in a most deplorable condition. Saying the army was all broken up and disorganized, and was each man for himself, making his way to the sea coast to seek the protection of the navy. Some of these papers reached the North and the news was copied into the Northern papers and spread like wildfire, creating a great deal of uneasiness in the minds of those who had friends in that army.