CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF THE ANDREWS RAIDERS.

Captain William A. Fuller and his comrades of the pursuit.--The race of the engines, “The General” and “The Texas.”

In the early part of 1862 the army of the Cumberland and also that of the Tennessee had grown to gigantic proportions. The history of that memorable era establishes the fact that in the month of February of that year the army of the Cumberland, commanded by General Buell, had captured Fort Donaldson and several other strong strategic points on the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers. Numerically the Federal Army was so much stronger than the Confederate that large detachments could easily be made for incursions into the interior and unprotected sections of middle and West Tennessee, while the main army steadily advanced down the Mississippi Valley. By the first of April, General Mitchell had occupied Shelbyville and other cities, including Nashville; and the larger towns and railroad stations in the neighborhood South and East of Nashville had been occupied by the Federals.

Recognizing the importance of saving to the Confederate cause everything necessary to sustain life both of man and beast, all that could be brought out of Kentucky and Tennessee had been sent South--to Atlanta and other important points--so that those States were literally stripped of all surplus food.

The army of the Tennessee, under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, sought to meet General Buell and dispute his further advance. Corinth, Mississippi, was selected by General Johnston as a point beyond which the army of the Cumberland should not go. This position commanded the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, as well as others running south of that point. By the fifth of April General Buell’s army had massed at Pittsburg Landing, and along a line reaching south and parallel to that of General Johnston. Relatively the armies stood about five to eight, the Confederate of course being the smaller. They met in battle on the 6th day of April at Shiloh, so-called by the Federals, but Southern historians call it the battle of Corinth. The fight was a long and disastrous one--disastrous to both armies--but the Federals, having an unbounded supply of everything needed in war, and being immediately strengthened by large reinforcements which literally poured in, were enabled to rapidly recuperate. The Confederates lost heavily in killed and wounded, and suffered irreparably by the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston. The loss of this noble man was deeply felt and regretted by the entire South. The week following this horrible carnage was mainly taken up by both armies in burying the dead, caring for the wounded, fortifying, receiving reinforcements and maneuvering for advantageous positions.

General Mitchell, as already stated, had occupied Shelbyville, and had a considerable force. Some cavalry had penetrated as far south-east as Chattanooga, and had several times dropped a few shell into that town.

After the death of General Johnston the Confederate Army at Corinth was put under the command of General Beauregard. There were small detachments of Confederate troops distributed along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad to Stephenson, and from there to Chattanooga; also from Chattanooga to Bristol, on the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, and on the Virginia and Tennessee. These were to guard the railroad bridges, depots, and government stores, etc. General Ledbetter was stationed at Chattanooga with about three thousand men. There was a tolerably strong guard at London bridge, where the East Tennessee railroad crosses the Tennessee river; and General E. Kirby Smith occupied Knoxville, with a sufficient force to protect that important point as against General Morgan in his immediate front with a strong force. East Tennessee was very nearly evenly divided between Federals and Confederate sympathizers. Neither side was safe from betrayal. Those who were true to the Southern cause distinguished themselves as officials and soldiers, and those who were recreant to it were a source of great annoyance and disaster; and this applies to Kentucky and West Virginia as well. During the month of April, 1862, Brownlow, and those of his opinion, were arrested, and imprisoned in Knoxville.

The strict rules of the passport system had not yet been adopted by southern army commanders, and it was no difficult matter for friend or foe to pass the lines.

Thus matters stood at that time. The reader, therefore, may be prepared to appreciate one of the most exciting, thrilling and interesting stories of the Civil Contest.

The Western and Atlantic Railroad (often called the State Road) at the time discussed in the preceding pages, was the only line of communication between the southern centre of the Confederate States and the Army of Tennessee. It was worthy of notice that this road was not paralleled by any of the roads now in existence. The Memphis and Charleston Railroad came into the Nashville and Chattanooga at Stevenson as now, and the latter road reached from Nashville to Chattanooga. The East Tennessee and Georgia Road also came into Chattanooga then as now, and also into Dalton. These three railroad lines were “the feeders” for the Western and Atlantic Railroad at Chattanooga and Dalton. At the south or Atlanta end of that line we had the old Macon & Western (now the Georgia Central), the Atlanta and West Point, and the Georgia Railroad, as feeders for the Western and Atlantic, which reached from Atlanta via Dalton to Chattanooga. As has been stated, the Army of Tennessee, under General Beauregard at Corinth, the army under General E. Kirby Smith at Knoxville, the army under General Ledbetter at Chattanooga, and all detailed men on duty along the whole front of the Confederates from Corinth to Bristol, depended upon this single line (the old reliable Western and Atlantic Railroad) for army supplies. There was no other road in the whole distance of eight hundred miles, reaching from Mobile, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, that ran north and south. These facts were well known to northern commanders, and it has always seemed strange that the road should have been so unprotected. The many bridges on the Western and Atlantic were guarded at the time under consideration, April 1862, by a single watchman at each bridge, and he was employed by the railroad authorities. The bridges were of the Howe Tress pattern, weatherboarded with common wooden boards, and covered with shingles. They were exceedingly inflammable and could easily have been set on fire.

One of the rules for the running of the trains was that “if any two trains failed to make the meeting point they would be considered irregular trains, and the conductor of each train should be required to send a flagman ahead, and thus proceed until the two flagmen met.” This cumbersome rule frequently occasioned great disorder, and sometimes many trains of all grades were massed together at one station. Railroad men will understand this condition of affairs. These things were known and understood not only by the Confederates, but by the Federals through their spies. J. J. Andrews especially understood them, as the sequel will prove.

It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the plans adopted by Captain J. J. Andrews and his twenty-two auxiliaries, to descend into the heart of the South; suffice it to say, their plans were successful, and they passed the Confederate lines and entered the pretty town of Marietta, twenty miles north of Atlanta, unmolested and unsuspected. The solving of the mystery will appear at the proper time. For present purposes it is enough to state that they not only entered the town mentioned, but boarded the north-bound train on the morning of April 12th, 1862. The well-known and intrepid Captain William A. Fuller was the conductor in charge of that train--the now celebrated “General” was his engine--and Jeff Cain his engineer. There was nothing suspicious in the environments of the occasion. In those days it was not unusual, even in a country town, for a large number of men to board a train, and they were coming in from all over the country to join the Confederate army.

There was a Camp of Instruction at Big Shanty, seven miles north of Marietta, and this fact, as well as many others more important, was known to Andrews, who from the beginning of the war had been “a commercial traveller,” “in full sympathy with the South,” and had ridden over this line many times. The conductor, therefore, took up the tickets as usual, some to one point and some to another, but the most of them to Big Shanty. The raiders were dressed in various styles and appeared like a good class of countrymen. They claimed to be “refugees from beyond the Lincoln lines.”

Big Shanty was a mere station, having only one or two business houses, and noted by the traveling public as having a most excellent “eating-house” for the accommodation of the passenger trains. When Captain Fuller’s train arrived at Big Shanty, the passengers and train hands went into the hotel for breakfast. The absence from the table of the large crowd that got on the train at Marietta was noticed by the conductor, and just as he took his seat, which commanded a view of his train, the gong on the old “General” rang. It should be stated here that the train was as follows: “The general,” three freight cars, one second and two first-class coaches, a baggage car and express car. Andrews had detached the entire passenger train, put his surplus men into the three freight cars, and on “The General” he had with himself his own engineer and fireman.

The very moment the gong rang Captain Fuller sprang from the table, and with a swift run reached the main track and pursued the flying train, which was now fast disappearing around a curve in the road. As he ran out of the hotel Captain Fuller called to his engineer, Jeff Cain: “Some one who has no right to do so has taken our train!” Cain and Mr. Anthony Murphy joined in the race, but were soon distanced by the fleet-footed Fuller. The limestone soil between the tracks was wet and clung to his feet so that fast running was very fatiguing to Captain Fuller, but he ran with a determination that overcame all obstacles. Moon’s Station, a little more than two miles from Big Shanty, was reached by him in an incredibly short time. Here he found that the Andrews raiders had stopped and had taken all of the tools from the railroad section hands. They had climbed the telegraph poles, cut the wire, and carried a hundred feet of it along with them to prevent the repair of the line in time to thwart their plans. The track hands were amazed at their conduct, and hurriedly told Captain Fuller what had been done. Up to this time he had been in doubt as to the true character of the raiders. He had thought that possibly some of the Confederates at Camp McDonald, (the Camp of Instruction at Big Shanty), tired of strict discipline and confinement, might have taken the train in order to enable them to pass the environment of their camp. But from this moment there was no room for doubt. As quickly as possible Captain Fuller and two track hands placed upon the rails an old timber car used for hauling crossties, iron, and other heavy material. This was an unwieldy and cumbersome medium of locomotion, but it rendered good service, nevertheless. Captain Fuller knew that every moment of time was most valuable, as the raiders were speeding along up the road and his chances for overtaking and capturing them were very doubtful. While putting on the hand-car he debated with himself these questions: “Should he proceed immediately in the pursuit, or would it be best to push back and get his engineer?” He decided to push back for Cain, and when he had gone nearly a mile he met Cain and Mr. Anthony Murphy. They were taken on the hand-car and the pursuit of the raiders, now far ahead, was begun again. Captain Fuller says that if he had not gone back, as above stated, he would have captured the raiders at Kingston, as more than twenty minutes were lost, and he was quite that close to them at Kingston. He says, however, he is now glad he did not do so, as the run from that point furnished the most thrilling event of his life.

Murphy, Cain, the two track hands, and Fuller, pushed and ran, and ran and pushed, alternately, and each and every man on the old hand-car did his full duty. Soon after passing Moon’s Station, where Captain Fuller got the hand-car, the pursuers came upon a pile of cross-ties, but they were soon removed from the track and the race resumed.

The intelligent reader will not for a moment suppose that Captain Fuller and his comrades entertained any hope of overtaking the raiders on foot, or even by the hand-car. Captain Fuller’s thoughts ran ahead of his surroundings, and he disclosed his plans to his comrades in these words: “If we can get to Etowah by 9:40, we will catch the old Yonah. This we can do by very hard work, unless hindered by obstructions.” This suggestion doubled the energy of every man, and they abandoned themselves to the task before them. It is difficult to write, with deliberation, a story so full of push and haste. This run of twenty miles with an old clumsy hand-car, under so many difficulties, is replete with interest. At length, after Captain Fuller and his comrades were thoroughly exhausted, standing on the turn-table at Etowah more than a mile away, “the old Yonah” was espied. A yell and cry of great joy went up from these gallant men; but, alas, their vision had extended beyond their immediate danger! The raiders had removed an outside rail in a short curve, and unexpectedly the whole party was thrown into a ditch full of water. This, however, was a small matter to men of resolute will and iron nerve. The car was soon carried across the break in the track and put upon the run again. One of the track hands was left to watch this break, to prevent danger to following trains--the other was left with the hand-car at Etowah. Although the old Yonah was standing on the turn-table at Etowah, her tender was on another track. Willing and eager hands soon had the engine and tender coupled together, and the Yonah was “pressed into service.” An empty coal car was taken on, and a few Confederate soldiers, who were at the station waiting for a south-bound train, volunteered to join in the chase. The engineer of the Yonah, Mr. Marion Hilly, and his own hands, ran the Yonah from Etowah to Kingston, and Captain Fuller gives them great credit for their loyalty and faithful service.

A more dangerous run was never made. The track was in a bad condition, and the line quite crooked; and the pursuers could not tell at what moment they might be thrown into a ditch by a removal of rails, or obstructions placed upon the track; but they were absolutely blind to all personal danger or considerations. The Yonah had only two drivers and they were six feet, and she had a very short strike. She was built for fast running with a small passenger train on an easy grade. Under all the difficulties by which he was surrounded, Hilly ran the Yonah from Etowah to Kingston, thirteen miles in fourteen minutes, and came to a full stop at Cartersvile, and also at Kingston. Several crossties had been put upon the track, but the pursuers said “they were literally blown away as the Yonah split the wind.”

At Kingston, Captain Fuller learned that he was only twenty minutes behind the raiders. At this point, Andrews had represented himself as a Confederate officer. He told the railroad agent that he “passed Fuller’s train at Atlanta, and that the cars which he had contained fixed ammunition for General Beauregard at Corinth.” He carried a red flag on “The General,” and said that “Fuller’s train was behind with the regular passenger train.”

This plausible story induced the agent to give him his keys to unlock the switch at the north end of the Kingston railroad yard. Several heavy freight trains were at Kingston, bound southward. Those furthest behind reached a mile or so north of the switch on the main line. Owing to Andrews’s “fixed ammunition” story, the agent, being a patriotic man, ordered all trains to pull by, so as to let Andrews out at the north end of the yard. This was done as quickly as possible, though it was difficult to make the railroad men understand why the great haste, and why Andrews should be let pass at so much trouble when Fuller’s train would soon be along, and both could be passed at the same time. But Andrews’s business was so urgent, and so vitally important, as a renewal of the fight between Beauregard and Buell was expected at any hour, the freightmen were induced to pull by and let him out. This delay gave Captain Fuller an inestimable advantage, and but for the delay at Moon’s Station, Andrews and his raiders would have been captured at Kingston.

When Fuller arrived at Kingston on the Yonah, he was stopped by a flagman more than a mile south of the depot, on account of the trains that had pulled by to let Andrews out. He saw at once that he would have to abandon the Yonah, as he could not get her by without much delay. So taking to his feet again, he ran around those freight trains to the depot and held a short conversation with the agent from whom he learned the particulars of Andrews’s movements and representations, etc. He then ran to the north prong of the Rome railroad “Y,” where that road intersected with the Western and Atlantic mainline. There he found “The Alfred Shorter,” the Rome railroad engine, fired up and ready to move. He hurriedly told Wyley Harbin the engineer of “The Alfred Shorter,” about the raiders, and he and his fireman, noble fellows, at once put themselves and their engine at his service. The pursuers were gone in thirty seconds. Captain Fuller says that Jeff Cain got into the train, but that Mr. Murphy who was in another part of the car yard, considering some other plan, came near being left; but Fuller saw him and held Harbin up until he ran up and got on.

Captain Fuller rode on the cowcatcher of the “Shorter,” that he might remove crossties and other obstructions that would probably be put on the track. Further down the road, when Andrews was running more at leisure, he loaded the three box cars with ties and other timber, and when he feared pursuit he punched out the rear end of his hindermost car and dropped obstructions in the way of his pursuers. The Alfred Shorter had drivers only four feet--6--, and could make only ordinary time; but Captain Fuller did not consider that of any great disadvantage, as she ran as fast as it was safe to do on account of the many obstruction dropped by raiders upon that part of the road.

Six miles north of Kingston, Captain Fuller found it necessary to abandon the “Shorter,” because at that point several rails of the track had been taken up and carried away by the raiders. Knowing the schedule as he did, and seeing he could not get by in less time than thirty minutes, Captain Fuller decided that the best thing to be done was to go to Adairsville, four miles north, where he hoped to find a south-bound train, “tied up” because of the delay of his train. Possibly he might meet this train before reaching Adairsville. Leaving the “Shorter,” he called upon all who wished to join in one more effort to follow him, and started in a run on foot for another four miles. There were none to follow--all preferred to remain in the Rome passenger coach. (It is not amiss here to state that, at Kingston, Fuller took on one coach belonging to the Rome Railroad, and that some thirty or forty persons had volunteered and boarded the Rome car; but, when invited to join in a four-mile foot race, they preferred to remain in the coach.)

When Fuller had run about two miles he looked back and saw Murphy just rounding a curve about three hundred yards behind. When he had run about a mile further, to his great delight he met the expected south-bound freight train. Fuller gave the signal, and, having a gun in his hand, was recognized by the conductor, who stopped as quickly as possible. Fortunately Peter I. Brachen was the engineer of the freight, and had “The Texas,” a Danforth & Cook, 5 feet 10 driver, as his engine. Captain Fuller knew that Brachen was a cool, level-headed man, and one of the best runners that ever pulled a throttle. As soon as the train stopped, Fuller mounted and was about to back it, when, seeing Murphy coming, he held Brachen a few seconds until his comrade got on “The Texas.” Then the long train was pushed back to Adairsville, where Fuller changed the switch, uncoupled the train from the engine, and pushed in upon the side track. In the further pursuit of the raiders, Captain Fuller never changed his engine or his crew again.

From hence “The Texas” is after “The General”--both are new, both 5 feet 10 driver, with the same stroke--“The General” a Rogers, “The Texas” a Danforth & Cook. But “The General” was forward, while “The Texas” had to back.

Captain Fuller rode on the back end of the tender, which was in front, and swung from corner to corner, so that he could see round the curves and signal to Brachen. His only chance to hold on was by two hooks, one at each corner of the tender, such as were formerly used to secure “spark catchers.” Many times he bounced two feet high when the tender ran over obstructions not seen in time to stop the engine. The ten miles from Adairsville to Calhoun was made in twelve minutes, including the time consumed in removing obstructions. (Here it may be in order to state that when Andrews had met Brachen at Adairsville, on his south-bound trip before being met by Fuller, that he told him to hurry to Kingston, as Fuller would wait there for him. This Brachen was doing, when Captain Fuller met him a mile south of Adairsville. But if Fuller had not met and stopped him, he would not have gone on to Kingston, but would have plunged into the break in the railroad where the raiders had taken up the rails at the point where the “Shorter” was abandoned. This was one of Andrews’ best moves. He hoped to occasion a disastrous wreck, and block the road.)

As Captain Fuller with “The Texas” and her crew figure exclusively in the remainder of this wonderful chase, he thinks it eminently due them that the names of those actually engaged on the engine should be given. Federal reports of the affair have put under the command of Fuller a regiment or more of armed soldiers. Some illustrations show long trains of cars packed to overflowing with armed men.

From the time he stopped Brachen, a mile south of Adairsville, to the point where Andrews abandoned “The General,” three miles north of Ringgold, he had with him only Peter J. Brachen as engineer, Henry Haney, fireman of the engine (who, at the suggestion of Brachen, stood at the brakes of the tender, and had for additional leverage a piece of timber run through the spokes of the brake-wheel), Flem Cox, an engineer on the road, who happened to be along, and fired the “Texas,” and Alonzo Martin, train hand of the freight train left at Adairsville, who passed wood to Cox. Thus it is seen that Captain Fuller, Peter J. Brachen, Flem Cox, and Alonzo Martin were the members of the pursuing party in toto, during the last fifty-five miles of the chase.

As has been stated, Mr. Anthony Murphy, of Atlanta, rode on “The Texas” with Brachen from Adairsville to the point at which the Andrews raiders were caught, and there is no doubt he would have aided in their capture at the forfeit of his life had he been called upon to do so.

As the pursuers ran past Calhoun, an enthusiastic old gentleman, Mr. Richard Peters, himself a Northern man, and who died an honored citizen of Atlanta, offered a reward of a hundred dollars each for all the raiders captured. Had this promise been fulfilled Captain Fuller would have received $2,300, which no doubt he would have divided with his comrades in the pursuit.

At Calhoun Captain Fuller met the south-bound “day passenger train,” delayed by his unexpected movements. He had his engine run slowly by the depot, and exchanged a few words with the excited crowd of people, who were amazed at the sudden appearance and disappearance of the runaway train which had passed there a few moments before. Here he also saw Ed Henderson, the telegraph operator at Dalton. Discovering that the line was down below Dalton, Henderson had gone down on the passenger train to try to repair the break in the wire. Seeing him, Fuller reached out his hand as he was running by and took the operator into the tender, and as they ran at the rate of a mile a minute he wrote the following dispatch:

“_To General Ledbetter, Chattanooga_:

My train was captured this morning at Big Shanty, evidently by Federal soldiers in disguise. They are making rapidly for Chattanooga, and will no doubt burn the Chickamauga bridges in their rear, if I should fail to capture them. Please see that they do not pass Chattanooga.

Signed, W. A. FULLER.”

He handed this dispatch to the operator, and instructed him to put it through at all hazards when he should arrive at Dalton.

Just at that moment the pursuers came in sight of the raiders for the first time. They had halted two miles north of Calhoun and were removing a rail from the track. As the pursuers hove in sight, the raiders detached their third car and left it before Captain Fuller could reach them. Coupling this abandoned car to “The Texas,” Captain Fuller got on top of it and began the race again. The rails had only been loosened and the intrepid conductor took the chances of running over them. From this point the raiders ran at a fearful rate, and the pursuers followed after them as fast as “The Texas” could go.

One mile and a half further up, the raiders detached another car in the front of the pursuers. This was witnessed by Fuller, who was standing on the rear end of the car he had coupled to when the raiders were first seen. He gave Brachen the signal, and he advanced slowly to the abandoned car and coupled it to the first one obtained in this way. Then getting on top of the newly captured one he was off again in the race with scarcely the loss of a moment’s time.

Just in front of the raiders, and not more than a mile away, was an important railroad bridge over the Oostanaula river at Resaca. The pursuers had greatly feared that the raiders would gain time to burn this bridge, after passing over it. But they were pressed so hotly and so closely that they passed over the bridge as rapidly as the “General” could carry them. The pursuers were, therefore, greatly rejoiced on their arrival at Resaca to see that the bridge was standing, and that it had not been set on fire. The two cars picked up as described were switched off at Resaca, and the pursuers again had “The Texas” untrammeled. The race from Resaca to Dalton has seldom been paralleled. It is impossible to describe it.

At Dalton the telegraph operator was dropped, with instructions to put the dispatch to General Ledbetter through to the exclusion of all other matter. All was excitement at this point. The unusual spectacle of a wild engine flying through the town with only one car attached was bewildering indeed; and when Captain Fuller arrived and ran through, slacking his speed just enough to put the operator off the train, the excitement became intense. The operator was besieged on every side for an explanation, but he knew nothing save that contained in the dispatch.

Two miles north of Dalton, Andrews stopped. Some of his men climbed telegraph poles and cut the wire, while others were engaged in an effort to take up the track behind them. The operator at Dalton had sent the dispatch through to Ledbetter at Chattanooga; but just as he had finished and was holding his finger on the key, waiting for the usual “O. K,” click went the key, and all was dead. He did not know until the next day that Captain Fuller’s dispatch had reached its destination. Had the raiders been thirty seconds earlier in cutting the wire, the dispatch would not have gone through. As it was Ledbetter received it, and not being able to hear anything further by telegraph or otherwise he had a regiment placed in ambush (some of the soldiers on either side of the track), and had a considerable part of the track taken up. This was about a mile from Chattanooga, so that by the intervention of the telegram Fuller had Andrews both front and rear.

Andrews was run away from the point where the wires were cut before any material damage was done to the track. The rails had been partially removed, but not so much as to prevent the safe passage over them of “The Texas” and her crew.

Now the last long race begins. The pursued and the pursuers are in sight of one another. In every straight line of the road, Andrews was in plain view. This tended to increase the interest and excitement, if, indeed, the thrilling scenes and incidents of the seconds as they flitted by could have been heightened. I say seconds, because minutes in this case would be too large to use for a unit of time. The experience, practice, and knowledge of machinery possessed by the engineers was brought into full play. “The Texas” was kept at a rate of one hundred and sixty-five pounds of steam, with the valve wide open. Brachen would appear a little pale sometimes, but he was encouraged by Fuller standing the full length of the tender before him, and watching around the curves. At every straight line in the road Andrews was sighted, and a yell went up from the throats of the pursuers, but they did not lose their wits. Their aim was forward, onward, at all hazards. They were now convinced that Andrews had exhausted his supply of obstructive material, and were not so uneasy on that account. But as prudence is the better part of valor, and as they had so few men on board, they dared not approach too close, lest their little band should be fired upon; or what appeared to be a greater danger, Andrews might suddenly stop and give fight. Captain Fuller had only five person on “The Texas” besides himself, and all accounts heard by them at points below had placed Andrews’s party as high as twenty or twenty-five. Fuller knew that the fire-arms he had gathered up early in the race, such as “squirrel guns,” and most of them unloaded, would have but little showing in a hand-to-hand contest; so these things had to be considered as they sped along so swiftly. Another danger was to be feared--Andrews might stop, abandon “The General,” let her drive back, and thus force a collision with the pursuers.

In approaching the tunnel, seven miles north of Dalton, our brave conductor slackened speed until he could see dimly through the smoke of “The General,” which had only passed out of the further end by a few seconds, and was in sight beyond. For the next seven miles from Tunnel Hill to Ringgold, nothing occurred except a race between engines such as has never been excelled. When Ringgold was reached, both engines literally flew through the town, the “Texas” only about one-fourth of a mile behind. When the pursuers were passing through the north end of the town, Captain Fuller noticed a company of militia drilling. Their horses were hitched to the small shade trees near the muster grounds, and this fact fastened itself upon his mind.

In a few minutes the pursuers swung around the second short curve north of Ringgold, just in time to see Andrews slack his speed, and himself and his men jump off the “General” to seek concealment in the dense woods. The foliage of the trees and undergrowth was about half grown, and it would have been an easy matter to hide in the forest. When the raiders were first seen north of Ringgold, it was obvious that the heroic old “General” was almost exhausted. Her smoke was nearly white, and ran up at an angle of 45 degrees, while before that it lay flat, and appeared to the eyes of the pursuers as if fresh from the stack. When Andrews abandoned the “General,” his engineer threw the lever back and gave the engine all the steam it had, but in his haste the brake was left on, so the engine was unable to drive back and collide with the “Texas,” as Andrews had hoped it would.

The pursuers ran up to the “General” to which was attached one box car--the one historians and statesmen have so often said was fired and left to burn in a bridge below Ringgold. This car had been fired, but was easily extinguished. It had never been uncoupled from the “General” since Fuller left Atlanta with it that morning. Brachen hastily coupled the “Texas” to this car and the “General.” Captain Fuller reminded Brachen of the militia company they had seen drilling at Ringgold a few minutes before, and encouraged him to go back there as soon as possible and tell of the capture of the “General,” and to beseech the soldiers to mount their horses and come to his aid, as he, Flem Cox, and Alonzo Martin were already chasing through the woods after Andrews and his men. Mr. Murphy and Henry Haney went back to Ringgold with Brachen after the militia.

It was probably three minutes after the “General” was overtaken before Captain Fuller and his two comrades were ready to take to the woods, as they assisted in getting the car and two engines started back to Ringgold. The raiders, therefore, had the advantage and were deep in the forest before the woodland chase began. Besides, the reader will see at once that the raiders were fresh--that they had done no really hard work, except the fireman and engineer. They had not already run on foot more than twenty miles, as Fuller had done. After the pursuing party had gone about two miles through the woods, they came to a fifty-acre wheat field just in time to see the raiders cross the fence at the further side. It had been raining nearly all day, and the ground was wet. It was limestone soil, and almost as sticky as tar. The boots of the pursuers would clog up, and the mud on them would sometimes weigh doubtless two or three pounds. Another source of annoyance was the growing wheat, which was half leg high and very difficult to tread. Captain Fuller has said that it appeared to be up-hill every way that he ran.

Finally the woods beyond were reached, and, by accident, Captain Fuller and his two comrades got separated. In the afternoon four of the raiders were captured. About 8 P. M. Captain Fuller became completely exhausted. Some old farmers put him on a mule and carried him back to Ringgold, distant seven miles direct route, but by the one he was carried three times that distance. He lay down on the mule’s back, and a man on either side held him on.

Soon after they arrived at Ringgold the down night passenger train came, and Captain Fuller was put on board and carried to Atlanta. At Tunnel Hill, seven miles south, a train of soldiers passed them on the way to the scene of interest. The Andrews Raiders had already been captured, and the “General” was safe on the side track at Ringgold, eight hours before. And this train of soldiers just spoken of is “the second pursuing train” that Pittenger so often speaks of in his “Capturing a Locomotive,” and “Daring and Suffering.”

We have followed Captain Fuller and his wise and intrepid men, in the pursuit of spies no less wise and intrepid, from the first step in an act which, under the usages of war in all countries, meant death to them if captured; and over that lamentable scene we drop the curtain. We have the testimony of reliable men that they were humanely treated while in prison. After a trial, conducted on the highest principles of military law and honor, eight of these spies were condemned and executed.

The following list gives the names of the Andrews raiders, all of whom were captured in the manner described:

J. J. Andrews, Wilson Brown, Marion Ross, W. H. Campbell, John Scott, Perry G. Shadrack, George D. Wilson, Samuel Slavens.

These were tried and executed.

S. Robinson, Ed. Mason, Wm. Knight, Robert Bruffum, William Pittenger, M. J. Hawkins, I. Parroth, W. Bensinger, A. Wilson, W. Reddie, D. A. Dorsey, I. R. Porter, M. Wood, W. W. Brown.

The last named fourteen were never tried.

CONFEDERATE LOVE SONG.

Over the mountains of Winter, And the cold, cold plains of snow, Down in the valleys of Summer, Calling my love I go.

And strong in my woe and passion, I climb up the hills of Spring, To listen if I hear his voice In songs he used to sing.

I wait in the fields of Autumn, And gather a feast of fruit, And call my love to the banquet; His lips are cold and mute.

I say to the wild bird flying: “My darling sang sweet as you; Fly o’er the earth in search of him, And to the skies of blue.”

I say to the wild-wood flowers: “My love was a friend to you; Send one of your fragrant spirits To the cool Isles of Dew,”

“Gold-girt by a belt of moonbeams, And seek on their gleaming shore A breath of the vanished sweetness For me his red lips bore.”

I stand at the gates of Morning, When the radiant angel, Light, Draws back the great bolt of darkness, And by the gates of Night,

When the hands of bright stars tremble While clasping their lanterns bright; And I hope to see him passing, And touch his garments white.

O, love! if you hear me calling, Flee not from the wailing cry; Come from the grottoes of Silence And hear me, or I die!

Stand out on the hills of Echo; The sensitive, pulsing air Will thrill at your softest whisper-- Speak to me, love, from there!

O, love, if I hear you calling, Though far on the heavenly side, My voice will float on the billow: “Come to your spirit bride.” --MARY A. H. GAY.

TO THE READER,

Who has kindly perused these sketches, I would say, as they have already attained length and breadth not anticipated from the beginning, I will withhold the sequels to many of them for, perhaps, another volume of reminiscences.

Were I possessed of the Sam Weller genius and versatility, and the happy faculty of making the reader wish I had written more, I would throw open the doors of the store-house of my war memories, a structure as capacious as the “Southern Confederacy” and canopied by the firmament, and invite the public to enter and share with me the treasures hidden there. The coruscations of wit and the profound displays of wisdom by many who donned Confederate grey and went forth in manhood’s prime to battle for the principles of their country, would employ the minds and feast the intellect of the most erudite. There are living, glowing pictures hanging upon the walls which delineate the mysteries of humanity in all its varied forms, and, by example, demonstrate that we often spurn with holy horror that which is better far than that which we embrace with all the fervor of affection. I would resurrect the loftest patriotism from the most humble graves in the Southern land, and prove by heroic deeds and noble acts that valor on the battle-field was as often illustrated by the humble soldier whose name has not been preserved in “storied urn,” as by the gallant son of chivalrous ancestors who commanded the applause of an admiring multitude. I would place by the side of those greatest of chieftains, Robert E. Lee, and our impregnable “Stonewall” Jackson and Albert Sidney Johnston, many of our soldiers “unknown to fame,” in faded grey jackets and war-worn pants, and challenge the world for the difference. I would dwell with loving interest upon the innumerable sad, sweet faces of the mighty throng of bereaved mothers, sisters and aunts, out of whose lives all light had gone, and who, though hopeless, uttered no words of complaint against our cause or its leader, but toiled on with unswerving faith and souls that borrowed the lustre of heaven. All these sad things in my gallery I would clothe in living form and glowing color. And, saddest of all, I would live over with them that melancholy period when the very few, comparatively, that were left of the noble defenders of our principles, came back, not with buoyant step and victor crown, but with blighted hopes and despondent mien to desolated homes and decimated families. Under the new regime I would tell of despair and suicide, of hope, energy and success; I would tell how I have lived in this gallery--its silent occupants my companions and friends, my inspiration to useful deeds. There is not a day that I do not arouse by muffled tread the slumbering echoes of this past, and look upon the cherished souvenirs of the patriotic friends now roaming the beautiful gardens of Paradise, or sleeping the mystic waiting of the resurrection. I ponder upon their lives, their ambitions, their disappointments, and it requires no effort of the imagination to animate those dead forms and invest them with living attributes. And daily, in imagination I weave for them a laurel crown that shall grow greener and greener as the cycles of Time speed on to Eternity.

APPENDIX.

The author has selected the article, “Gleanings from General Sherman’s Despatches,” as an appendix for these sketches, not because of a desire to keep up the issues of the war between the States (for she would gladly bury them so deep they could never be resurrected until the great Judge of all issues calls them up to receive sentence by his unerring judgment), but rather, because of the persistent insistence of Northern Republicans to make it appear to the world that the Southern people are a semi-barbarous people, solely responsible for the war and altogether unworthy fraternal consideration in the compact called the Union.

The article mentioned, “Gleanings from General Sherman’s Despatches,” is to be found, word for word, in The Southern Magazine, May, 1873, Vol. XII. Baltimore: Turnbull Brothers.

GLEANINGS FROM GENERAL SHERMAN’S DESPATCHES.

Those thick, loosely-bound octavos printed on soft and rather dingy paper, which Congress publishes and distributes under the name of Public Documents, are not generally considered very entertaining reading. But there are exceptions; and one of these is the report of the joint committee of Congress on the conduct of the war. Indeed, compared with such mild pastorals as “Some Accounts of the Cheese Manufacture in Central New York,” or “Remarks on the Cultivation of Alfalfa in Western Tennessee,” it is quite luridly sensational, and in parts reminds us of those striking reports of the Duke of Alva to his royal master, which have been disinterred in the dusty archives of Simancas. As a study of congressional nature, military nature, and human nature generally, in its least attractive aspects, these eight stout volumes are richly worth perusal. Here the reader is allowed to peep behind the scenes of that portentous drama; here he may see the threads of the intrigues that centered in Washington; may hear a petty newspaper correspondent demonstrating, with an animation that we can scarcely ascribe to fervid patriotism, the incapacity, the ignorance and even the doubtful “loyalty” of the commander-in-chief; may see private malignity and vindictiveness putting on grand Roman airs, and whispering debaters draping themselves in the toga of Brutus.

However, it is not with these aspects of the reports that we at present have to do, but with the despatches of General Sherman on his march through Georgia and South Carolina. A great deal of fiction and some verse,[5] we believe, have been written about this famous march or grand foray; but here we have the plain matter-of-fact statement of things as they were, and they form a luminous illustration of the advance of civilization in the nineteenth century as exemplified in the conduct of invasions, showing how modern philanthropy and humanitarianism, while acknowledging that for the present war is a necessary evil, still strive to mitigate its horrors and spare all avoidable suffering to non-combatants. For this purpose we have thought it worth while to reproduce a few of the most striking extracts illustrating the man, his spirit, and his work.

A kind of keynote is sounded in the dispatches to General Stoneman, of May 14, which, after ordering him to “press down the valley strong,” ends with the words, “Pick up whatever provisions and plunder you can.”

On June 3, the question of torpedoes is discussed, and General Stedman receives the following instructions: “If torpedoes are found in the possession of an enemy to our rear, you may cause them to be put on the ground and tested by wagon loads of prisoners, or, if need be, by citizens implicated in their use. In like manner, if a torpedo is suspected on any part of the railroad, order the point to be tested by a carload of prisoners or citizens implicated, drawn by a long rope.” “Implicated,” we suppose here meant “residing or captured in the neighborhood.”

On July 7, we have an interesting dispatch to General Garrard on the subject of the destruction of the factories at Roswell. “Their utter destruction is right, and meets my entire approval; and to make the matter complete, you will arrest the owners and employees and send them under guard charged with treason, to Marietta, and I will see as to any man in America hoisting the French flag and then devoting his labor and capital to supplying armies in open hostility to our government, and claiming the benefit of his neutral flag. Should you, under the impulse of anger, natural at contemplating such perfidy, hang the wretch, I approve the act beforehand.... I repeat my orders that you arrest all people, male and female, connected with those factories, no matter what the clamor, and let them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, whence I will send them by cars to the North. Destroy and make the same disposition of all mills, save small flouring mills, manifestly for local use; but all saw mills and factories dispose of effectually; and useful laborers, excused by reason of their skill as manufacturers, from conscription, are as much prisoners as if armed.” On the same day he further enlarges on this subject in a despatch to General Halleck:

“General Garrard reports to me that he is in possession of Roswell, where were several very valuable cotton and wool factories in full operation, also paper mills, all of which, by my order, he destroyed by fire. They had been for years engaged exclusively at work for the Confederate government; and the owner of the woolen factory displayed the French flag, but, as he failed to show the United States flag also, General Garrard burned it also. The main cotton factory was valued at a million of United States dollars. The cloth on hand is reserved for the use of the United States hospitals; and I have ordered General Garrard to arrest for treason all owners and employees, foreign and native, and send them to Marietta, whence I will send them North. Being exempt from conscription, they are as much governed by the rules of war as if in the ranks. The women can find employment in Indiana. This whole region was devoted to manufactories, but I will destroy everyone of them.” There are two points specially worth notice in this despatch. The first, that _since_ these men and women, by reason of sex, or otherwise, are exempt from conscription, they are, therefore, as much subject to the rules of war as if in the ranks. Why not do less violence to logic and state frankly that factory hands were in demand in Indiana? The next point is that the Roswell factories, whether French property or not, were destroyed because they were making cloth for the Confederate government, followed presently by the declaration that every manufactory in that region shall be destroyed, evidently without reference to its products or their destination. How much franker it would have been to have added to this last sentence, “and thus get rid of so many competitors to the factories of the North.” The South must learn that while she may bear the burden of protective tariffs, she must not presume to share their benefits. Another despatch to General Halleck, of July 9, again refers to these factories. After referring to the English and French ownership, comes this remark: “I take it a neutral is no better than one of our citizens, and we would not respect the property of one of our own citizens engaged in supplying a hostile army.” This is the kind of logic proverbially used by the masters of legions. A despatch to General Halleck, of July 13, gives General Sherman’s opinion of two great and philanthropic institutions. Speaking of “fellows hanging about” the army, he says: “The Sanitary and Christian Commission are enough to eradicate all traces of Christianity from our minds.”

July 14, to General J. E. Smith, at Allatoona: “If you entertain a bare suspicion against any family, send it North. Any loafer or suspicious person seen at any time should be imprisoned and sent off. If guerrillas trouble the road or wires they should be shot without mercy.”

September 8, to General Webster after the capture of Atlanta: “Don’t let any citizens come to Atlanta; not one. I won’t allow trade or manufactures of any kind, but you will remove all the present population, and make Atlanta a pure military town.” To General Halleck he writes: “I am not willing to have Atlanta encumbered by the families of our enemies.” Of this wholesale depopulation, General Hood complained, by flag of truce, as cruel and contrary to the usages of civilized nations and customs of war, receiving this courteous and gentlemanly reply (September 12): “I think I understand the laws of civilized nations and the ‘customs of war;’ but, if at a loss at any time, I know where to seek for information to refresh my memory.” General Hood made the correspondence, or part of it, public, on which fact, General Sherman remarks to General Halleck: “Of course, he is welcome, for the more he arouses the indignation of the Southern masses, the bigger will be the pill of bitterness they will have to swallow.”

About the middle of September, General Sherman, being still in Atlanta, endeavored to open private communication with Governor Brown and Vice-President Stephens, whom he knew to be at variance with the administration at Richmond on certain points of public policy. Mr. Stephens refused to reply to a verbal message, but wrote to Mr. King, the intermediary, that if the general would say that there was any prospect of their agreeing upon “terms to be submitted to the action of their respective governments,” he would, as requested, visit him at Atlanta. The motives urged by Mr. King were General Sherman’s extreme desire for peace, and to hit upon “some plan of terminating this fratricidal war without the further effusion of blood.” But in General Sherman’s despatch of September 14, to Mr. Lincoln, referring to these attempted negotiations, the humanitarian point of view is scarcely so prominent. He says: “It would be a magnificent stroke of policy if I could, without surrendering a foot of ground or principle, arouse the latent enmity to Davis.”

On October 20, he writes to General Thomas from Summerville, giving an idea of his plan of operations: “Out of the forces now here and at Atlanta, I propose to organize an efficient army of 60,000 to 65,000 men, with which I propose to destroy Macon, Augusta, and it may be, Savannah and Charleston. By this I propose to demonstrate the vulnerability of the South, and make its inhabitants feel that war and individual ruin are synonymous terms.”

Despatch of October 22, to General Grant: “I am now perfecting arrangements to put into Tennessee a force able to hold the line of the Tennessee, while I break up the railroad in front of Dalton, including the city of Atlanta, and push into Georgia and break up all its railroads and depots, capture its horses and negroes, make desolation everywhere; destroy the factories at Macon, Milledgeville and Augusta, and bring up with 60,000 men on the seashore about Savannah and Charleston.”

To General Thomas, from Kingston, November 2: “Last night we burned Rome, and in two more days will burn Atlanta” (which he was then occupying).

December 5: “Blair can burn the bridges and culverts and burn enough barns to mark the progress of his head of columns.”

December 18, to General Grant, from near Savannah: “With Savannah in our possession, at some future time, if not now, we can punish South Carolina as she deserves, and as thousands of people in Georgia hope we will do. I do sincerely believe that the whole United States, north and south, would rejoice to have this army turned loose on South Carolina, to devastate that State in the manner we have done in Georgia.”

A little before this he announces to Secretary Stanton that he knows what the people of the South are fighting for. What do our readers suppose? To ravage the North with sword and fire, and crush them under their heel? Surely it must be some such delusion that inspires this ferocity of hatred, unmitigated by even a word of compassion. He may speak for himself: “Jefferson Davis has succeeded perfectly in inspiring his people with the truth that liberty and government are worth fighting for.” This was their unpardonable crime.

December 22, to General Grant: “If you can hold Lee, I could go on and smash South Carolina all to pieces.”

On the 18th General Halleck writes: “Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed; and if a little salt should be sown upon its site, it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullification and secession.” To this General Sherman replies, December 24: “This war differs from European wars in this particular--we are not only fighting hostile armies, but hostile people; and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don’t think _salt_ will be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth corps will be on the right of the right wing, and their position will naturally throw them into Charleston first; and, if you have studied the history of that corps, you will have remarked that they generally do their work up pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning with insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate, but she deserves all that seems in store for her.

“I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston, and I doubt if we shall spare the public buildings there as we did at Milledgeville.”

And now we look with interest for the despatches that would settle the vexed question as to whether Sherman or his officers, acting under his orders, burned Columbia on the 17th of February. Unfortunately, a paternal government, not thinking it good that the truth should be known, has suppressed all the despatches between the 16th and the 21st, and every other allusion to the transaction.

On the 23d, he writes to General Kilpatrick: “Let the whole people know the war is now against them, because their armies flee before us and do not defend their country or frontier as they should. It is pretty nonsense for Wheeler and Beauregard and such vain heroes to talk of our warring against women and children and prevent us reaching their homes.”

If, therefore, an army defending their country can prevent invaders from reaching their homes and families, the latter have a right to that protection; but if the invaders can break through and reach these homes, these are justified in destroying women and children. Certainly this is a great advance on the doctrine and practice of the dark ages. Another extraordinary moral consequence flows from this insufficiency of defence: “If the enemy fails to defend his country, we may rightfully appropriate what we want.” Here, now, is a nice question of martial law or casuistry, solved with the simplicity of an ancient Roman. In other words, when in the enemy’s country, the army shall be strictly careful not to seize, capture or appropriate to military or private uses, any property--that it cannot get.

“They (the Southern people) have lost all title to property, and can lose nothing not already forfeited.”

What, nothing? Not merely the houses we had built, the lands we had tilled, the churches we worshipped in--had we forfeited the right to drink of the streams, to behold the sun, to breathe the free air of heaven? What unheard of, what inconceivable crime had we committed that thus closed every gate of mercy and compassion against us, and provoked an utterance which has but one parallel--the death warrant signed by Philip II. against all Netherlanders? General Sherman has himself told us what it was: We had dared to act on the “truth that liberty and government are worth fighting for.”

On March 15, he writes to General Gillmore, advising him to draw forces from Charleston and Savannah (both then in Federal hands) to destroy a railroad, etc. “As to the garrisons of those places I don’t feel disposed to be over-generous, and should not hesitate to burn Savannah, Charleston and Wilmington, or either of them, if the garrisons were needed.”

Such are some of the results of our gleanings in this field. Is it any wonder that after reading them we fervently echo General Sherman’s devout aspiration: “I do wish the fine race of men that people the United States should rule and determine the future destiny of America.”

SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA.

(Reprinted by Permission of the Illustrator Company. From the April, 1896, Number of “The Illustrator.” Copyrighted. All Rights Reserved.)

It is a proud thing for Americans to feel that there is little to bring the blush of shame to their cheeks in the contemplation of their country’s history. It is a glorious thing for our young manhood to know that the annals of their race tell of the earnest and upward progress of a people, Christian from the first, toward an ever higher civilization. It is well to reflect that when the ruthless hand of war has turned American citizenship from the paths of peace it could do little more than array strong man against sturdy foeman in an honest battle for principle, and that outrage and pillage in our broad domain have been the almost undisputed heritage of the Aborigines.

Enduring with patient fortitude the raids of savage foes upon our early frontiers, meeting the armed invasion of foreign hosts with a resistance vigorous but manly, pressing our own victorious arms to the very citadel of our Mexican neighbors without spoliation or rapine, it is sad to realize that it remained for an internecine conflict, where brother stood against brother, for an invasion by an army void of pretext of reprisal or revenge, to write upon American warfare the stigma of vandalism, rapacity and theft.

The movement from Atlanta to Savannah, which figured in history as “The March to the Sea,” was, from the standpoint of the tactician, no great achievement; it involved no more than the passage of an invincible army across some three hundred miles of country, where it could gather supplies upon its way, to effect a junction with its naval allies at a practically defenceless city. It was peculiarly lacking in the daring which is customarily ascribed to it, for it was made, practically, without resistance and along a route where no considerable force of the enemy could have been encountered. It was not a venture in the dark with a conclusion to be determined by circumstances; for the authorities at Washington were fully advised of its author’s purpose, and Gen. Sherman was assured that he would meet a formidable fleet at Savannah before he undertook it. It was no more nor less than the yielding, by this most typical barbarian conqueror of the Nineteenth century, to the spirit of pillage and excess which distinguished his prototypes in the days of the Goths and Vandals, when the homes and firesides of their enemies were at their mercy. It was a campaign remarkable only for the revival of military methods abandoned since Attila the Hun. It was, nevertheless, as carefully planned as it was ruthlessly executed. It was no sudden impulse which laid the torch to every roof-tree upon the invading army’s path. It was no spirit of retaliation for vigorous but ineffective resistance which goaded these conquerors to excess, for out of 62,204 men who began the march but 103 lost their lives before they reached Savannah. It was simply the grasping of the amplest opportunity by a man who glories in looting and destruction, and to whom human misery was a subject for jest.

At the outset let us understand that General Sherman, through all that portion of his career which began with the destruction of Atlanta, was acting upon a plan and a theory devised and adopted weeks before; that his own actions and that of his army were in no sense impulsive, but in every way controlled by premeditation, and that our authority for such a conclusion lies in the repeated statements of the General himself.

With the brutal frankness which was one of his characteristics, he wrote on September 4th, 1864, in a letter to General Halleck, which he reproduces in his autobiography: “If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not popularity-seeking.” “I knew, of course,” he says, “that such a measure would be strongly criticized, but made up my mind to do it with the absolute certainty of its justness, and that time would sanction its wisdom. I knew that the people of the South would read in this measure two important conclusions; one that we were in earnest, and the other that if they were sincere in their common and popular clamor ‘to die in the last ditch,’ the opportunity would soon come.”

The cold-blooded candor of this statement leaves little doubt of the temperature of the well-springs which fed that organ of General Sherman corresponding to the heart of an ordinary man; but if evidence were wanting of his absolute unconcern for the sufferings of others when his own plans might be interfered with to the slightest degree, it might be found in his answer to General Hood’s proposition for an exchange of prisoners. “Some of these prisoners,” he says, “had already escaped and got in, and had described the pitiable condition of the remainder.” He had at that time about two thousand Confederate prisoners available for exchange. “These I offered to exchange for Stoneman, Buell, and such of my own army as would make up the equivalent; but I would not exchange for his prisoners generally, because I knew these would have to be sent to their own regiments away from my army, whereas all we could give him could at once be put to duty in his immediate army.” No possible suffering which his unfortunate companions in arms could be forced to bear by reason of the Confederates’ lack of supplies with which to feed and clothe them, could induce him to exchange for men who would not strengthen his own immediate army!

Geneseric, the Vandal, is said to have been “cruel to blood thirstiness, cunning, unscrupulous and grasping; but he possessed great military talents and his manner of life was austere.” Let the impartial reader of history say how nearly the barbarian who marched to the sea in the nineteenth century, approached to his prototype of the fifth century. One is not surprised, therefore, to find this man writing to General Hood on September 7th, 1864, that he “deemed it to the interest of the United States that the citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove.”

In the midst of a region desolated by war, their fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, in the army hundreds of miles away, it was “deemed to be in the interest of the United States” that the helpless women and children of Atlanta should be driven from their homes to find such shelter as God gives the ravens and the beasts of the wood. It was a course that wrung from General Hood these forceful words of reply:

“Permit me to say that the unprecedented measure you propose transcends, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war. In the name of God and humanity I protest, believing that you will find you are expelling from their homes and firesides the wives and children of a brave people.” To this burning arraignment General Sherman could find no better answer than argument concerning the right of States to secede. But it was followed on September 11th by an appeal from the mayor and councilmen of Atlanta which would have touched a heart of stone. It was humble, it was earnest, it was pitiful. It provoked these words in reply: “I have your letter of the 11th in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have an interest.”

The same unalterable resolution must have dominated Geneseric, the Vandal, when he prepared for his fourteen days sacking of Rome. The vandal of the fifth century had at least the pretext of reprisal for his actions; the vandal of the nineteenth century could find no better plea for his barbarity than that it might wring the hearts of absent men until they would sacrifice principle and honor for the relief of their loved ones.

President Davis says: “Since Alva’s atrocious cruelties to the non-combatant population of the low countries in the sixteenth century, the history of war records no instance of such barbarous cruelty as this order designed to perpetrate. It involved the immediate expulsion from their homes and only means of subsistence of thousands of unoffending women and children, whose husbands and fathers were either in the army, in Northern prisons, or had died in battle.”

At the time appointed the women and children were expelled from their houses, and, before they were passed within our lines, complaint was generally made that the Federal officers and men who were sent to guard them had robbed them of the few articles of value they had been permitted to take from their homes. The cowardly dishonesty of the men appointed to carry out this order, was in perfect harmony with the temper and the spirit of the order.

It was on the 12th day of November, 1864, that “The March to the Sea” began. Hood’s army had been followed to Tennessee, and Sherman’s forces had destroyed the railroad during their return trip to Atlanta. They were now ready to abandon the ruins of the Gate City for fresher and more lucrative fields of havoc. It is fair to General Sherman to say that his plans and intentions had been fully communicated to the authorities at Washington, and that they met with the thorough approbation of General Halleck, then Chief of Staff.

General Halleck will be remembered as the hero who won immortal fame before Corinth. With an immensely superior force he so thoroughly entrenched himself before that city that he not only held his position during General Beauregard’s occupancy of the town, but retained it for several days after the Confederate evacuation. He retired from active service after this, his only piece of campaigning, to act in an advisory capacity at Washington, and it was he who wrote these encouraging words to Sherman at Atlanta: “The course which you have pursued in removing rebel families from Atlanta, and in the exchange of prisoners, is fully approved by the War Department.... Let the disloyal families thus stripped go to their husbands, fathers, and natural protectors in the rebel ranks.... I would destroy every mill and factory within reach, which I did not want for my own use.... I have endeavored to impress these views upon our commanders for the last two years. _You are almost the only one who has properly applied them._” These words of encouragement fell upon willing ears. No one knew better than Sherman how to read the sentiments between those lines; he understood the motives which moved their doughty author as thoroughly as when later the same hand gathered courage to advise him in plain unvarnished words to wipe the city of Charleston off the face of the earth, and sow her site with salt. The valiant Chief of Staff, who urged on campaigns from a point sufficiently to the rear, had found at last a man who would carry out his instructions, and the war upon women and children was about to begin.

General Halleck was not the sole confidant of General Sherman’s plan. Less than a month before the memorable march was undertaken, he telegraphed to General Grant: “I propose that we break up the railroad from Chattanooga forward, and that we strike out for Milledgeville, Millen and Savannah. Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses and people will cripple their military resources. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl!”

Sir Walter Raleigh conceived and attempted to execute the plan of exterminating the Irish race, and colonizing their lands from England. The Sultan of Turkey is about to carry out a similar policy with his Armenians.

The difference between these other exterminators and Sherman, is that they expected to be met at the doors of the homes they intended to destroy by men capable of offering resistance, while the American General knew he would have to do with women and children alone.

He evidently met with some expostulation from General Grant, for he afterwards telegraphed him that he would “infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road and the country from Chattanooga and Atlanta, including the latter city, send back all wounded and unserviceable men, and with the effective army move through Georgia, smashing things to the sea.”

Receiving no answer to this latter dispatch, he did not hesitate to execute the campaign as he had planned it, and in his own language proceeded to “make the interior of Georgia feel the weight of war.”

Sherman and his staff rode out of the Gate City at 7 o’clock in the morning of the 16th. “Behind us,” he says, “lay Atlanta, smouldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in the air and hanging like a pall over the ruined city. Some band, by accident, struck up the anthem of ‘John Brown’s soul goes marching on’. The men caught up the strain, and never before or since have I heard the chorus of ‘Glory, glory, hallelujah!’ done with more spirit or in better harmony of time and place.” To the credit of the slandered soul of that other marauder, let us say, that John Brown’s lawless warfare was upon men alone, and that booty formed no part of his incentive.

Knowing that no effective resistance was to be expected, Sherman so scattered his columns that the sixty-mile “swath” which it was his purpose to devastate, was covered by them with ease. In order that the work might be thoroughly and effectively done, a sufficient number of men were detailed for that branch of military service peculiar to Sherman’s army, and known as “bummers.”

“These interesting individuals always,” says the General, “arose before day and preceded the army on its march.” “Although this foraging was attended with great danger and hard work, there seemed to be a charm about it that attracted the soldiers, and it was a privilege to be detailed on such a party.” “No doubt,” he adds with that same blunt frankness, “many acts of pillage, robbery and violence were committed by these parties of foragers usually called ‘bummers’; for I have since heard of jewelry taken from women, and the plunder of articles that never reached the commissary.” But these playful fellows, in spite of such indiscretions, were never more to the General than an exhibition of that charming humor invariably apparent in him in the presence of human suffering.

We may gather an idea of them from the following description given by a correspondent of the New York Herald, who accompanied the army: “Any man who has seen the object that the name applies to will acknowledge that it was admirably selected. Fancy a ragged man, bleached by the smoke of many a pine-knot fire, mounted on a scraggy mule without a saddle, with a gun, a knap-sack, a butcher-knife and a plug hat, stealing his way through the pine forests far out in the flanks of a column, keen on the scent of rebels, or bacon, or silver spoons, or coin, or anything valuable, and you have him in your mind. Think how you would admire him if you were a lone woman, with a family of small children, far from help, when he blandly inquired where you kept your valuables! Think how you would smile when he pried open your chests with his bayonet, or knocked to pieces your tables, pianos and chairs, tore your bed clothing into three-inch strips and scattered them about the yard. The ‘bummers’ say it takes too much time to use keys. Color is no protection from the rough raiders. They go through a negro cabin in search of diamonds and gold watches with just as much freedom and vivacity as they ‘loot’ the dwelling of a wealthy planter. They appear to be possessed of a spirit of ‘pure cussedness.’ One incident, illustrative of many, will suffice. A bummer stepped into a house and inquired for sorghum. The lady of the house presented a jug, which he said was too heavy, so he merely filled his canteen. Then taking a huge wad of tobacco from his mouth he thrust it into the jug. The lady inquired, in wonder, why he spoiled that which he did not want. ‘Oh, some feller’ll come along and taste that sorghum and think you’ve poisoned him, then he’ll burn your d----d old house.’ There are hundreds of these mounted men with the column, and they go everywhere. Some of them are loaded down with silverware, gold coin, and other valuables. I hazard nothing in saying three fifths (in value) of the personal property of the country we have passed through was taken by Sherman’s army.”

In an address delivered before the Association of the Maryland Line, Senator Zeb Vance, of North Carolina, has laid the vigorous touch of his characteristic English upon the void until it stands out in barbarous bold relief, so far beyond the pencil of the present writer that he best serves his readers by quoting: “With reference to his famous and infamous march, I wish to say that I hope I am too much of a man to complain of the natural and inevitable hardships, or even cruelties of war; but of the manner in which this army treated the peaceful and defenseless inhabitants in the reach of his columns, all civilization should complain.

“There are always stragglers and desperadoes following in the wake of an army, who do some damage to and inflict some outrages upon helpless citizens, in spite of all efforts of commanding officers to restrain and punish; but when a General organizes a corps of thieves and plunderers as a part of his invading army, and licenses beforehand their outrages, he and all who countenance, aid or abet, invite the execration of mankind. This peculiar arm of military service, it is charged and believed, was instituted by General Sherman in his invasion of the Southern States. Certain it is that the operations of his ‘Bummer Corps’ were as regular and as unrebuked, if not as much commended for efficiency, as any other division of his army, and their atrocities are often justified or excused, on the ground that ‘such is war.’

“In his own official report of his operations in Georgia, he says: ‘We consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country thirty miles either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah, also the sweet potatoes, hogs, sheep and poultry, and carried off more than ten thousand horses and mules. I estimate the damage done to Georgia at one-hundred million dollars, at least twenty million of which inured to our benefit, and the remainder was simply waste and destruction!’... The ‘remainder’ delicately alluded to, that is say damage done the unresisting inhabitants to over and above the seizing of necessary army supplies, consisted in private houses burned, stock shot down and left to rot, bed clothes, money, watches, spoons, plate and ladies’ jewelry stolen, etc., etc. A lane of desolation sixty miles wide through the heart of three great states, marked by more burnings and destructions than ever followed in the wake of the widest cyclone that ever laid forest low! And all done, not to support an invading army, but for ‘pure waste and destruction’; to punish the crime of rebellion, not in the persons of those who had brought these about, but of peaceful non-combatants, the tillers of the soil, the women and the children, the aged and feeble, and the poor slaves! A silver spoon was evidence of disloyalty, a ring on a lady’s finger was a sure proof of sympathy with rebellion, whilst a gold watch was _prima facie_ evidence of the most damnable guilt on the part of the wearer. These obnoxious earmarks of treason must be seized and confiscated for private use--for ‘such is war!’ If these failed, and they sometimes did, torture of the inhabitants was freely employed to force disclosure. Sometimes with noble rage at their disappointment, the victims were left dead, as a warning to all others who should dare hide a jewel or a family trinket from the cupidity of a soldier of the Union. No doubt the stern necessity for such things caused great pain to those who inflicted, but the Union must be restored, and how could that be done whilst a felonious gold watch or a treasonable spoon was suffered to remain in the land, giving aid and comfort to rebellion? For ‘such is war.’ Are such things war indeed? Let us see. Eighty-four years before that time, there was a war, in that same country; it was a rebellion, too, and an English nobleman led the troops of Great Britain through that same region, over much of the same route, in his efforts to subdue that rebellion. The people through whose land he marched were bitterly hostile, they shot his foraging parties, his sentinels and stragglers, they fired upon him from every wood.

“He and his troops had every motive to hate and punish those rebellious and hostile people. It so happens that the original order-book of Lord Cornwallis is in possession of the North Carolina Historical Society. I have seen and read it. Let us make a few extracts and see what he considered war, and what he thought to be the duty of a civilized soldier towards non-combatants and the helpless:

“‘CAMP NEAR BEATTY’S FORD, January 28, 1781.

“‘Lord Cornwallis has so often expressed the zeal and good will of the army that he has not the slightest doubt that the officers and soldiers will most cheerfully submit to the ill conveniences that must naturally attend war, so remote from water carriage and the magazines of the army. The supply of rum for a time will be absolutely impossible, and that of meal very uncertain. It is needless to point out to the officers the necessity of preserving the strictest discipline, and of preventing the oppressed people from suffering violence by the hands from whom they are taught to look for protection.’

“Now, General Sherman was fighting, as he said, for the sole purpose of restoring the Union, and for making the people of the rebellious States look to the United States alone for protection; does any act or order of his anywhere indicate a similar desire of protecting the people from suffering at the hands of those whose duty it was to protect them? Again:

“‘HEADQUARTERS, LANSLER’S PLANTATION, February 2, 1781.

“‘Lord Cornwallis is highly displeased that several houses have been set on fire to-day during the march--a disgrace to the army--and he will punish with the utmost severity any person or persons who shall be found guilty of committing so disgraceful an outrage. His lordship requests the commanding officers of the corps will endeavor to find the persons who set fire to the houses to-day.’

“Now think of the march of Sherman’s army which could be discovered a great way off by the smoke of homesteads by day and the lurid glare of flames by night, from Atlanta to Savannah, from Columbia to Fayetteville, and suppose that such an order as this had been issued by its commanding officers and rigidly executed, would not the mortality have been quite equal to that of a great battle?

“Arriving in Fayetteville on the 10th of January, 1865, he not only burned the arsenal, one of the finest in the United States, which perhaps he might properly have done, but also burned five private dwelling houses near by; he burned the principal printing offices, that of the old ‘Fayetteville Observer;’ he burned the old Bank of North Carolina, eleven large warehouses, five cotton mills and quite a number of private dwellings in other parts of the town, whilst in the suburbs almost a clean sweep was made; in one locality nine houses were burned. Universally houses were gutted before they were burned, and after everything portable was secured the furniture was ruthlessly destroyed, pianos on which perhaps rebel tunes had been played--‘Dixie’ or ‘My Maryland’--disloyal bureaus, traitorous tables and chairs were cut to pieces with axes, and frequently, after all this damage, fire was applied and all consumed. Carriages and vehicles of all kinds were wantonly destroyed or burned; instances could be given of old men who had the shoes taken from their feet, the hats from their heads and clothes from their persons; and their wives and children subjected to like treatment. In one instance, as the marauders left they shot down a dozen cattle belonging to an old man, and then left their carcasses lying in the yard. Think of that, and then remember the grievance of the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers who came in all seriousness to complain to General Longstreet in the Gettysburg campaign, of the outrage which some of his ferocious rebels had committed upon them _by_ ‘_milking their cows_.’ On one occasion, at Fayetteville, four gentlemen were hung up by the neck until nearly dead to force them to disclose where their valuables were hidden, and one of them was shot to death. Again:

“‘HEADQUARTERS DOBBINS HOUSE, February 17, 1781.

“‘Lord Cornwallis is very sorry to be obliged to call the attention of the officers of the army to the repeated orders against plundering, and he assures the officers that if their duty to their King and country, and their feelings for humanity are not sufficient to force their obedience to them, he must, however reluctantly, make use of such powers as the military laws have placed in his hands.... It is expected that Captains will exert themselves to keep good order and to prevent plundering. Any officer _who looks on with indifference and does not do his utmost to prevent shameful marauding, will be considered in a more criminal light than the persons who commit these scandalous crimes_, which must bring disgrace and ruin on his Majesty’s service. All foraging parties will give receipts for supplies taken by them.’

“Now, taking it for granted that Lord Cornwallis, a distinguished soldier and a gentleman, is an authority on the rights of war, could there be found any where a more damnatory comment upon the practices of General Sherman and his army? Again:

“‘HEADQUARTERS, FREELANDS, February 28, 1781.

“‘Memorandum:--A watch found by the regiment of Bose. The owner may have it from the adjutant of the regiment upon proving property.’ Another:

“‘SMITH’S PLANTATION, March 1, 1781.

“‘Brigade Orders. A woman having been robbed of a watch, a black silk handkerchief, a gallon of peach brandy and a shirt, and as, by the description, by a soldier of the guards, the camp and every man’s kit is to be immediately searched for the same by the officers of the Brigade.’

“Are there any poets in the audience, or other persons in whom the imaginative faculty has been largely cultivated? If so, let me beg him to do me the favor of conceiving, if he can, and make manifest to me, the idea of a notice of a lost watch being given, in general orders, by William Tecumseh Sherman, and the offer to return it on proof of property by the rebel owner! Let him imagine, if he can, the searching of every man’s kit in the army for a stolen watch, a shirt, a black silk handkerchief and a gallon of peach brandy! Sherman says ‘such is war.’ I venture to say that up to the period when that ‘great march’ taught us the contrary, no humane general or civilized people in Christendom believed _that_ ‘_such was_ war.’ Has civilization gone backward since Lord Cornwallis’ day? Have arson and vulgar theft been ennobled into heroic virtues? If so, when and by whom? Has the art of discovering a poor man’s hidden treasure by fraud or torture been elevated into the strategy which wins a campaign? If so, when and by whom?

“No, it will not do to slur over these things by a vague reference to the inevitable cruelties of war. The time is fast coming when the conduct of that campaign will be looked upon in the light of real humanity, and investigated in the real historic spirit which evolves truth; and all the partisan songs which have been sung, or orations which subservient orators have spoken about that great march to the sea; and all the caricatures of Southern leaders which the bitterness of a diseased sectional sentiment has inspired; and all the glamour of a great success, shall not avail to restrain the inexorable, the illuminating pen of history. Truth, like charity, never faileth. Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; but when the truth, which is perfect, has come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

“Now let us contrast General Sherman with his greatest foe; likewise the greatest, the most humane general of modern times, and see whether he regarded the pitiless destruction of the substance of women and children and inoffensive inhabitants a legitimate war:

“‘HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VA., June 27, 1863.

“‘General Order No. 73. The commanding general has observed with marked satisfaction the conduct of troops on this march. There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness on the part of some that they have in keeping the yet unsullied reputation of this army, and that the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of an enemy than in our own. The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenceless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our country.... It will be remembered that we make war only upon armed men.

R. E. LEE, General.’

“The humanity and Christian spirit of this order was such as to challenge the admiration of foreign nations. The ‘London Times’ commented upon it, and its American correspondent said: ‘The greatest surprise has been expressed to me by officers from the Austrian, Prussian and English armies, each of which has representatives here, that volunteer troops, provoked by nearly twenty-seven months of unparalleled ruthlessness and wantonness, of which their country has been the scene, should be under such control, and willing to act in harmony with the long-suffering and forbearance of President Davis and General Lee.’

“To show how this order was executed, the same writer tells a story of how he witnessed with his own eyes General Lee and a surgeon of his command repairing the damage to a farmer’s fence. Colonel McClure, of Philadelphia, a Union soldier himself, bears witness to the good conduct of Lee’s ragged rebels in that famous campaign. He tells of hundreds of them coming to him and asking for a little bread and coffee, and others who were wet and shivering asking permission to enter a house, in which they saw a bright fire, to warm themselves until their coffee should be ready. Hundreds of similar instances could be given, substantiated by the testimony of men on both sides, to show the splendid humanity of that great invasion. Blessed be the good God, who, if in His wisdom denied us success, yet gave to us and our children the rich inheritance of this great example.

“Major General Halleck, the commander-in-chief, under the President, of the armies of the Union, on the 18th of December, 1864, dispatched as follows to Sherman, then in Savannah: ‘Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed; and if a little salt should be sown upon its site it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullification and secession.’ On December 27th, 1864, Sherman made the following answer: ‘I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don’t think “salt” will be necessary. When I move, the 15th corps will be on the right of the right wing, and their position will bring them naturally into Charleston first, and if you have watched the history of the corps you will have remarked that they generally do their work up pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning with insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate; but feel that she deserves all that seems to be in store for her.... I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston.’ Therefore Columbia was burned to ashes. And though he knew what was in store for South Carolina, so horrible that he even trembled, he took no steps to avert it, for he felt that she deserved it all. Did she, indeed? What crime had she committed that placed her outside the protection of the law of civilized nations? What unjust, or barbarous, or brutal conduct had she been guilty of to bring her within the exceptions laid down by the writers on the laws of war as authorizing extraordinary severity of punishment? They are not even imputed to her. South Carolina’s crime, and the crime of all the seceding States, was that of a construction of the constitution of the United States differing from that of General Sherman and the 15th corps--which ‘always did up its work pretty well.’ Happily the Divine Goodness has made the powers of recuperation superior to those of destruction; and though their overthrow was so complete that ‘salt’ was not needed as the type of utter desolation, Marietta and Atlanta are thriving and prosperous cities.”

Governor Vance does not wish to confine himself, in quoting, to Southern testimony. There are plenty of honest and truthful soldiers in the Federal army, who served in its ranks, to tell all we want and more. This is what one of them says, writing to the “Detroit Free Press” of that campaign: “One of the most devilish acts of Sherman’s campaign was the destruction of Marietta. The Military Institute and such mills and factories as might be a benefit to Hood could expect the torch, but Sherman was not content with that; the torch was applied to everything, even the shanties occupied by the negroes. No advance warning was given. The first alarm was followed by the crackling of flames. Soldiers rode from house to house, entered without ceremony and kindled fires in garrets and closets, and stood by to see that they were not extinguished.” Again he says: “Had one been able to climb to such a height at Atlanta as to enable him to see for forty miles around, the day Sherman marched out, he would have been appalled at the destruction. Hundreds of houses had been burned; every rod of fence destroyed; nearly every fruit tree cut down, and the face of the country so changed that one born in that section could scarcely recognize it. The vindictiveness of war would have trampled the very earth out of sight, had such a thing been possible.”

One cold and drizzly night in the midst of this marching General Sherman found shelter and warmth beneath the roof of a comfortable plantation home.

“In looking around the room,” he says, “I saw a small box, like a candle box, marked ‘Howell Cobb,’ and, on inquiring of a negro, found we were at the plantation of General Howell Cobb, of Georgia, one of the leading rebels of the South, then a General in the Southern army, and who had been Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Buchanan’s time. Of course we confiscated his property, and found it rich in corn, beans, peanuts, and sorghum molasses. Extensive fields were all around the house. I sent word back to General Davis to explain whose plantation it was, and to instruct him to spare nothing. That night huge bonfires consumed the fence-rails, kept our soldiers warm, and the teamsters and men, as well as slaves, carried off an immense quantity of corn and provisions of all sorts.”

Do the records of civilized warfare furnish a parallel to this petty and mercenary wreaking of spite upon the helpless home of a gallant foeman?

The General furnished us with proof of how worthy of their selection his staff-officers proved during that memorable raid. While camped that night on Cobb’s plantation, Lieutenant Snelling, who was a Georgian commanding his escort, received permission to visit his uncle, who lived some six miles away.

“The next morning,” says the General, “he described to me his visit. The uncle was not cordial by any means to find his nephew in the ranks of the host that was desolating the land, and Snelling came back, having exchanged his tired horse for a fresher one out of his uncle’s stables, explaining that surely some of the ‘bummers’ would have got the horse had he not.” It was the eternal fitness of things that the staff-officers of this prince of free-booters should be renegades capable of stealing from their nearest kin.

The unfailing jocosity of this merry marauder breaks out in his recital of a negro’s account of the destruction of Sandersville: “First, there came along some cavalrymen, and they burned the depot; then came along some infantrymen, and they tore up the track and burned it, and, just before they left, they sot fire to the well!” The well, he explains, was a boxed affair into which some of the debris was piled, and the customary torch was applied, making the negro’s statement literally true. This was one of the incidents to leaving the pretty town of Sandersville a smoking mass of ruins.

But why enumerate further details of an unresisted movement which cost Sherman one hundred and three lives, and the State of Georgia one hundred million dollars, twenty millions of which he frankly states he carried off, and eighty millions of which he destroyed? It began in shame at Atlanta--it passed with a gathering burden of infamy to Savannah. Starvation, terror, outrage hung upon its flanks and rear. Its days were darkened by the smoking incense from unparalleled sacrifices upon the altar of wantonness; its nights were lurid with flames licking the last poor shelter from above the heads of subjugated wives and children.

Its history is the strongest human argument for an orthodox hell.

TESTIMONIALS.

STATE OF GEORGIA, EXECUTIVE OFFICE, ATLANTA, September 1st, 1894.

“Life in Dixie During the War,” by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, presents a striking picture of home life among our people during that dark period of our history.

While such presentation is hardly looked for in more elaborate history of those times, Miss Gay’s conception was a wise one, and the record she has given will preserve a most desirable part of the history of our section.

Her book deserves to be widely circulated.

W. J. NORTHEN, Governor.

“LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.”

This handsome volume from the pen of Miss Mary A. H. Gay, whose many acts of self-denial entitle her to the name of philanthropist, will meet with a hearty welcome from her wide circle of friends. But a casual glance at the volume leads us to conclude that outside of this circle, even with the reader who will look into it as a key to the history of the “times that tried men’s souls,” it will be a book of more than passing interest. The author writes with the feelings of a partisan, but time has mellowed her recollections of these stormy times, and even the reader whose sympathies were with the other side will agree with Joel Chandler Harris in his introduction to the book. In its mechanical get-up, the book is a gem.--_Atlanta Constitution_, December 18, 1892.

“LIFE IN DIXIE.”

Miss Mary A. H. Gay has published a volume entitled “Life in Dixie During the War,” which should be in every Southern home. It is one of the truest pictures of the life of our people during the war that has yet been drawn. In fact, it could not be better, for it shows things just as they were. The struggles and sufferings of the Southern people during that awful period exhibited a heroism that has seldom been matched in the world’s history. Miss Gay was among them. She looked on their trials with sympathetic eyes and suffered with them. Fortunately she is gifted with the power of describing what she saw, and her book will be a classic of war literature. Its every page is interesting. The story of Dixie during the war reads like romance to the generation that has arisen since, but it should have for generations an interest as deep as that with which it is read by those who lived and acted amid the scenes it records. It shows how grand was the courage and virtue, how sublime the faith and endurance of the men and women of the South throughout that terrible ordeal. It is a book that will live, and one that will give to the world a true representation of the conduct of a noble people in affliction. Miss Gay has made numerous contributions to our literature which mark her as a woman of rare capacity and exquisite feelings, but she has done no work that is worthier of gratitude and praise than that embodied in “Life in Dixie.”--_The Atlanta Journal_, January 17, 1893.

“LIFE IN DIXIE.”

Miss Mary Gay’s recent book, “Life in Dixie During the War,” is rapidly winning favor with the public. Some of our most distinguished writers speak of it in very high terms as a notable contribution to our history. The Rev. Dr. J. William Jones says of it:

“‘Life in Dixie During the War’ is a charming story of home-life during those dark days when our noble women displayed a patient endurance, and active zeal, a self-denying work in the hospitals, a genuine patriotism, a true heroism which equalled the record of their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers in the army.

“But Decatur, near Atlanta, was the scene of stirring events during Sherman’s campaign against the doomed city, and Miss Gay’s facile pen vividly portrays historic events of deepest interest.

“Visits from the soldier boy to the old home, letters from the camp, visits to the camps and hospitals, the smoke and changing scenes of battle in the enemy’s lines, refugeeing, and many other events of those stirring days, are told with the vividness of an eye-witness and the pen of an accomplished writer.

“It is, in a word, a vivid and true picture of ‘Life in Dixie During the War,’ and should find a place not only in our Southern homes, but in the homes of all who desire to see a true account of the life of our noble women during those trying days.

“REV. JOHN WILLIAM JONES.”

_The Constitution_, May 2nd, 1893.

The “Confederate Love Song,” by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Decatur, was written during the late war. It is a charming bit of verse, and forms one of a galaxy of beautiful songs from the same true pen. In 1880, Miss Gay published a volume of verses which received the unusual compliment of public demand for no less than eleven editions. The author’s life is one of the most beautiful; it is, therefore, quite natural that her poetry should partake of the simple truth and sincerity of that life, consecrated as it is, and ever has been, to the noblest work.--_Atlanta Constitution._

Miss Gay’s Book, “Life in Dixie During the War.”--Editor “_Sunny South_:” Permit me to say a few words through the columns of your widely read and popular paper about Miss Mary A. H. Gay’s “Life in Dixie During the War,” the second and enlarged edition of which book has just been issued from the press.

The fact that a second and enlarged edition has been called for is proof that the merits of this genuine Southern story has been appreciated by our people. Not only has the author in her book perpetuated interesting and historically valuable material of merely local character, but, to the careful reader, she also presents matter that goes to the deep moral, social and political roots of the cause of the people of the South, that grew and flowered into the crimson rose of war, which the South plucked and wore upon her heart during four of the most tragic yet glorious years recorded in history.

But the chief charms of the book are its simple, earnest, homely style, its depth of womanly and loyal feeling, and the glimpses we get of the homes and hearts of our people during these years of patient suffering and “crucifixion of the soul;” and along with the passion and the pain, we are presented with pictures of our people’s frequently laughable “makeshifts” to supply many of the common necessaries of life and household appliances of which the stress and savage devastation deprived nearly every Southern family. Above all we are impressed by the more than Spartan heroism, the tender love, the unwavering loyalty, the devoted, self-sacrificing spirit of our noble Southern womanhood, of which this book speaks so eloquently in its _naive_ simplicity, and of which traits of character, the modest author herself is a living and universally beloved example.

The book deserves a place in the hearts and homes of our people. Surely the patriotic motives that inspired its author to write it is the only passport it needs to public favor and patronage.

CHARLES W. HUBNER, “_Sunny South_,” Atlanta, Ga., November 3, 1894.

A WAR STORY.

Even in these piping times of peace (peace as far as our own borders are concerned, at any rate)--there is a relish in a war story. And when the scene is laid right here in Georgia, in Decatur, in Atlanta; when familiar names come up in the course of the narrative, and familiar events are pictured by an honest eye-witness; when all through the little volume you feel the truthfulness of the writer, and know that the incidents she narrates happened just so; when, too, you see the writer herself--see her to be an old lady now, who really was a heroine in her young days; and then read the simple, personal narrative--now stirring, as the battle-guns sound--now touching, as some dear one falls; with all this combination of interest, a war story claims and holds the attention.

Such is the little book, called “Life in Dixie,” written by Miss Mary Gay, and telling of those stirring times in and about Atlanta, back yonder in the sixties.

There are some vivid pictures in that modest little volume, as well as some interesting facts. Miss Gay was in the thick of the strife, and tells what she saw in those dark days.

Among the well-known characters, associated with the recorded events, we find Mrs. L. P. Grant, Mr. and Mrs. Posey Maddox, Dr. J. P. Logan and many others.

A most interesting fact disclosed in those pages is the surprising one that two sisters of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln married Alabama officers in the Confederate army; there is recorded the public presentation, by those two ladies, of an elegant silk banner made for a gallant young company in Georgia’s daughter-State. Thus conspicuous were those women in the Southern Confederacy, while their sister and her dearest interests lay on the other side.

Another matter of history which will be interesting to the present generation of readers, however much we may have read of the mammoth prices for the necessaries of life in those hard days, is the following list of articles, with the cost thereof in Confederate money, bought by Miss Gay, after a ride of forty miles to obtain them:

One bushel of meal, $10.00; four bushels of corn, $40.00; fifteen pounds of flour, $7.50; four pounds of dried apples, $5.00; one and a half pounds of butter, $6.00; a bushel of sweet potatoes, $6.00; three gallons of syrup, $15.00; for shoeing the horse, $25.00; for a night’s lodging for self and horse, at Mrs. Born’s, $10.00.

Then, the vehicle in which the trip for these supplies was made!

It was contrived by “Uncle Mack,” a dusky hero of those times. “It was a something he had improvised which baffled description,” writes Miss Gay, “and which, for the sake of the faithful service I obtained from it, I will not attempt to describe. Suffice it to say that it carried living freight over many a bridge; and in honor of this, I will call it a wagon.”

The horse, which the author herself captured to draw this remarkable vehicle, was equally remarkable, and his subsequent history is one of the most interesting bits of narrative in the book. I wish I could give it all in Miss Gay’s own words, but my space does not admit of that.

But there is not a child in your household who would not be interested in the account of how the poor starved horse was lassoed and secured--how he was fed and strengthened, and cared for, and finally harnessed up with ropes and pieces of crocus sacks; how the letters, “U. S.” were found branded on each of his sides, causing his mistress to name him “Yankee”; how she grew to love him so that she deemed that name ill-fitting, and decided to re-christen him “Johnnie Reb.,” which she did one day with effective ceremonial by a brook-side; how he rendered invaluable service to his mistress many and many a time, and was a treasured member of the little family that passed such stormy times in the war-stricken village of Decatur; all this is worth reading, told, as it is, with a gentle humor, and a strict truthfulness which is the chief charm of that historic picture. For it is historic. And it were well for the rising generation to read its vivid portrayals of that period.

And though Miss Gay was evidently an ardent secessionist, and is now, I fancy, one of the altogether unreconstructed few, her book contains records of more than one kindness received at the hands of officers of the United States army--kindness proffered, too, in the face of her fearless avowal of opinion.

Some parts of the book (I will add, if the gentle author will allow me) seem somewhat too bitter towards our brethren of the North. But this criticism is from the standpoint of one who knew not the horrors of that dreadful war. If I had seen the desolation and destruction which followed it in the wake of Sherman’s army, as Miss Gay saw it and suffered by it (through mother and brother and friends, as well as through personal privation),--if I had thus suffered, doubtless I, too, would be unable to look impartially upon these Federal leaders and their actuating motives--unable to see that, though Sherman was a most unmerciful conqueror, he was not altogether a fiend.

But there is only a touch of this severe judgment in Miss Gay’s little book. The greater portion of it is simply historic--a faithful chronicling of events experienced by the writer herself, who was a veritable heroine in those days of horrors.

Miss Gay is to be congratulated upon the fact that “Life in Dixie” is entering upon its second edition. Let me suggest that you get it for your children, you parents. The rising generation should learn of the stirring events which happened right here in Atlanta thirty years ago.

The story will hold their attention and interest throughout--the soldier-brother who fell in the strife, the faithful black Toby sketched so tenderly, the perilous trip of Miss Gay herself, as she carried the blankets and overcoats through the enemy’s ranks to the boys in gray--all this will vastly entertain those young folks, at the same time it teaches them of the Battle of Atlanta, and the concurrent events.--EMEL JAY[6], in _The Atlanta Journal_, November 24th, 1894.

“Life in Dixie During the War” is the title of a volume just perused which transcends in interest, truth and beauty all the historical tomes and garlanded fiction to which that epoch has given birth. It embraces the personal experiences and observations of a woman, gifted far beyond the ordinary, who came in contact with the sadness, the bloodshed and the misery of the unhappy struggle. A loved brother laid down his life on the bloodiest battle-field, friends parted and vanished from her, and wealth was swallowed in the maw of destruction.

She tells her story--for story it is--with an exquisite grace, and with a woman’s tenderness and sympathy for the people she loved and the cause she adored. Her language is lofty upon occasion, her memories perhaps too keen, her gentleness possibly too exclusive to her own, but her work is done with a fidelity and consistency beyond comparison. The scene is Decatur, Ga., but threads, visible or invisible, reach to every hamlet and entwine every heart in the evanished Confederacy. The heroism of men, the daring of boys, the endurance of women, alike are painted with a skill that requires no color.

Those who wish to embalm their recollections of home-life during the war, and those who desire to know what it was, should read this book. It is one of the records of the past that should be in every library. It is beautifully printed, neatly cloth-bound, and contains 300 pages.--_The Tampa Daily Times_, January 17, 1895.

FROM THE OTHER SIDE.

A UNION SOLDIER’S TRIBUTE TO A SOUTHERN WOMAN’S BOOK.

EVANSTON, ILL., December 30th, 1895.

_Mary A. H. Gay_:

DEAR MADAM: Allow me to thank you for giving to the world inside home life in the South during the war. All histories of the war that have been written have been confined to battles and movements of armies, which are so likened to the histories of other wars that when you have read one you may say that you have read them all. But yours gives a local and romantic description of real life, and I feel like congratulating you and calling the scenes in which you played so important a part the heyday of your existence. I take it you were the daughter, pampered and cuddled child, of rich and influential people, and had it not been for the war you would have been raised with much pomp, arrogance and importance of family, which, in the very nature of your surroundings, would have destroyed all the finer and nobler traits which want and misery have developed into a grand, noble, self-sacrificing and heroic woman. And although you portray the scenes freighted with misery, want and desolation, yet they were halcyon days to one like you, romantic, energetic, patriotic and self-sacrificing, and now, as you are passing down the shady lane of life, you live in the memories of the past, the part you played in the heroic struggle, and the noble womanhood developed; and the assurance that you did well your part in the great tragedy strews roses and garlands along the path of your declining years.

“I follow you through all these stirring scenes; I sit beside you in your hours of gloom and blighted hopes; I follow you beside the ox-cart that drew its freight of human misery; I walk with you into the woody retreats and sit beside you upon the banks of the limpid stream and mix my tears with yours; I tramp with you over the scenes of desolation; I sorrow with you over the death of Toby; I mourn with you over the sudden death of noble Thomie; I sit beside the death-bed of your sainted mother and mingle my tears with yours; I gladly accompany you on your weary tramp with your much-loved ‘Yankee’ or Johnnie Reb; I gather with you the leaden missiles of death to buy food for starving friends and fellow-sufferers; I pass with you through all the scenes that are freighted with hope, love, despair and expectation; I am your friend and sympathizer in all your misfortunes, and yet I am one of those ‘accursed’ Yankee soldiers who have been the bane of your life.

“The strange blending of pathos and diplomacy on pages 91 and 92 may be said to be amusingly expressive. Chapter 13 is intensely interesting, dramatic and romantic; still I see no reason that I should speak of these isolated passages, for the whole book is equally interesting, and would foreshadow for it a large sale in the North if properly handled. As to the mechanical construction of the book, I am much pleased with your language, as it is free from Carlylism and ostentatious English, which mars so much of the writings of many of our modern authors. I hold that when a book is overloaded with this disgusting use of the dictionary it is what Goldsmith terms ‘display of book learned skill.’

“The book was kindly sent me by a lady friend in Atlanta, Mrs. Delbridge, and I hope when I visit Atlanta again I may have the pleasure of meeting the authoress that nature has endowed with such wonderful power of description.”

Most respectfully, CHARLES AIKIN.

Published in _The Atlanta Constitution_ January 5th, 1896.

“LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR,

is the title of one of the best series of sketches that has been written about the ‘late unpleasantness.’ It contains the record of one woman’s experience during the five years of warfare between the North and the South. The author, Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Decatur, Georgia, one of the most graceful writers in the South, has handled the subject in a masterful manner. ‘Truth is stranger than fiction,’ and the work abounds in truth. The volume ought to be on sale at every news-stand in the South. The book has been described as containing ‘a living picture of those trying times--not to stir up bitter feelings and hatred, but a history, and such history as cannot be obtained in any other form.’ Miss Gay was in the thick of the strife, ‘and in a modest way shows herself a heroine worthy of any romance.’ Her pen describes scenes that bring tears for the pain and suffering, and laughter at the ‘makeshifts’ resorted to by those noble people in the hour of actual need. ‘Some parts of the narrative may be judged as rather bitter towards the enemy by those who know not the horrors of that war. But let such critics put themselves in the wake of Sherman’s army and suffer as the writer, and they will feel more charitable towards her who, in recalling those experiences, finds it hard to love all her enemies. There is only a touch of this old-time bitterness, however; most of the book is simply historic, and Miss Gay does not hesitate to record many kindnesses received at the hands of Federal officers.’ Such a valuable contribution to the history of the war should be prized. It is a vivid chronicle, and the rising generation should learn of those stirring events. They will read with unflagging interest to the end of the narrative. We wish for it a wide circulation.”--_The Arkansas Gazette_, March 10th, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

BY MARY A. H. GAY, DECATUR, GA.

We endorse most heartily the praise bestowed on this modest volume by the general press. Within the same scope we do not believe a truer or more sympathetic picture of the ghastly war time has ever been written. It is not fiction, but a faithful presentation of one woman’s experience during the five years that bounded the war between the States.

The writer was in the very thick of the strife, and while with admirable modesty she has endeavored to keep herself out of her book, it is clear that she was one of the heroic and indefatigable women who brought into scenes of suffering the ministry of tenderness. The recital of events as they were, brings humor into the book, whose tenor in the main, however, is necessarily sad.

By those to whom the war is simply a tale that is told, there are parts of the book in which the writer will be accused of undue bitterness. However, no such critics, we think, will be found among the people to whom the war was a reality. Miss Gay records, without hesitation, many kindnesses received at the hands of the Federal officers.

Texas soldiers of Granbury’s brigade, Cleburne’s division, and Hood’s corps, figure conspicuously and by name in the book. Miss Gay visited Hood’s headquarters twice while the brigade was encamped in Georgia, the last time just before they left Georgia for the fatal march into Tennessee. The night-scene she describes near Jonesboro, where they were encamped, is most graphic and pathetic. Miss Gay is the woman who collected the money to have the soldiers who fell at Franklin, Tennessee, reburied, when she heard that the owners of the battlefield said their graves should be ploughed over. She collected $7,000, and her name is engraved on the silver plate on the entrance gate at the McGavock cemetery, which she so largely helped to build.--_The Richmond Times_, Feb. 16, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

The following deserved complimentary notice of the book, “Life in Dixie During the War,” written by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Georgia, we clip from the New York Times: “Joel Chandler Harris’ brief introduction to Miss Gay’s reminiscences of the civil war tells of the authenticity of this simple story, and how a book of this character is of that kind from whence ‘history will get its supplies.’ The dark days are described with absolute fidelity, and this is a quality we may look for in vain ‘in more elaborate and ambitious publications.’ Think of the strangeness of things, the breaks in families, when the author tells how, at the presentation of a flag, the banner was made for a company of Confederate soldiers by Miss Ella Todd and Mrs. White, of Lexington, Kentucky, the sisters of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, the wife of the great President.

It was in and around Decatur, Georgia, where the author now lives, that, in the storm and heat of the war, heroically and unflinchingly the women of the South did their duty in helping those in the field. You will find no incidents of the war which do not show the colored man in the South at his best. Miss Gay describes their devotion and what true friends they were. The author tells how more than once she was near starvation. It happened that the house in which she lived became the headquarters of a troop of United States Cavalry. Very possibly bureau drawers became convenient feed troughs for horses. After the cavalry had left there was not a morsel to eat. The famished children, white and black, were crying for food. The day was spent by the women picking up grains of corn from the cracks and crevices in bureau drawers, and other improvised troughs for Federal horses. In this way, by diligent and persevering work, about a half bushel of corn was obtained. The corn, having been thoroughly washed and dried, was taken to a small mill and coarsely ground, and served to give the hungry ones their bread. The utter destitution of the people after the fall of Atlanta is shown in this way: Lead was in demand, and on the battlefields around Atlanta it could be picked up, pellet by pellet. Delicately nurtured women dug up the spent minie balls from the frozen clods and exchanged them for bread.--The Mechanicsburg, Pa., _Free Press_, February, 20, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

BY MARY A. H. GAY, DECATUR, GA.

Of the numerous stories which have had as their basis the war between the States, there are few truer pictures, in our opinion, than that presented by a Southern woman in this volume, with a telling preface by Joel Chandler Harris. The writer’s home was in Decatur, but the stories include the history of the entire section, and give much very interesting information relative to life in Atlanta, particularly during the war era. Miss Gay was in the very heart of the strife, and she describes with the vigorous pen of one to whom the matter is a vital reality.--_The Southern Churchman_, Richmond, Va., March 12, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

The volume written and published by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Georgia, entitled “Life in Dixie During the War,” is one of the few books in the flood tide of literature on the great civil conflict that many will read with interest, because it is a woman’s story of actual life in Dixie from the beginning to the close of the great conflict. We have volumes in abundance which tell of the great battles of the war, of the achievement of heroes and the sacrifices which attended the victories, but the story of the home life of Southern people during the war must ever be of absorbing interest to every American. They are our people, our countrymen, sharing the common inheritance of heroism in all the conflicts of the Republic, and that part of the history of the war of the rebellion that is least understood is the extraordinary sufferings and sacrifices of the Southern women, who heroically aided their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers in the unequal contest. Miss Gay gives a plain unvarnished story of life in Georgia during the war, and of the many sad sacrifices to which the families of Southern people were subjected. One of the noticeable features of this story, commencing with the expression of confident hope for the success of the Confederacy and ending in the starless midnight of gloom that attended the surrender of Lee and his legions, is given in the description of a presentation of a silken banner to the Magnolia Cadets when the war began. The banner was prepared and finished by Mrs. Dr. White, of Lexington, Kentucky, and her sister Miss Todd, sisters of Mrs. President Lincoln, and they were presented to the enthusiastic audience by Captain Dawson, who subsequently married Miss Todd.

Miss Gay’s volume is full of interesting incidents, showing the heroism and sublime faith and endurance of the women of the South during the terrible ordeal. Like all Southern women, she was intensely devoted to the Southern Cause, and often exposed herself to great peril to serve the Confederacy. More than once she took her life into her hand to aid the hopeless cause in which the Southern armies had engaged. It was principally by her efforts that money was raised to entomb the Confederates that fell at the bloody battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Her name is engraved on a silver plate that is mounted on the entrance gate of the cemetery, and there are few who will not become readers of her book. It is in every way interesting to people both North and South, and should have a very wide circulation.--From _The Times_, Philadelphia, Pa., May 27, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

Many stories of the late war have been written, some from the stand point of the “Blue,” and some from the “Grey,” but we doubt whether a truer picture of real war times in the South has ever been depicted than the one found in this modest little volume. There is no fiction in it, but it is the record of one woman’s experiences during the war.

Her home was in Decatur, Georgia, but her narrative includes the history of all that portion of country. Very few persons who did not live in that section know or remember to what extent those people suffered. And we would commend them to this book--a living picture of those trying times--not to stir up bitter feelings and hatred, but because it is history, and such history as cannot be obtained in any other form.

Miss Gay was in the thick of the strife, and in a modest way she shows herself a heroine worthy of any romance. Her pen describes scenes that bring tears for the pain and suffering, and laughter at the “makeshifts” resorted to by these noble people in the hour of actual needs. Some parts of the narrative may be regarded as rather bitter towards the enemy by those who know not the horrors of that war. But let such critics put themselves in the wake of Sherman’s army, and suffer as the writer did, and we think they will feel more charitably towards her, who, in recalling those experiences, find it hard to love all her enemies. There is only a touch of this old time bitterness, however; most of the book is simply historic, and Miss Gay does not hesitate to record many kindnesses received at the hands of the Federal officers. Such a valuable contribution to the history of the war should be prized. It is a vivid chronicle and the rising generation should learn of those stirring events. They will read with unflagging interest to the end of the narrative. We wish for it a wide circulation.--“_The Christian Observer_,” Louisville, Kentucky, May 8th, 1896.

Commendatory notices have also appeared in “The Hampton (Florida) _Advocate_,” “The Decatur _Record_,” “The DeKalb County _New Era_,” “The Wesleyan _Christian Advocate_,” etc.

The following letter was written to Mr. C. D. Mitchell, Secretary and Treasurer of Chattanooga Plow Company, Chattanooga, Tennessee:

CINCINNATI, OHIO, November 30, 1896.

MY DEAR MITCHELL--I have read Miss Gay’s book on “Life in Dixie During the War,” and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to read it. I fancy you will think I am a good deal of a “calf,” but I couldn’t help choking up a good many times as I read of the terrible experience of the poor women and children and helpless aged people when misfortune placed them in the path of the armies during that bloody period, and we who were at the front knew but little of the misery in the wake of the armies.

I was glad to see that Miss Gay speaks kindly of our command, and that we afforded protection to her family without leaving any harm to them in any way.

To-day is the anniversary of the death of her brother, killed in front of our works at Franklin. When I read of his death the whole bloody scene was revived, and how useless and fool-hardy that charge of Cleburne’s over the open cotton fields at Franklin upon our works. The dead were almost countless, and one long grave was dug for all. I well remember this immense trench where the Confederates were laid side by side. I commanded the 1st Batallion that day at the battle of Franklin, and we had a very warm time of it. We retreated on Nashville the following day, and I was cut off from the Regiment for a while, but we finally made a big detour and regained our lines. After the battle of Nashville we occupied the Franklin battlefield, and I went carefully over the whole field. Hood’s charge upon our Franklin works, if successful, would have been a moderate victory only, but unsuccessful, it was a most terrible loss to him.

At 57 you and I look at things rather different than we did in our youth of 22, and while scars of war may be healed, they are nevertheless not forgotten. With kind regards.

Yours very truly, T. F. ALLEN.

I think General Garrard would like to read this book, if he has not already done so, and if you approve I will send it up to him and return it to you later. At this season of the year he has time to read.

T. F. A.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This lady, Miss “Frank” Whitney, is now the wife of Mr. Charles W. Hubner, the well-known Atlanta poet.

[2] This brave officer was killed near Nashville, Tennessee, Dec. 16th, 1864.

[3] The fifth and seventh verses are criticisms upon four Southern surgeons, who gave the Federal authorities a certificate that our prisoners were well treated, and our sick well cared for, and that the average loss by death was only four per day.

[4] This gentleman, who married sweet Maggie Morgan, (the sister of Dewitt and Billy), has now been Sunday school treasurer for twenty-seven years.

[5] One of these poems, “Marching Through Georgia,” we learn by the evidence, was a favorite canticle of Murray, the kidnapper and butcher of Captain Polynesius.

[6] “Emel Jay” is Miss Mary L. Jackson, daughter of the late Hon. James Jackson, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

End of Project Gutenberg's Life in Dixie during the War, by Mary A. H. Gay