Sherman's Fifth Corps

Wednesday, December 14, 1864

2009-06-14T12:38:00.002-04:00

W. T. SHERMAN, Major General, On Board Dandelion, Ossabaw Sound

General H. W. Halleck, Washington:

Yesterday, at 5 p.m., General Hazen’s division of the Fifteenth Corps carried Fort McAllister by assault, capturing its entire garrison and stores. This opened to us the Ossabaw Sound, and I pulled down to this gun boat to communicate with the fleet. Before opening communication we had completely destroyed all the railroads leading into Savannah and invested the city. The left is on the Savannah River, three miles above the city, and right on the Ogeechee, at King’s Bridge. Were it not for the swamps we could march into the city, but as it is I would have to assault at one or two places over narrow causeways, leading to much loss; whereas in a day or two, with my communications restored and the batteries in position within short range of the city, I will demand surrender.

The army is in splended order, and equal to anything. Weather has been fine, and supplies abundant. Our march was most agreeable, and we were not at all molested by guerrillas. We reached Savannah three days ago, but owing to Ft. McAllister we could not communicate, but now we have McAllister we can go ahead. We have on hand plenty of meat, salt, and potatoes; all we need is bread, and I have sent to Port Royal for that. We have not lost a wagon on the trip, but have gathered in a large supply of negroes, mules, horses, & c. and our teams are in far better condition than when we started. My first duty will be to clear the army of surplus negroes, mules, and horses, and suppose General Saxton can relieve me of these.

Yours, truly,

PVT. THEODORE UPSON, 100 Indiana, In the field before Savannah

We learn that General Hazens 2nd Division of the A. C. has captured Fort McAllister. This gives us communication with our Fleet and now Savannah is doomed without a doubt. We feel proud to think that a Division from our Corps was selected to make the desperate assault upon fort McAllister. The boys did the work in grand style though it cost them dear—24 killed and 110 wounded. The Johnnys fought to the last, and even after our men got into the Fort they got into their “bomb proofs” and had to be overpowered in detail.

We are getting ready to assault the works. It will be hard work in our front for the water is nearly 5 ft deep and there are a great many ditches and bad places to get over and through. But if we make a start we are going through and I think the Johnnys know it for they do not talk as saucy as they did at Vicksburg.

MAJOR FREDERICK C. WINKLER, In the Field, seige of Savannah

We have good news today. We heard heavy firing, both musketry and artillery, a considerable distance to our right yesterday, and this morning we received an order from General Sherman, in which he announces with pleasure that yesterday, at 4:30 P. M., the second division, 15th Army Corps, assaulted and carried Fort Mc Allister, capturing its entire garrison and armaments, thereby opening communication with the Feet and the army of Major General Foster. It is good news indeed-it is the crowning victory of the most successful campaign known in military history. Now we have a base by which we can receive an abundance of supplies and, if need be, reinforcements for further operations.

Savannah must fall; there is no hope for that city. We have batteries on the river shore and infantry on an island above the city, completely commanding the river, so that the rebels have nothing left but the few miles of river below that; that they are still using and can cross straight over into South Carolina. I went over to the river today; there are immense rice plantations there and a large number of mills, both on the main land and on the islands, for threshing and grinding rice. Each plantation has a village of negroes, and they are all hard at work threshing and pounding their rice for the Yankees. They all do it cheerfully and are evidently sincere in their protestations that they are glad the Yankees have come.

Tuesday, December 13, 1864

2009-06-13T12:30:00.001-04:00

REV. G. S. BRADLEY, Chaplain, 22nd Wisconsin, Cheeve’s Rice Mill, Outside Savannah

At 1 O’clock joined Generals Sherman and Howard, at Dr. Cherne’s rice mill, on the Ogeechee, opposite Fort McAlister. I found Sherman on the roof of the mill, surrounded by his staff and signal officers and Bekley and Cole, wiaiting to communicate with Hazen on the island. While patiently waiting for Hazen’s signals, Sherman’s keen eye detected smoke in the horizon seaward. Up to this time he had received no intelligence from the fleet. In a moment the countenance of the chieftain lightened up, and he exclaimed: “Look! Howard; there is a gunboat!”

Time passed on, and the vessel now became visible, yet no signal from the fleet or Hazen. Half an hour passed and the guns of the fort opened simultaneously with puffs of smoke that rose a few hundred yards from the fort, showing that Hazen’s skirmishers had opened. A moment after, Hazen signalled. “I have invested the fort and will assault immediately.” At this moment Sickley announced. “A signal from the gunboat.”

All eyes are turned from the fort to the gunboat that is coming to our assistance with news from home. A few messages pass that inform us that Foster and Dahlgreen are within speaking distance. The gunboat now halts and asks: “Can we run up? Is Fort McAlister ours?”

“No,” is the reply. “Hazen is just ready to storm it. Can you assist?”

“Yes,” is the reply.

“What will you have us to do?”

But before Sherman can reply to Dahlgreen, the thunders of the fort are heard, and the low soundo f small arms in borne across the three miles of marsh and river. Field glasses are opened, and, sitting flat upon the roof, the hero of Atlanta gazed away off to the fort. “There they go grandly; not a waver,” he remarks. Twenty seconds pass, and again he exclaims: “See that flag in the advance, Howard; how steadily it moves; not a man falters. There they go still; see the roll of musketry. Grand, grand.” Still he strains his eyes, and a moment after speaks without raising his eyes—“That flag still goes forward; there is no flinching there.” A pause for a minute. “Look!” he exalims, “it has halted. They waver, no! it’s the parapet! There they go again; now they scale it; some are over. Look, there is a flag on the works! Another, another. It’s ours. The fort’s ours!”

The glass dropped by his side, and in an instant the joy of the great leader at the possession of the river and the opening of the road to his new base, burst forth in the words the old darkie had used, “dis chile don’t sleep tonight.” And turning to one at his side, Captain Andereid, he remarked: “Have a boat for me at once, I must go there,” pointing to the fort, from which half a dozen battle flags floated grandly in the sunset.

BREVET MAJOR GEORGE WARD NICHOLS, Fort McAllister

Fort McAllister is ours. It has been gallantly and bravely won. I saw the heroic assault fromthe point of observation selected by General Sherman at the adjacent rice-mill.

During the greater part of to-day the General gazed anxiously toward the sea, watching for the appearanceo f the fleet. About the middle of the afternoon he descried a light column of smoke creeping lazily along over the flat marshes,and soon the spars of a steamer were visible,and then the flag of our Union floated out. What a thrilling, joyful sight! How the blood bounded, when, answering the signal waved above us, we saw that the brave tars had recognized us, and knew that our General was here with his army!

The sun was now fast going down behind a grove of water-oaks, and as his last rays gilded the earth, all eyes once more turned toward the Rebel fort. Suddenly white puffs of smoke shot out from the thick woods surrounding the line of works. Hazen was closing in, ready for the final rush of his column directly upon the fort. A warning answer came from the enemy in the roar of heavy artillery—and so the battle opened.

General Sherman walked nervously to and fro, turning quickly now and then from viewing the scene of conflict to observe the sun sinking slowly behind the tree-tops. No longer willing to bear the suspense, he said: “Signal General Hazen that he must carry the fort by assault, to-night if possible. Say to him that on his action depends the safety of the whole army, and the success of the campaign.”

The little flag waved and fluttered in the evening air, and the answer came: “I am ready, and will assault at once!” The words had hardly passed when from out the encircling woods there came a long line of blue coats and bright bayonets, and the dear old flag was there, waving proudly in the breeze. Then the fort seemed alive with flame; quick, thick jets of fire shooting out form all its sides, while the white smoke first covered the place and then rolled away over the glacis. The line of blue moved steadily on; too slowly, as it seemed to us, for we exclaimed, “Why don’t they dash forward?” but their measured step was unfaltering. Now the flag goes down, but the line does not halt. A moment longer, and the banner gleams again in the front.

We, the lookers-on, clutched one another’s arms convulsively, and scarcely breathed in the eager intensity of our gaze. Sherman stood watching with anxious air, awaiting the decisive moment. Then the enemy’s fire redoubled in rapidity and violence. The darting streams of fire alone told the position of the fort. The line of blue entered the enshrouding folds of smoke. The flag was at last dimly seen, and then it went out of sight altogether. “They have been repulsed!” said one of the group of officers who watched the fight. “No, by Heaven!” said another; “there is not a man in retreat—not a straggler in all the glorious line!”

The firing ceased. The wind lifted the smoke. Crowds of men were visible on the parapets, fiercely fighting—but our flag was planted there. There were a few scattering musket-shots, and then the sounds of battle ceased. Then the bomb-proofs and parapets were alive with crowding swarms of our gallant men, who fired their pieces in the air as a feu de joie. Victory! the fort was won.

Then all of us who had witnessed the strife and exulted in the triumph, grasped each the other’s hand, embraced, and were glad, and some of us found the water in our eyes. In half an hour were were congratulating General Hazen, and in an hour more Generals Sherman and Howard were pulling down the stream, regardless of torpedoes, in search of the signaled vessel of the navy.

The victory of Fort McAllister, and the way it was done, is a grand ending to this most adventurous campaign. It is in reality the end, for here terminates our march. We set out for a new base, and we have found it. The capture of Savannah is another matter, and with its siege will begin a new campaign. Our soldiers are electrified by the brilliant episode just enacted, and are eager to go wherever the General directs.

L. M. DAYTON, A. A. G., Headquarters, Military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Near Savannah

General Field Order No. 13.

The General-in-Chief announces, with pleasure, that, to-day at four and a half o'clock, P. M., the Second Division, of the Fifteenth Army Corps, assaulted Fort McAllister, and carried the place, capturing the entire garrison and armament, giving full communication with the fleet and army of General Foster. By order of Maj. Gen. W. T. Sherman

W. T. SHERMAN, Cheeve’s Rice Mill

This nigger will have no sleep this night!

Monday, December 12, 1864

2009-06-12T19:52:00.001-04:00

BRAXTON BRAGG, CSA, Augusta To John B. Sale:

The telegraph having been cut we get nothing from Savannah. . A dispatch from Wheeler gives copy of enemy’s order for the line of investment around Savannah. It is about eight miles from the city, and was to have been reached on 9th.

G.T. BEAUREGARD, General, CSA, Charleston, December 12, 1864—11.30 p. m.

General S. Cooper, Adjutant and Inspector General:

Lieutenant-General Hardee reports enemy developed in strong force along his entire front yesterday, and that he has been compelled to extend his lines. He asks for immediate re-enforcements.

P.M. B. YOUNG, Brigadier- General, Hardeeville

Major-General Jones:

The bridge has been destroyed. A party of Yankees from Sherman’s army landed at Hayward’s plantation to-day; destroyed some houses, and scouts report they have gone. It seems to me that this is the most important place just now. Can you send some troops here, with some artillery?

Sherman must be aware that our only communication with Savannah is by Screven’s Ferry. He will do all in his power to cut it: I believe he is doing it now. If my opinion is worth anything I should say intrench where you are, and come here with all that can be spared.

Most respectfully,

G.T. BEAUREGARD, General, Charleston, S. C.

Lieutenant-General Hardee, Sarannah, Ga.

About 450 men will be sent you to-day with instructions to General Jones to divert them, if necessary. These re-enforcements are the last you and Jones, who is subject to your orders, can hope for.

Keep yourself well advised, through staff officers and otherwise, of his ability to hold your communication, for Savannah must be held only so long as is consistent with the safety of its garrison.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General, King’s Bridge

I rode over and spent the night at Mr. King’s house, where I found General Howard, with General Hazen’s division of the Fifteenth Corps. I gave General Hazen, in person, his orders to march rapidly down the right bank of the Ogeechee, and without hesitation to assault and carry Fort McAllister by storm. I explained to General Hazen, fully, that on his action depended the safety of the whole army, and the success of the campaign.

Sunday, December 11, 1864

2009-06-11T19:50:00.003-04:00

JENNIE LEWIS, in camp, Hospital Tent

They say I have slept for 3 days. I woke up and asked for Caroline and Jake. Someone finely said ‘They did not make it Jennie.’ ‘No. That cant be’ I said. I did not no my own voise. The voise said ‘Jennie, you nerely drownd yourself. Now rest.’ Oh, God—plese, let them be rong. Let me wake up and find them here.

PART FOUR: Saturday, December 10, 1864

2009-06-10T19:47:00.001-04:00

BRIG. GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD, CSA, Charleston, S. C.

Lieut. Genl. Hardee, Savannah, Ga.:
Having no army of relief to look to, and your forces being essential to the defense of Georgia and South Carolina, whenever you shall have to select between their safety and that of Savannah, sacrifice the latter….

REV. G. S. BRADLEY, Chaplain, 22nd Wisconsin, In the field, near Savannah, Georgia

Came to a halt about noon. We lay in the woods till nearly night, when our brigade was ordered into camp near the railroad. And here we are at last before Savannah.

MAJOR JAMES A. CONNOLLY, 123rd Illinois Infantry, in the field, near Savannah

Mine eyes have beheld the spires of the city!

This forenoon Capt. Biddle and myself rode down to the river, visited the rice plantations, and rice mills, saw a rebel steamboat, captured by our foragers yesterday, saw the spires of Savannah, saw the sacred soil of South Carolina, saw and talked with the real genuine plantation nigger, and indeed were surfeited with sights to us entirely new. There is as much difference between niggers on rice plantations and “up-country” ones, as there is between negroes and baboons.

Many of those I saw to-day were scarcely a single remove form brutes, and they speak a broken sort of English that I can scarcely understand.

On one plantation I saw about 150 niggers principally women and children, and nearly every one of them sick, not a mouthful for them to eat on the whole plantaiton, except the rice which was stacked up, in the straw, in huge ricks that look like large wheat ricks.

Negroes employed on rice plantations live but a few years, and I suppose from this fact, the idea has become prevalent that white men could not stand it to labor on southern plantations. If they would take any decent care of their negroes on rice plantations, they would live as long as on any other plantations, but the proprietors of rice plantations live in cities or in Europe. Everything is done by overseers, and the negroes are treated with just the same brutality as our army mules; profits are large, and if a nigger dies it makes but little difference, another can easily be bought.
After returning from my visit to the rice plantations, I gave the General a description of what I saw, and he went down himself this afternoon.

BREVET MAJOR GEORGE WARD NICHOLS, Aide-de-Camp, in the field, less than 10 miles from Savannah

This evening a movement of the greatest importance has begun. Hazen’s division of the 15th Corps is marching to the other side of the river. Fort McAllister must be taken. To-morrow’s sun will see the veterans whom Sherman led upon the heights of Missionary Ridge within striking distance of its walls. Warm words have been uttered by the Genrals of the 15th and 17th Corps because the second division has been assigned the honor of this expedition. The possibility of repulse, the fear of wounds and death, do not seem to be considered in the rivalry. These brave men of ours have seen too many wounds, and death has passed too near them to suggest any terrors now. The glory of the flag and victory is the noble thought which animates and stimulates officers and men alike.

We have now connected our lines, so that the four corps are within supporting distance of each other. The soldiers are meanwhile in most cheerful spirits, displaying the unconcern which is the most characteristic feature of our troops.

Friday, December 9, 1864

2009-06-09T22:30:00.004-04:00

JOHN HIGHT, Chaplain, 14th Corps, In Camp near Ebenezer Creek, 5 a.m.

Where can you find in all the annals of plantation cruelty anything more completely inhuman and fiendish than what I witnessed this last night.

On the pretense that there was likely to be fighting in front, the negroes following our wagons were told not to go upon the pontoon bridge until all the troops and wagons were over. A guard was detailed to enforce the order. But, patient and docile as the negroes always are, the guard was really unnecessary. After the army wagons were across, General Davis ordered the pontoon bridge to be taken up, and to not let a negro cross on pain of court marshall. He left those people on the other side of that swollen, racing creek without any means of crossing.

Some of them plunged into the water and swam across. Others ran wildly up and down the bank, shaking with terror. Someone shouted “Rebels!” and Wheeler’s calvary charged on them, driving them pellmell, into the waters, and mothers and children, old and young, perished alike! Many were drowned—how many is not known. There went up from that multitude a cry of agony.

Davis is a military tyrant, without one spark of humanity in his makeup. He was an ardent pro-slavery man before he entered the army, and he has not changed his views since!

COLONEL CHARLES D. KERR, 126th Illinois Cavalry, Head Quarters Cavalry Corps, near Savannah

To-night I witnessed a scene the like of which I pray my eyes may never see again. Hundreds of old men, women and infants abandoned by “General Reb” on the north side of Ebenezer Creek.

With Wheeler's cavalry closely pressing from the rear, the negroes raised their hands and implored from the corps commander the protection they had been promised; the prayer was in vain and, with cries of anguish and despair, men, women and children rushed by hundreds into the turbid stream and many were drowned before our eyes.

Some of our soldiers returned and cut down trees to float across. And the negro men themselves built rafts to ferry the terrorfied refugees across. Some of these makeshift rafts overturned and women and their babies were swept downstream. So many bodies piled up they formed a human dam across the 100 foot creek. The others huddled as close to the edge of the water as they could, crying, praying, and fearful that the rebels would come before they could get over.

From what we learned afterwards, the rebels did return and of those who remained upon the land, their fate at the hands of Wheeler's troops was scarcely to be preferred.

J. WHEELER, MAJ. GENL., CSA, Near Ebenezer Creek

Lt. Coln. T. B. Roy, A. A. Genl. Hd. Qs. Dept., etc. Colonel:

On the night of Dec. 8th, we shelled the camp of the 14th Corps with good effect, throwing the corps into confusion and causing it to leave camp at midnight, abandoning clothing, arms, etc. By breaking up the camp during the extreme darkness, a great many negroes were left in our hands whom we sent back to their owners. We also captured three wagons and teams, and caused the enemy to burn several more wagons. The whole number of negroes captured from the enemy during the movement was nearly 2,000.

Respy. Col., Your Obt. Servt.

FORTUNE BELL, Camp Meeting, south of Ebenezer Creek

My master used to throw me in a buck and whip me. He would put my hands together and tie them. Then he would strip me naked. Then would make me squat down. Then he would run a stick through behind my knees and in front of my elbows. My knee was up against my chest. My hands was tied together just in front of my shins. The stick between my arms and my knees held me in a squat. That’s what they call a buck. You couldn’t stand up and you couldn’t get your feet out. You couldn’t do nothing but just squat there and take what he put on. You couldn’t move no way at all. Just try to. You just fall over on one side and have to stay there till you were turned over by him. He would whip me on one side till that was sore and full of blood and then he would whip me on the other side till that was all tore up. The blood flew. It ran all down my back and dripped off my heels. But that don’t compare to our betrayal at the hands of this Union Army.

You thought the Yankees was going help the nigger. What kind of help you call this? We should have known it. What can you expect from a hog but a grunt. We have to take care of ourselves, people. Don’t expect nothing from the Union Army for it is rife with copperheads. We are between two poisonous snakes. Their names are slavery and freedom. The snake called slavery lay with his head pointed south and the snake called freedom lay with his head pointed north. Both are riled up against the nigger. Don’t’get too close to either one of them, people, or they will bite.

Thursday, December 8, 1864

2009-06-08T22:22:00.000-04:00

H. W. SLOCUM, M. G., Army of Georgia, Head Qrs., Left Wing, Springfield, Dec. 8, 7 A. M.

Genl. Davis,

Genl. Sherman has information that the line of defense around Savannah is about four miles from the city. He desires to take the road extending from Cherokee hill through Silk Hope to Litchfield, as our first position. Your corps should be at or near Cherokee hill to night.

Yours very respectfully,

MAJ. JAMES A. CONNOLLY, 123rd Illinois Infantry, In the field, near Ebeneezer Creek, Georgia

Division moved forward again at 7 o’clock, everybody tired, sleepy and worn out. I don’t think I could stand this kind of soldiering more than a month or two without some rest.

After marching about 3 miles, and crossing a small creek, we were compelled to halt, Carlin’s and Morgan’s Divisions which were in front of us being detained by the destruction of the "Ebenezer Creek” bridge.

Early in the afternoon the cavalry which was in our rear, was pressed by a superior force of the enemy (as they said). The enemy continued during the day to threaten an attack, and thus kept us on the alert all day, which was very annoying as we were all very sleepy.

At 12 ½ midnight we withdrew in the utmost silence, not a bugle being sounded nor a loud command being given, and resumed our march, crossing Ebenezer Creek and encamping just south of it now. This night’s work was harder than that of last night, and I never was so utterly exhausted and worn out as am after crossing Ebenezer Creek.

The enemy was just in our rear, undoubtedly listening for every sound that would indicate a movement on our part, and to cross the creek we had to pass through at least a mile of the most gloomy, dismal cypress swamp I ever saw, on a narrow causeway, just wide enough for a wagon to drive along. If the enemy had discovered our movement and had planted a piece of artillery in the road to rake that causeway while we were on it, they could have killed or wounded three-fourths of the men in the division, and we should have been utterly helpless to defend against it. If there were no other road to approach Savannah except by this one over Ebenezer Creek, five thousand rebels could defend the city against the world. I don’t believe they thought we would be foolish enough to try to cross here.

When the head of the column reached the “Ebenezer Causeway” I went ahead with one of Genl. Davis’ aids who had come back to point out our ground for camping, and as I reached the bridge, I found there Major Lee, Provost Marshal of the Corps, engaged, by Genl. Davis’ order, in turning off the road, into the swamp all the fugitive negroes that came along. When we should cross I knew it was the intention that the bridge should be burned, and I inquired if the negroes were not to be permitted to cross. I was told that Genl. Davis had ordered that they should not.

This I knew, and Genl. Davis knew, must result in all these negroes being recaptured or perhaps brutally shot down by the rebel cavalry to-morrow morning. The idea of five or six hundred black women, children and old men being thus returned to slavery by such an internal copperhead as Jeff. C. Davis was entirely too much for my Democracy; I suppose loss of sleep, and fatigue made me somewhat out of humor too, and I told his staff officers what I thought of such an inhuman, barbarous proceeding in language which may possibly result in a reprimand from his serene Highness, for I know his toadies will repeat it to him, but I don’t care a fig; I am determined to expose this act of his publicly, and if he undertakes to vent his spleen on me for it, I have the same rights that he himself exercised in his affair with Nelson.

I expect this will cost me my Brevet as Lieut. Colonel, but let it go, I wouldn’t barter my convictions of right, nor seal my mouth for any promotion.

Wednesday, December 7, 1864

2009-06-07T22:08:00.001-04:00

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General, Commanding, HDQRS. Military Division Of The Mississippi, In the Field, Two Miles and a Half from No. 3

Major-General Slocum, Commanding Left Wing:

GENERAL: Owing to the rain, General Blair did not reach Guyton to-day, but is at this point, about two miles and a half northwest of Guy ton. Early in the morning, his column will move right forward on the road which passes about two miles west of Guyton and about the same distance east of Eden, where your road and ours come together. It will be well if you can find a road passing from Springfield to Monteith and Pooler, and General Davis should be instructed to reach Saint Augustine and the vicinity of Cherokee Hill. He must first secure the road indicated from Cherokee Hill to Silk Hope and Litchfield. Press upon him that he must arrive when expected. We hear that the enemy is fortifying in a semi-circle around and about four miles from Savannah.

I am, general, respectfully, yours,

H. C. ROGERS, Assistant Adjutant- General, Headquarters Left Wing, Army Of Georgia, Four Miles from Springfield, December 7 1861—11 a. m.

Maj. Gen. J. C. Davis, Commanding Fourteenth Corps:

The major-general commanding is of the opinion that the enemy will not give up the Charleston and Savannah road without a fight, and thinks you may be attacked at any time before you reach that road. He desires me to suggest that you strengthen your advance guard, keep your column well closed up, and let Kilpatrick take care of your rear. He expects your corps to be at St. Augustine as agreed. He also sends word that you should keep your bridge down until everyone is across. Please indicate where you will probably encamp to-night, and, if possible, communicate with us to-morrow. We shall not move beyond Springfield until further orders and until we know where your column has caught up.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JEF. C. DAVIS, Brevet Major-General, Commanding, Headquarters Fourteenth Army Corps, Five Miles North of Sister’s Ferry,—3.10 p. m.

Col. H. C. Rodgers, Chief of Staff, Left Wing:

COLONEL: Your dispatch by Corporal Cureton and party is just received. My advance division took dinner at Sister’s Ferry; my rear will reach there to-night. My headquarters will be about five miles from that place. The enemy shows himself at all the ferries on the opposite bank of the river. A little skirmishing has been reported in my rear this morning. We find fallen timber across all the creeks and swamps. I sent a messenger to you at daylight this morning. Our roads are bad, but I will make nearly twenty miles to-day by dint of hard work and rapid marching. I had already made arrangememits to place more troops in my front. I have and will keep my bridge down as long as necessary for the safe crossing of the army.

Yours, respectfully,

CAPTAIN GEORGE W. PEPPER, In camp

The roads are bad, execrable; swamps, creeks, and pathless marshes have to be bridged and crossed. We cross the streams one after another on pontoons until we are now within 30 miles from Savannah. We anxiously wait the issue of the day, which may materially affect the immediate capture of the city. We will not be defeated. The absolute necessity of a complete victory over the rebels, has been so intensely infused into our army, that they must conquer. How anxiously we wait the blast that orders our brave veterans forward.

I have had an interesting conversation with Lieutenant William L. Reteley, an escaped prisoner from Columbia, South Carolina. The Lieutenant is a dashing officer of the Fifty-first Ohio, and was captured at the battle of Chickamauga. For fifteen months he has endured unparalleled hardships and privations, reducing him to a mere skeleton. He had been in Richmond, Danville, Macon, Savannah, Millen, Andersonville, Charleston and Columbia. He confirms the usual tales of the inhumanity and brutal treatment of the rebel officers to our brave men, incarcerated in Southern dungeons. He left his prison, traveled by night, and lay concealed during the day in the swamps and woods. He found the much abused and despised negro to be a Samaritan, a friend indeed. The slaves gave him directions where to hide, what ferry to cross, when to travel, and replenished his scanty haversack with sweet potatoes, cereals, molasses and chickens. He came within nine miles of Augusta, supposing the army to be there; here again the trusty negro came to his aid, and piloted him through to our lines. The Lieutenant, though formerly prejudiced against the African, is now enthusiastic in his praises of the down-trodden, but soon to be emancipated slave.

I only echo the feelings of thousands escaped Federals, when I say: God Almighty bless the African race. Larger caravans of negroes than before are now following in our path, frequently being cut off by the enemy's cavalry, but by circuitous routes and much hard marching, making their appearance again. Some of these are mere babes in arms. Jennie has found her sister Caroline and frequently chooses to spend her time with her rather than on her own studies. I have warned her that she has lost her focus, and today, I ordered her to return her sister to the columns of negroes behind us as she is not employed or sponsored by an officer and therefore is prohibited by General Davis’s orders from riding in the wagons, sleeping in a tent in our camp, and so forth. I told Jennie I thought the General (meaning General Sherman) might come into camp unexpectedly. I could not promise to her what his reaction would be to this lack of respect for camp rules. The truth is, General Sherman is with the advance of the 15th Corps and miles away from here. But Jennie must learn the discipline one needs to truly benefit from any instuction. And she must follow the army way. You obey orders.

JENNIE LEWIS, On the Road to Freedom

Dear Papa, I must write this qwickly because Captain Pepper is sending us all to the rear. He says we are going against General Davis orders by having Caroline and little Jake here in the tent with me. We tried to tell him that big Jake is one of the generals road men and his family should ride with the headquarters but he says that is not so. ‘She is in your tent, Jennie. She is not with her husband. She will either have to join him at the front or move to the rear.’ Well if Caroline is going behind the wagons so will I.

Captain Pepper seems very put out with me. I did not go with Brother Fortune and the others to see General Sherman because Captain Pepper warned me not to leave camp. Yet he would send us to the rear of the lines to sleep on the cold wet ground. I don’t mind for myself. But it ranes much of the time. What will Caroline do to keep little Jake warm and dry. That will be hard Papa! He is always on the move. He runs laughing around camp and into and out of the solders tents. No one minds him. They love him. They call ‘Come here Jake. You fat little rascal you.’ And then they give him some trinket or sing and clap. Jake has more friends than anyone and he is not yet 2!

Caroline told me she has one regret about little Jake. ‘I would have waited till we were free so that my baby would never have to say he was born a slave. I wish I could have made up my own mind. But my master took that away.’

‘Jake, too.’ I said. ‘He didn’t have to do what he did.’

‘Oh he’s all right Jennie. He’s a good man after all. He didn’t have no choice neither. But you do. Now, you can be the one to have a baby born free.’

I had never thought of having babies. Now, I would have ten more just like little Jake if I could!

Must close, Papa. The solders are at the tent with a wagon to move us to the rear.

In haste,

Tuesday, December 6, 1864

2009-06-06T00:37:00.000-04:00

A. LINCOLN, U.S. PresidentWashington, D.C. 1864

State of the Union Address Abraham Lincoln December 6, 1864

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Again the blessings of health and abundant harvests claim our profoundest gratitude to Almighty God…

The war continues. Since the last annual message all the important lines and positions then occupied by our forces have been maintained and our arms have steadily advanced, thus liberating the regions left in rear, so that Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of other States have again produced reasonably fair crops.

The most remarkable feature in the military operations of the year is General Sherman's attempted march of 300 miles directly through the insurgent region. It tends to show a great increase of our relative strength that our General in Chief should feel able to confront and hold in check every active force of the enemy, and yet to detach a well-appointed large army to move on such an expedition. The result not yet being known, conjecture in regard to it is not here indulged.

Important movements have also occurred during the year to the effect of molding society for durability in the Union. Although short of complete success, it is much in the fight direction that 12,000 citizens in each of the States of Arkansas and Louisiana have organized loyal State governments, with free constitutions, and are earnestly struggling to maintain and administer them. The movements in the same direction, more extensive though less definite, in Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee should not be overlooked. But Maryland presents the example of complete success. Maryland is secure to liberty and union for all the future. The genius of rebellion will no more claim Maryland. Like another foul spirit being driven out, it may seek to tear her, but it will woo her no-more.

At the last session of Congress a proposed amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery throughout the United States passed the Senate, but failed for lack of the requisite two-thirds vote in the House of Representatives. Although the present is the same Congress and nearly the same members, and without questioning the wisdom or patriotism of those who stood in opposition, I venture to recommend the reconsideration and passage of the measure at the present session. Of course the abstract question is not changed; but an intervening election shows almost certainly that the next Congress will pass the measure if this does not. Hence there is only a question of time as to when the proposed amendment will go to the States for their action. And as it is to so go at all events, may we not agree that the sooner the better?

It is not claimed that the election has imposed a duty on members to change their views or their votes any further than, as an additional element to be considered, their judgment may be affected by it. It is the voice of the people now for the first time heard upon the question. In a great national crisis like ours unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable--almost indispensable. And yet no approach to such unanimity is attainable unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the majority simply because it is the will of the majority. In this case the common end is the maintenance of the Union, and among the means to secure that end such will, through the election, is most dearly declared in favor of such constitutional amendment.

The most reliable indication of public purpose in this country is derived through our popular elections. Judging by the recent canvass and its result, the purpose of the people within the loyal States to maintain the integrity of the Union was never more firm nor more nearly unanimous than now. The extraordinary calmness and good order with which the millions of voters met and mingled at the polls give strong assurance of this. Not only all those who supported the Union ticket, so called, but a great majority of the opposing party also may be fairly claimed to entertain and to be actuated by the same purpose. In affording the people the fair opportunity of showing one to another and to the world this firmness and unanimity of purpose, the election has been of vast value to the national cause.

The election has exhibited another tact not less valuable to be known--the fact that we do not approach exhaustion in the most important branch of national resources, that of living men. While it is melancholy to reflect that the war has filled so many graves and carried mourning to so many hearts, it is some relief to know that, compared with the surviving, the fallen have been so few. While corps and divisions and brigades and regiments have formed and fought and dwindled and gone out of existence, a great majority of the men who composed them are still living. The same is true of the naval service. The election returns prove this. So many voters could not else be found. Thousands, white and black, join us as the national arms press back the insurgent lines. We have more men now than we had when the war began; that we are not exhausted nor in process of exhaustion; that we are gaining strength and may if need be maintain the contest indefinitely.

The national resources… are unexhausted, and, as we believe, inexhaustible. The public purpose to reestablish and maintain the national authority is unchanged, and, as we believe, unchangeable. The manner of continuing the effort remains to choose. On careful consideration of all the evidence accessible it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union, precisely what we will not and can not give. His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He can not voluntarily reaccept the Union; we can not voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided by victory. If we yield, we are beaten; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. Either way it would be the victory and defeat following war. What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he can not reaccept the Union, they can. They can at any moment have peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting to the national authority under the Constitution.

In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to the national authority on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the Government, I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year a ago, that "while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of Congress." If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it. In stating a single condition of peace I mean simply to say that the war will cease on the part of the Government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it.

Monday, December 5, 1864

2009-06-05T00:33:00.000-04:00

BRAXTON BRAGG, Headquarters Armies Of The Confederate States, Augusta

Col. John B. Sale, Military Secretary:

The following just received from General Wheeler: Near Walker’s Bridge, December 5, 1864—4.30 a. m. Enemy’s infantry and cavalry left Waynesborough going toward Millen; they were in very large force, both infantry and cavalry. Everything now appears to be moving toward Savannah.

H. W. HALLECK, Major-General and Chief of Staff Surgeon-General U. S. Army, Washington:

The Secretary of War directs that all supplies, stores, and material for General Sherman’s army be immediately sent to Hilton Head, S. C., to be landed at such place, or places, as may be there ordered. Competent officers of each department should be at that place to forward and issue stores without delay. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

(Copies to the Chief of Commissary Department, Chief Engineer, Chief of Ordnance, and the Quartermaster-General, Washington.)

C.W. THOMAS, Major and Chief QuartermasterHilton Head, S. C

Maj. Gen. J. G. Foster, Commanding Department of the South:
General: The telegraph operator here has just received a dispatch from Port Royal Ferry, stating that a rebel officer who has deserted brings information that General Sherman is within sight of Savannah. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Sunday, December 4, 1864

2009-06-04T00:28:00.000-04:00

CAPTAIN JAMES M. RANDALL, 21st Wisconsin,In the Field, Georgia

Our Division moved at noon, and after a march of 6 miles went into camp at dark. We passed through a poor country. A few of those black refugees whom we left at Buckhead Creek overtook us. We learned that several were drowned in an attempt to cross this stream.

JENNIE LEWIS, On the Road to Freedom

The colored people are in an uproar. Last night the solders pulled up the boat bridge and left people behind the wagons on the other side of a creek. Some turned back and said they were going home. Some people almost drowned trying to get across. The men had to tie logs together with there own clothes. It took till this morning to get everyone across. I was in the mess tent when a solder came to General Davis and said ‘Sir the niggers are back.’

‘Con found it!’ General Davis said. ‘I ordered that bridge to be taken up. Which ones of my lincoln-loving john brown abolishioniss solders refused a direct order? They will be tried and shot! I will not have my lines clogged up with niggers, if I have to remove every bridge from here to Sa-van-da’ (that’s what it sounds like to me). Let them stop up the creeks instead.’

He did not see me in the room or he saw me and did not care that I heard. I ran strate to Rev. Quarles as soon as I could get away. I repeted as best I could word for word what the general said. Rev Quarles called some of the men and women in camp together and they talked for a long time. While words flew around to the colored folks in camp. ‘We should all go back to our homes and let the army fend for itself’ some people said. Caroline and I did not like that talk at all. Our Papa is ahead of us, not behind. Folks sat around camp fires shivering and grumbling and crying and praying until finely the men and women came out of there meeting and spred through the camp to talk to the rest of us. Rev. Quarles, Fortune Bell, and some of the other men from Millidgeville came to my tent.

‘Jennie we are sending a delegation to General Sherman. We want him to know what happened last night. We want him to order General Davis to keep the bridges up and we need you to come along.’ This was Fortune Bell talking.

My heart skipped a beat. Caroline and I looked at each other. ‘What do you want me for?’

‘You are an eye witness to what General Davis said. And’— he stopped and looked at Rev. Quarles. Then he looked at me. ‘General Sherman trusts you. He knows you and likes you. He will listen to what you say.’

I could not say a word but just stood there looking at everyone. Finely I said ‘Im just the cooks assistant. General Sherman is too important to listen to me.’

As I said the words I no know my eyes spoke another truth. Not only do I know General Sherman will listen to me because he has done just that before. I also want to go. But how can I leave Caroline and little Jake when I have just found them! Fortune Bell then said ‘They call you Shermans wife.’

I felt myself get hot under my clothes. ‘Who says that?’ I asked. Caroline had gotten up by now and come to my side. She took my hand and squeezed it.

‘It is not safe for my sister to be on the roads in this country. It is crawling with rebels.’

‘We will ride with the carriers going to the generals headquarters. No one will dare molest us and if they try, we will protect Jennie’ Fortune Bell said.

i heard him talking but I could not get the other words out of my ears ‘Shermans wife! Shermans wife!’ How could such a thing get started? What did people think of me? I looked at Rev. Quarles now but his face was not changed. I asked him if he thought I should go.

‘It is a big responsibility, Jennie. You are the only one who should decide whether you will take it. I will only say that if you decide to go I will answer for you to your mother and father.’

‘It is not the way people think Reverened’ I said. ‘General Sherman is a good, kind man.’

‘I know Jennie. I know you are a good, smart girl. I know you will do what is right.’

I wanted to cry or scream or run out of there. Caroline saved me. ‘You say you will leave in the morning. Then she must take the night to decide. My sister will let you know to-morrow.’

When they left, I looked at Caroline and she looked at me. ‘Shermans wife?’ she said. We laughed and fell upon the bed. ‘Can you see it, Cal? Me part of a delegation—‘ we looked that word up—‘to General Sherman?’

‘He would be glad to see you’ she said.

Now Caroline and Jake are asleep and I am still awake writing all of this in my book. Now I must think about what to do. I do not want to leave Caroline. Captain Pepper has told me never to leave camp without him. These are strong reasons for me to remane right here in camp and Mr. Bell and the men around him can talk to General Sherman. And yet, there is a part of me that itches to see him—.

I must do as Caroline says and sleep on it—if I can ever get to sleep.

Saturday, December 3, 1864

2009-06-03T00:20:00.000-04:00

U.S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General, USA, City Point, Va.

Maj. Gen. W. T. Sherman, Commanding Armies, near Savannah, Ga.:

The little information gleaned from the Southern press indicating no great obstacle to your progress, I have directed your mails, which had been previously collected in Baltimore by Colonel Markland, special agent of the Post-Office Department, to be sent as far as the blockading squadron off Savannah, to be forwarded to you as soon as heard from on the’ coast. Not liking to rejoice before the victory is assured I abstain from congratulating you and those under your coummuand until bottom has been struck. I have never had a fear of the result. After all becomes quiet, and roads up here so bad that there is likely to be a week or two that nothing can be done, I will run down the coast and see you. If you desire it, I will ask Mrs. Sherman to go with me.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General, Headquarters, In camp, Millen Georgia

Notes for Report: I entered Millen with the Seventeenth Corps (General Frank P. Blair), and here paused to communicate with all parts of the army. General Howard is south of the Ogeechee River, with the Fifteenth Corps, opposite Scarboro. General Slocum is at Buckhead Church, four miles north of Millen, with the Twentieth Corps. The Fourteenth (General Davis) is at Lumpkin's Station, on the Augusta road, about ten miles north of Millen, and the cavalry division is within easy support of this wing. Thus the whole army is in good position and in good condition.

We have largely subsisted on the country; our wagons are full of forage and provisions; but, as we approach the sea-coast, the country will become more sandy and barren, and food will no doubt became more scarce; still, with little or no loss, we have traveled two-thirds of our distance, and we will push on for Savannah. General Hardee is ahead, between us and Savannah. We will resume the march directly on Savannah, by the four main roads. The weather is fine, the roads good, and every thing seems to favor us.

CAPTAIN JAMES M. RANDALL, 21st Wisconsin, In the Field, near Lumpkin’s Station, Georgia

We crossed Buckhead Creek, a deep stream, on a pontoon bridge. The 21st Wis. was in the rear of the 14th Corps. Following us were probably three hundred black refugees, men, women and children. Some had followed our army fifty miles or more. All were joyous as they marched toward freedom. But for some reason Gen. Jeff. C. Davis, our Corps commander, desired to get rid of these followers, and he chose to do it at the crossing of Buckhead Creek. He ordered that as soon as the last soldier, and those blacks who were employed by officers, had crossed, the pontoon bridge should be immediately removed. Thus the poor creatures were left in the swamp to their doom. I saw the bridge removed and heard the piteous pleadings of these people to be allowed to cross. As they came to realize their helpless condition, they presented a sad sight.

I regard this as an inhuman act ordered by Gen. Jeff. C. Davis, and without an excuse. Our regiment went out on picket at night. My company was stationed on the railroad 250 paces north of the depot. General Sherman's Headquarters is in Millen.

MAJOR JAMES A. CONNOLLY, 123rd Illinois Infantry, In the field, near Lumpkin's Station, Georgia

We heard from the rest of our corps tonight and form the extreme right of the army. General Sherman with the right wing is probably within 20 miles of Savannah tonight. Our withdrawal from Waynesboro and march to this place this afternoon closes all demonstrations against Augusta. We have kept up the delusion of an attack on that place as long as we can, and with the sunlight of tomorrow the true design of our campaign will break upon the bewildered minds of the rebels. It is over a hundred miles tonight between the two extremes of our army, and tomorrow morning we commence closing up as rapidly as possible. The road we are encamped on tonight leads straight to Savannah. I heard tonight that General Davis turned back a lot of contrabands at Buckhead Creek, and I don’t doubt it, for he is a copperhead.

CAPTAIN GEORGE PEPPER, Aide-de-Camp, near Lumpkin's station

General S. sent note from Millen requesting Jennie go to there and meet up with the Headquarters wagon there. I am not sure whether this request was in the form of a direct order. There is something clandestine about it, being addressed "For Your Eyes Only." I sent word to the General that, as I am remaining here with the 14th Corps on General Davis' orders, Jennie had better remain as well. If this was a diret order, I suppose I face reprimand. Well, so be it. I cannot consider sending her away from here after lecturing her about staying afoot.

I heard there was some trouble at Buckhead Creek and that some of the Negroes there were left behind, on Davis' orders. All the more reason to keep a tighter watch on Jennie's whereabouts.

Friday, December 2, 1864

2009-06-02T00:10:00.001-04:00

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General, Headquarters, near Millen, Georgia

General Wheeler, with his division of rebel cavalry, has succeeded in getting ahead of us between Milledgeville and Augusta, and General P. J. Hardee had been dispatched by General Beauregard from Hood's army to oppose our progress directly in front. He has, however, brought with him no troops, but relies on his influence with the Georgians (of whose State he was a native) to arouse the people, and with them to annihilate Sherman's army!

The southern newspapers predict our “utter annihilation.” But our advance through this country has been steady and mostly unnoposed. After the skirmish in Sandersville, General Wheeler’s cavalry has all but disappeared from our midst, and I expect no serious opposition from here on. On entering Sandersville, I told certain citizens (who would be sure to spread the report) that, if the enemy attempted to carry out their threat to burn their food, corn, and fodder, in our route, I would most undoubtedly execute to the letter the general orders of devastation made at the outset of the campaign.

I accompanied the Twentieth Corps from Milledgeville to Sandersville. I now shift to the Right Wing, and am accompanying the Seventeenth Corps (General Blair) on the south of the railroad, till abreast of Station 91/2 (Barton), General Howard, in person, with the Fifteenth Corps, keeping farther to the right, and about one day's march ahead, ready to turn against the flank of any enemy who should oppose our progress. At Barton I learned that Kilpatrick's cavalry had reached the Augusta railroad about Waynesborough, where he ascertained that our prisoners have been removed from Millen, and therefore the purpose of rescuing them, upon which we had set our hearts, was an impossibility. But as Wheeler's cavalry had hung around him, I ordered him to leave his wagons and all incumbrances with the Left Wing, and move in the direction of Augusta; if Wheeler gave him the opportunity, to indulge him with all the fighting he wanted.

The Seventeenth Corps has taken up the destruction of the railroad at the Ogeechee, near Station 10, and will continue it to Millen, the enemy offering little or no opposition. Pierce the shell of the Confederacy and it’s hollow, all hollow inside. Tomorrow I enter Millen with the Seventeenth Corps and there will pause one day, to communicate with all parts of the army. Will send word to Pepper for Jennie to return with the courier to Millen. Manuel is complaining about her absense and one must keep the cook happy. Restless energy to-night.

JENNIE LEWIS, On the Freedom Road

Captain Pepper scolded me to-night for leaving camp and missing so many of our lessons. 'I thought you were serious about your studies, Jennie. I had hoped we could continue making progress. But it appears you have abandoned your hopes for elevation above ignorance and want.'

‘No, Captain Pepper, sir…’

‘Further, you left camp without my knowledge. If something had happened to you, what would I even say to your mother? You could have been just another anonymous dead black body along this road. It is utterly irresponsible.'

I have stayed up all night with my speller to write the words he said. The only answer I gave was to show him Caroline and the baby in my tent. Captain Pepper said the General should not be told about them.

General Sherman is now in a different camp, and so is Manuel. So I have all day long to play with Jake and talk to Caroline. I hold the baby and rock him to sleep. Then I hold him and watch him sleep. Then I hold him when he wakes up. I read lessons to him and he lissens like he knows what they mean. In the evening I do not want to be away from them. So I have missed my lessons with Captain Pepper. He is unhappy about that.

I wish General Sherman were here. He would know why I chose Caroline and Jake over a lesson. He told me how much he misses his children and the son who died. General Sherman understands about family. And he loves me. He told me so himself.

Thursday, December 1, 1864

2009-06-01T23:52:00.000-04:00

SUE SAMPLE, Sample House, Summertown, Ga.

They shot all the hogs in the pen. Two Yanks came first, a Dutch and Negro, telling Rachel it would be best to turn the hogs out, but she had no time before they were there. The yard, Negro houses, and kitchen, were crowded with the yankees. We could hear nothing but guns all day and the squeals of hogs. We begged them to leave something, but no answer. They camp here tonight, and until 11 o’clock, the camp was ringing with music, which made our hearts bleed. We had but little to eat and do not sleep at all tonight.

NORA M. CANNING, Canning Home, Jefferson County, near Louisville

For several days, squads of Wheeler’s cavalry have passed and tell us where Sherman’s army is, and of the depredations they are committing, and warn us to prepare for the worst, as they were showing no mercy; and on Sunday, we heard that the destroyers were encamped just above our upper plantation, aobut four miles from our home. That night, the heavens looked as if they were on fire, from the glare of hundreds of burning houses, and yesterday morning, a Negro man came from the upper plantation and told us they were crossing the river and that some of them were in Louisville, about two miles off; also that they were searching the houses, breaking open the stores and setting fire to them, and killing all the stock they could find. About noon today, just as we were ready to sit down to dinner, a little Negro boy came running in half breathless from fright. “Marster,” he cried, “dey’s coming down the lane.”

“Who is coming?” asked the master.

“Two white men’s wid blue coats on,” the little Negro answered.

We left the dining-room and looked out. Instead of “two white men with blue coats,” we saw about a dozen at the Negro houses, talking to the Negroes. My husband went out, and two of them came up and spoke very politely to him, asking if he could let them have something to eat. They said they wanted some flour, and were willing to pay for what they got. The looked around the pantry and smoke-house, and one of them said, “You had better have those provisions carried into your house; some of our men are not very particular to ask for what they want,” while another offered to take down some pieces of meat that were hanging in the smoke-house and bring them into the house for me.

I began to think they were not so bad after all, but I soon had reason to change my mind. We had hardly got the meat inside of the house before hundreds of the “Blue Coats” could be seen everywhere. One man came up to me and asked if I could tell him how long it was since the last “Rebs” passed the place. I made no reply to him, whereupon he cursed me and demanded to know why I did not answer his question.

“Don’t you know the Southern women know no such persons as ‘Rebs,’” another soldier observed.

“Then,” said the first, “will you please tell me, madam, how long since the last Confederate soldier passed here?”

I told him General Wheeler’s men had been passing for several days, and that some of them had passed that morning. “I suppose,” I added, “that they are waiting for you down in the swamp,” and I hoped in my heart they would give them a warm reception.”

BRAXTON BRAGG, Commanding General of North Carolina, CSA, Augusta, Ga.

Military Secretary, Richmond, Va.:

Following just received from Major-General Wheeler:

Four Miles West Buck Head Church, November 29—9 p. m. We fought General Kilpatrick all night and all day, charging hiiii at every opportunity. Enemy fought stubbornly, and a considerable number of them killed. We stampeded and came near capturing Kilpatrick twice, but having a fleet horse lie escaped bare headed, leaving his hat in our hands. Our own loss about 70, including the gallant General Robertson, severely wounded. Our troops all acted handsomely.
Jos. Wheeler, Major-General

W. J. HARDEE, Lieutenant-General, CSA, Savannah, Georgia

Major General L. McLaws: General Wheeler says that prisoners report that Sherman is going to Savannah by way of Augusta. The force at the Oconee bridge cannot be spared yet. Be prepared to press negroes if you need them.

Wednesday, November 30, 1864

2009-05-30T14:01:00.010-04:00

CAROLINE AND JENNIE, On the Freedom Road

Dear Papa! I have found Caroline!

My dear sister sleeps next to me in my tent and her baby boy lies curled besider her.

I could burst with happiness. I found her three days ago right where Captain C. described. She was dressed in rags Papa but now she has good dresses and stockings and shoes made by the women in camp. They have been feeding her and taking care of the baby while I work all day. At night she brings the baby to my tent and we cry and talk until near morning. We are so happy to be united Papa.

And--oh, Papa—soon Caroline will be a mother again!

Caroline and I rode all day in a wagon to catch the army lines. How we made it, I do not know because rebel soldiers hid all about the county. But they paid us no mind and we made it and are now safe with the Union. Caroline is married to a man named Jake Adams. She was forced to marry him by her new master. That is why he bought her to his farm. She said there are many children already living there.

‘Caroline’ he said ‘You are a big fine looking woman and Jake is a big fine looking man. I want you to bring forth big fine looking children.’

‘All he wanted me for was to make more children he could sell she told me. 'Well I could not go for that, Jennie. The first night Jake tried to come to my bed I picked up the poker and said Get away from me before I bust your brains out and stomp on them.’

He sat there glaring at her for an hour and she glared right back. Then he stomped out the door and she barred it. ' The next day, I went to tell Master what Jake had done and he told me ‘I paid good money for you Caroline, and I did that because I want you to raise me children. You are to live with Jake for that purpose. Now if you don’t want whipping at the stake, you do as I want.'

‘What could I do Jennie, but submit. And there is little Jake.’

You have never seen such an angel, Papa. He is not yet one but walks and runs about as if he owns the place. He never meets a stranger but has a smile for everyone. To hear him laff is to beleve there is no war, Papa.

Caroline is with the Federals now. No one can sell her baby away.

I will stop now, Papa, for there are things between sisters that even you should not no know. Just know that we are, always,

Your two loving daughters who long to be united with you,

Tuesday, November 29, 1864

2009-05-29T13:48:00.000-04:00

REV. G. C. QUARLES, Camp Meeting, Middle Georgia

We hear grumbling from the soldiers. They say the the growing number of freed people coming into our camps swell the Army’s lines and are an encumbrance—threatening to put the Army in harm’s way. They say old men and young women with children should stay with Massa until the war ends and the North is victorious. They say we consume too much food and threaten to starve the Army that must be well fed to survive and win this war. This is what the soldiers say--and some of their officers. We must remind these gentlemen what it is they are fighting for.

“Yes, Lord!”

They are fighting for our freedom, for the very right of those old men and young women to bid adeiu to old Massa and take up with Uncle Sam. Or stay and make a claim for the land inhabited and worked by generations of their families. Their right to choose. They say they are fighting to preserve the Union, but are we not the Union’s best friend? We are working for the Union, for this army. We are the pioneers--repairing the roads that the rebels have torn apart. We are the scounts and spies giving valuable information to the generals. We are the teamster, the laundresses, the errand boys, the cooks—and we are the People!—

“Say it!”

“--who go out into the secesh-infested countryside to get our own food. I suppose the rich georgia families who have lived off of the sweat of our brow have enough food in their fields to feed a few thousand Negroes! And the whole of Sherman’s !

“Amen, Lord!”

They say we don’t know what freedom means. We think it means freedom from work. We know free men have to work—can’t live without work. There’s the great difference between free and slave. When you free, you work and the money belongs to yourself.

“Thank the Lord!”

They say—with freedom, the Negroes will take retribution upon their masters. But have we taken advantage of this War to commit acts of lawlessness and violence?

“No, never!”

It is their own soldiers who are taking advantage—commiting atrocities against citizens—black and white. They leave them with no food and no stock. Yet they want our people to stay put and continue to suffer oppression and want. And they call us primitive. Hah!

“That’s a joke!”

I say to you. Do not listen to what the white men say. Watch what they do. Those complaining the loudest are still fighting to defeat our enemy. The Yankees will defeat the Rebels. And we shall all be free.

We will march thro' the valley in peace,
We will march thro' the valley in peace;
If Jesus himself be our leader,
We will march thro' the valley in peace.

Let the members say Amen.

"Amen, Reverend."

MAJOR JAMES A. CONNOLLY, 123rd Illinois, In camp, near Davisboro

A lot of refugee negroes who are encamped near our headquarters got up a regular “Plantation Dance” tonight, and some of us went over and watched the performance which was highly amusing. The dress, general appearance, action, laughter, music and dancing of the genuine plantation negro is far more grotesque and mirth-provoking than the broadest caricatures of “Christy’s Minstrels.” They require neither fiddle nor banjo to make music for their ordinary plantation dances, and the dancers need no prompter, but kick, and caper and shuffle in the most complicated and grotesque manner their respective fancies can invent, while all who are not actually engaged as dancers stand in a ring around the dancers, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, swinging their bodies, and singing as loud and as fast and furious as they can, a sort of barbaric chant, unlike anything I ever heard from the lips of white mortals; I observed, however, that there is a tone of melancholy (I know of no other mode of describing it) pervading all their rude music, which was plainly discernible even when the mirth of the dancers and singers had apparently reached its highest pitch.

There is more fact than fiction in the saying that a “Soldier’s life is always gay,” for here we are in the midst of a hostile country, engaged in a campaign which probably the whole world, at this moment, is predicting will end in our complete destruction, and yet I have spent the evening laughing at the oddities of these negroes until my head and sides are aching.

Monday, November 28, 1864

2009-05-28T15:32:00.004-04:00

REV. G. S. BRADLEY, Chaplain, 22nd Wisconsin, In Camp, near Davisboro

May blacks have joined us to-day. Women came with large bundles on their heads, children also carried quite large packages on their heads, and some of the larger ones carried the little ones. All seemed bent on having their freedom, poor, ignorant, miserable people! They little know the hardships before them. Many of them come into our ranks with expectations that will fall far below realization. Our soldiers urge them to go along with us, without stopping to think how they will manage to make their way to a land of freedom.

CAPTAIN GEORGE PEPPER, In Camp, Davisboro

I went to the Negro meeting to-night to find Jennie. Spoke with the Rev. Quarles. He had not seen Jennie all day but he allowed she was in camp behind the supply wagons, preferring the company of the growing throng of negroes now marching with us. Jennie has missed two nights of lessons, and now I learn she has abandoned our camp. Perhaps I have held the reigns too loosely. I did promise her mother I would keep watch over her. I must speak with her sharply tomorrow.

I caught some of the good Rev.’s sermon. “Family we knew this day was coming. We knew about Emancipation before that man up in Washington knew about it. Only we didn’t let on to Ole Massa. We pretended not to know. I said to my ole massa, ‘What’s this Massa Lincoln is going to do to the poor nigger? I hear he is going to cut ‘em up awful bad. How is it, massa?” I just pretended foolish. We knew from the start the Yankees are going to win cause they always marching to the South, but none of the South soldiers marches to the North. And with their victory comes the end of slavery. I didn’t say that to the white folks before, but I sure say it to you now. Walk together children. Don’t you get weary.”

It seemed rather a radical message to give to the untutored masses—that they know more about freedom than President Lincoln or any white man. I spoke with him afterwards about it and he nodded but would not comment on the subject further.

BREVET MAJOR GEORGE WARD NICHOLS, Near Johnston, south side of the Georgia Railroad

The most pathetic scenes occur upon our line of march daily and hourly. Thousands of negro women join the column, some carrying household goods, and many of them carrying children in their arms, while older boys and girls plod by their side. All these women and children are ordered back, heartrending though it may be to refuse them liberty. One begs that she may go to see her husband and children at Savannah. Long years ago she was forced from them and sold. Another has heard that her boy was in Macon, and she is “done gone with grief goin’ on four years.”

But the majority accept the advent of the Yankees as the fulfillment of the millennial prophocies. The “day of jubilee,” the hope and prayer of a lifetime, has come. They can not be made to understand that they must remain behind, and they are so satisfied only when General Sherman tells them, as he does every day, that we shall come back for them some time, and that they must be patient until the proper hour of deliverance arrives.

The other day a woman with a child in her arms was working her way along among the teams and crowds of cattle and horsemen. An officer called to her kindly: “Where are you going, aunty?”

She looked up into his face with a hopeful, beseeching look, and replied, “I’se gwine whar you’se gwine, massa.”

PVT. THEODORE F. UPSON, 100th Indiana Infantry, In the Field, Georgia

We have been crossing a large River on our pontoon boats. I think it is called the Oconee. Here we turned back a large number of Negroes who have been following us. We cannot feed them and must look out for ourselves. It aint right to have them thinking we’re here just to free the slaves. We’re fighting secession. This slavery business has just been hung on us.

Sunday, November 27, 1864

2009-05-27T02:46:00.004-04:00

MAJOR JAMES A. CONNOLLY, 123rd Illinois Infantry, On the march, near Sandersville, Georgia

Where can all the rebels be?

Here we are riding rough shod over Georgia and nobody dares to fire a shot at us. We burn their houses, barns, fences, cotton and everything else, yet none of the Southern braves show themselves to punish us for our vandalism. Perhaps they are preparing a trap to catch us all, but I don’t think we will go into their trap, if we can find any way to go around it. We don’t care where we come out; would a little rather come out at Savannah, but if we can’t do that we’ll go somewhere else.

Georgia is an excellent state for foraging. Our foragers came into camp tonight pretty well loaded, and I can’t imagine where they found so much stuff through this country. I suppose the negroes assisted them. We are living finely, and the whole army would have no objection to marching around through the State for the next six months. Indeed, the whole trip thus far has been a holiday excursion, but a very expensive one to the rebels.

The rebel papers we get hold of from Augusta also call on all the citizens to turn out and fall timber across the roads—destroy their forage and provisions, and do everything possible to harass us and retard our march. Let them do it if they dare. We’ll burn every house, barn, church, and everything else we come to; we’ll leave their families houseless and without food; their towns will all be destroyed, and nothing but the most complete desolation will be found in our track. The army will not be trifled with by citizens.

CAPT. DAVID P. CONYNGHAM, War Correspondent, Observations, In Camp, near Sandersville

Near this RR station we found several locomotive houses inhabited by a very peculiar people.

Some western squatters live on rafts; the Chinese have their floating populations, and the poor Irish their mud cabins; but here we found new tenants who inhabit the box-cars that have been thrown off the track, or switched on sidelings.

In some of these were families of blacks, whose masters had been burned out, and they were now shifting for themselves. All the able-bodied men had been carried off by massa, leaving the women and children to enjoy the combined luxury of freedom and starvation. Greasy negro wenches stuck out their heads through the windows to survey us, while young picaninnies rolled and tumbled about like porpoises on the land. Some had octoroon lightness of color and clearness of features; others approached the brown olive of the Indian; while others displayed the thick lips, woolly heads, and dusky skins of the pure Ethiopian. Such a medley would send your miscegenation disciples into ecstasies; but it would take a whole herald college to trace their relationships to one another.

I learned that the octoroon boy, whom, if you met with, you would set down as the child of white parents, was the offspring of brother and sister. His mother was the child of a planter, and his slave; while the boy was the child of the planter’s son. “Did you know,” siad I to the boy’s mother, who was certainly good-looking, “that he was your brother?”

“Spects I did.”

“And why did you live with him?”

“Me gwine to oppose massa? Catch a slave do it.”

Two box-cars near the black colony were inhabited by white families. They did not appear to be a bit better off than the blacks. Their clothing was scant, and their sense of shame or moral rectitude, if they ever had any, was perfectly blunted.

In one car I found two young and rather good-looking women. They had three children between them. “Where are your husbands?” I asked.

“We never had none,” was the reply.

“How do you manage to live?”

“Well, I reckon as well as we can. Can’t get no coffee nor snuff, now. Have you a chew of ‘backer, stranger?”

These wretched families appeared content in their filfth, and rags, and wretchedness.

I then dropped into a clean negro shanty to rest and await the column. Its occupants were an old patriarch “who had no hair on the top of his head, the place where the wool ought to grow,” two young picaninnies, and a good-looking negress in a fair way of soon increasing the slave population. The old man was quite communicative, and enlightened me very much on the blessings of slavery. Soon a strapping negro rode up to the door, and, hitching his horse, ran in in the best possible spirits.

“Whar you gwine, Jake?” said the young woman.

“I’m gwine wid de rest, to be sure. De Lord has sent ‘em to burst our bondage.”

“Am I gwine wid you?” asked the wife.

“No, so, Cal; a lady in you’ns state ain’t fit to travel. I will come back to get you when we lick them rebs. Jist do pack up, and I’ll gwine along.”

“What will become of your father and family?” I asked.

He scratched his head, and replied,--“Well, I guess de Lord will take care of dem.”

So he packed up a few things, and with scarcely a parting good by, jumped on the miserable animal which he had helped himself to from massa, and joined the moving throng.

JENNIE LEWIS, On the Road to Freedom, near Sandersville, Georgia

Dear Papa,
To-day Captain C. said he met a man and his wife named Cal. I asked him to tell me what this she looked like but he could not. He says they live in a cabin near the railroad track. Papa, I am going to look for this Cal. It may be Caroline using the name we call her, Cal. If only it is so, Papa.

I must slip away before Captain Pepper misses me.

Saturday, November 26, 1864

2009-04-26T23:08:00.005-04:00

JENNIE LEWIS, On the Road to Freedom

Dear Papa,
I found my friends to-night at a camp meeting in the woods. Everywhere you looked was colored people, too many people to count. But I heard Sevanda shouting and I found them. I was so happy to see them. They say it is better to be in the colored folks camp than in the officers camp. ‘Much better material to make a husband with’ Sevanda said. 'So many men we have our pick!'

A lot of them joined us in Millidgeville, some of them riding into camp on good wagons wearing there best. But most of them rode there feet and toted all there belongs on there backs. We hold meetings every night. Mothers and fathers sit on blankets and children run around until the mothers quite them down. The young men men line along one side and the young women on the other. The elders sit on chairs up front. Then, the singing starts and the whole congregation (look, Papa! what words I can tell you now that I can spell) rises. If no white soldiers are present, the ring shout begins. That can go on for a long time until we are all spent and spread out in the grass, waiting to hear the word.

The main speaker to-night was a man named Fortune Bell. He started off saying ‘In the name of God the mercyful may the prayer of God be on our Lord—‘ and here he said some word Ive never heard and can not find in my word book—‘Mo ha met’— He said ‘I stand before you now and I say to you that there aint nothing like Freedom.’ People started to shout.

‘There aint nothing like working hard and keeping the money you make for yourself.’ ‘Amen Brother Bell!’ ‘Owning your own self, not belonging to someone else.’ People jumped up from the blankets and the benches and started stomping the ground.

‘Nothing like reuniting with your family, finding loved ones who have been sold away.’ I shouted ‘Amen Brother Bell’. Mama would not have liked the way I behaved inb meeting to-night. I have heard some good preaching all along this road, and it has moved me to sing and holler, but no one put such a spirit into me as Brother Fortune Bell.

He came from Millidgeville, but before that he came from some place he called an eye-land. I must asked Captain Pepper to help me find it in my speller. When the War started his master took all the strong men and women from the eye-land and walked them to Millidgeville. Now they are going to walk all the way back with the Union Army and clame there homes on the eye-land. ‘We got as much right to own and work that land as the white folks had.’ He told us his father was a ‘mus lamb’ and he is too and he has 11 brothers and 7 sisters and they are all also ‘mus lambs’. They read and write in erabeck. Papa, I do not know what any of that means and I could not find these words in my book.

He said the eye-land is a place between the land and the sea. He said it is beautiful and rich. Oh, Papa, you must know about these things since you are on a ship. How I wish we were together and we could go to an eye-land. There is so much to see and do that we never new knew about in slavery.

Fortune Bell told us we are the Chosen People and that this War is our deliverance from evil slavery for sure. We all believe it.

I did not want to come back to this lonely tent. I wanted to remane with the Chosen People. General Sherman has left our camp to ride with another general. He left General Davis in charge. I cant stay far enuff away from General Davis. To-morrow I too will move to the rear and sleep in camp with the Chosen People.

Your loving daughter

MRS. L.J.F., Jones Plantation, Sandersville, Georgia

Solemn and sad rose this November sun. Breakfast past, untasted. Confederate soldiers were stationed in battle-line, even up to our front doors. Sitting in the parlor windows, I could put out my hand and touch the files of soldiers. Soon the skirmish fighting began; volly after volly was poured forth and returned by the advancing army. Wildly beat my heart, and regardless of danger, I spring into the window, when a Confederate soldier rushed into the room, saying, “For God’s sake, ladies, go into your cellar! Don’t you know these bullets will kill you?”

For the first time I thought of danger, and told him we had no cellar.

“Go into the back rooms, then, and stand in front of your middle chimney.”

Soon mother, myself, and the little Negroes were all huddled up at the fireplaces, while the bullets rattled like hail-stones against the house.

The “fighting” had continued but a short time, when a second soldier rushed into the room where we were and exclaimed: “My God, ladies, we are fighting the whole of Sherman’s army; we thought we were fighting a skirmishing party, but it’s the whole army. Take care of yourselves, ladies, we’ll have to run.... Lock your doors; keep inside. If the Yankees come to the doors, unlock them and stand in them. Be sure to ask for a guard. Be polite, and you will not be mistreated I hope. Good-bye; God bless you ladies....”

I now looked out. Over the fences and fields our Confederates were flying. The last horse I saw leap the fences was that ridden by the kind soldier, who had come in to speak to us. One wave of his cap, and he was gone, like a flash.

The fighting was now over, so I ventured to a front window. These windows faced the two roads leading to the Capital of Georgia. Looking out, I screamed in horror. It seemed to me the whole world was coming.

All day long, the men and wagons poured into town. “Rip! rip,” went the yard and garden fences, as they tore them down and pitch their white-winged tents at our very doorsteps—no yards, no gardens, were spared in our ill-fated village. Now the soldiers, with hateful leers from their red eyes, would walk up to the steps of the back veranda, on which we stood, and throwing down the hams and shoulders of our meat, which they had found, would cut them up with savage delight, in our very faces. Next they found the sugar, flour, lard, salt, syrup, which mother had stored away in a cellar, dug beneath one of the Negro houses, by a trusty servant.

Tonight we went to bed supperless; all day long we had fasted, for our breakfast was untasted because of excitement, and dinner we had none....

One of the housemaids ran in, crying and wringing her hands.

“Oh, Missy, de bu’ful courthouse is all burnin’ up; and dem soldiers say dey is gwine to burn dis town, dis berry night. Please Missy, you and ole Miss go out to de plantation—dey will shorely burn you all up!”

Poor Betsy wrung her hands and wept bitterly. Now I shut my mouth firm and hard, packed some of Baby’s clothes in a small carpet-sack, and placed it behind the door, where I could easily put my hands upon it, if I must go.

I had told the Masonic officers...that I was a Mason’s daughter, had asked them for a guard, and they had placed one at either door. I now went to one of these guards, and asked him if the town would be burned.

“Not to-night,” he answered; “the courthouse is a signal fire.”

Lonely and sad, mother and I sat around the little handful of coals in the fireplace.... Outside countless white tents gleamed in the chill night air.

Old black Tom told us, at dark, that he would keep watch round the house, and come to a certain window and tap every few hours. “I’ll tell you what’s gwine on outside,” he said, “and if anything berry serious am a gwine to happen, den I’ll git you off to de plantation somehow.”

One of our servants accepted her freedom and went into the army camp—this one was old Tom’s daughter. He pursued her, found her, gave her a sound thrashing and brought her home. As he led her into mother’s room he said: “Dar she is, mistis! I’se tried mighty hard to make gemmen and ladies outer my chillun, but it ‘pears dis one won’t do right no how.”

Such is the loyalty of our Negroes.

R. D. ARNOLD, SAVANNAH MAYOR, Mayor's Office, Savannah, Georgia

Fellow Citizens,
The time has come when every male who can shoulder a musket can make himself useful in defending our hearths and homes. Our city is well fortified, and the old can fight in the trenches as well as the young; and a determined and brave force can, behind entrenchments, successfully repel the assaults of treble their number.

The general commanding this division has issued a call for all men of every age, not absolutely incapacitated from disease, to report at once to Captn. C. W. Howard, at the Oglethorpe barracks, for the purpose of organizing into companies for home defense. I call upon every man not already enrolled in a local corps to come forward at once and report to Captain Howard. Organization is everything. Let us emulate the noble examples of our sister cities of Macon and Augusta where the whole male population is in arms. By manning the fortifications we will leave free the younger men to act in the field. By prompt action a large local force can be organized from our citizens above the military age, and from those who have been exempted from field service. No time is to be lost. The man who will not comprehend and respond to the emergency of the times, is forsworn to his duty and to his country.

ELLA MITCHELL, Mitchell Home, Sandersville, Georgia

Mr. Ben R. Smith gave a sumptuous dinner this evening to a dozen of the Washington Rifles home on furlough. About the time the guests were seated, one of the house servants named Isham came in hurriedly, he was ashen with fright. He exclaimed, “Lord, Marse Ben, the woods on the hill are full of blue coats.”

Mr. Smith answreed, “Isham, you rascal, if you are fooling me, I’ll skin you.”

“Isham said, “Marse Ben, come and see.”

All hurried to the front piazza. Sure enough, the blue coated enemy were on the hill. No one stood on the order of his going. Fortunately their horses stood bridled and saddled. For once, forgetting the ladies and Southern chivalry, they dashed away.

PART THREE: Friday, November 25, 1864

2009-04-25T01:15:00.005-04:00

CAPT. DAVID P. CONYNGHAM, WAR CORRESPONDENT, Observations In the Field, Central Georgia

“How were you treated in slavery, Robert?”
“Pretty well, sar.”
“Did your master give you enough to eat and clothe you comfortably?”
“Pretty well, till dis year. Massa have no money to spend this year. Don’t get many clothes this year.”
“If you had a good master, I suppose you were contented?”
“No, sar.”
“Why not, if you had enough to eat and clothes to wear?”
“Cause I want to be free. Sar.”

CAPT. GEORGE W. PEPPER, In Camp, 9 mi. from the Oconee River

Who are these slaves?

I have in the course of this journal mentioned some circumstances to illustrate the character and habits of the Negro population of the South; and a little closer view of it may not be unpleasant.

The Negroes are remarkable for their ingenuity, docility, religious enthusiasm and quick conception. That they are not naturally lazy is evident from the quantity of laborious work which they will perform, and perform well. In the beautiful city of Huntsville, a lady informed me, that the lordly mansion in which she dwelt, with all the inside furniture, was conceived and executed by the genius and handicraft of three slaves. Their hospitality, when their circumstances are not too wretched to display, is remarkably great. The brother Negro's white visitor finds every man's hut open, and to walk in without ceremony and to partake of his humble fare is sure to give pleasure to every one of the Negroes.

The attachment of the slave mothers to their children is very great. To play with the child is her highest delight; and for this indulgence, she will, by an injudicious, but natural miscalculation of maternal duty, omit the care of herself and husband. Of the docility of the Negroes, when kindly treated there are many instances on record. In battle, on shore, and at sea, the Negro soldier and sailor have been remarkable for their valor, steadiness and subordination; it is said on good authority that over two hundred thousand of them have joined the Union army.

The instruction of this class of persons is in the lowest state of degradation. In many States it was made a crime to teach them to read and write. Gifted with more than ordinary intellect, more exercised than cultivated, the negroes have been kept in a frightful state of degradation, which is too well known, and which ought to call forth the immediate attention of the General Government. The aptness to learn and acquire knowledge is attested by my own pupil, Jennie Lewis, the young slave girl who left with us from Atlanta. It’s true she had rudimentary reading and writing skills before I came along, taught to her, she said, by her father. Under my nightly instruction, she shows remarkable improvement in vocabulary and spelling and a strong desire to learn. This is the true War we are fighting, against ignorance imposed upon the innocent. And Jennie and I are winning that war every night. In all my endeavors as a minister or a soldier, I have never felt such a sense of worthy accomplishment as I do witnessing the flowering of her intellect.

This night I had a good long talk with a negro who has not yet attained even to the dignity of a "contraband," but is under the yoke. When I spoke to him of liberty, he kindled and said, "That's just all I ask for. Every man has a right to his own sweat, and not to be squandered like cattle, working all his life just for other people to live by. I've seen men and women chained together, driven in squads up this valley, just like cattle. All I ask is to have my own sweat; and if I could get that, I'd work for my wife and children, and never trouble nobody."

I advised him to be discreet and watchful, and bide his time; and gave him written directions how to apply to me in the future--for though he cannot read, he knows Jennie can "spell mighty smart," and she has promised to assist him when the time comes. I found him a true Christian, full of faith and hope, yet having withal a touching resignation. For when I spoke of the prospects of his people, he said, "What's for us, we'll get; and what isn't for us, we can't have." Surely, it is my duty to rescue such men from the hands of the spoiler.

Such is the character of the Southern Negro. I appeal not to the affections or humanity, but to the justice of every one to whom chance may direct these pages, whether men so constituted present no character which a wise government can mould to the great purpose of augmenting the prosperity of the country, and the happiness of society.

CAPT. DAVID P. CONYNGHAM, WAR CORRESPONDENT, Observations in the field, Central Georgia

As we pass through Georgia, colonies, squads, whole families, from the feeble old folks, supported on their canes, and tottering under heavy bundles, down to the muling infant in the mother’s arms, while her back was burdened with a heavy bundle, fell in. The young and the old leave home, at a moment’s notice, to go, they know not where, nor ask where, in search of freedom. Such was their simple faith that they trudged along, “bressing de Lord, de day of jubilou is come.” They were invariable dressed in their best and had packed into bundles their most valuable dresses and a small stock of provisions and then, feeling happy and jubilant, fall in with the sable column that flanks the roads and bring up the rear on all sides.

Black children of all ages and sizes, I might add, of all shades, toddle along in rags and filth, urged on by the application of the maternal rod. Babies squeal in their mothers’ laps. Old buggies and wagons, that they took from massa, block up the way, and literally line it with their debris. Galled and jaded mules and horses carry hampers and bags, stuffed with children and wearables, balanced on each side. It is no unusual sight to see a black head, with large, staring eyes, peeping out of a sack at one side, and a ham of bacon or a turkey balancing it at the other.

Even here beauty conquers, for the good-looking lead luxurious lives, stowed away in wagons during the day, and feasting at the servants’ mess at night.

Thursday, November 24, 1864

2009-04-13T00:26:00.001-04:00

ANNA MARIE COOK, Cook House, Milledgeville

We are despondent our heads bowed and our hearts crushed-- The Yankees in possession of Milledgeville. The yankee flag waving from the Capitol-- Our degradation is bitter, but we know it can not be long, and we never desponded, our trust is still strong. No, we go through the house singing, “We live and die with Davis.”

How can they hope to subjugate the South. The people are firmer than ever before. This morning we walked into town, and we heard the cry “Our cavalry is coming” how our hearts leaped for joy, and as a few ragged men came riding up and bowed and brandished their pistols the tears streamed from our eyes-- strong men wept-- God bless our soldiers our poor suffering soldiers-- This was but one brigade Ferguson’s—

Many negros left with the yankees. Ours were true. Anderson is gone I fear to suffer—Oh! how dreadful is war, we now know something of its terrors. God grant to this a speedy and glorious issue-- May not only peace but honor perch upon banners in triumph. May He grant that never again may their hostile tread darken our city and may He comfort the afflicted and distressed and suffering and poor.

MRS. ELLA GERTRUDE CLANTON THOMAS, Thomas House, Milledgeville

Mrs. Gen. Sherman:

A few days hence I read your husband’s farewell telegram to you dated Atlanta. Will you believe it? For a moment I felt sorry for you, forgetting who you were and for what purpose he was coming among us, so my heart went out in womanly sympathy for you. This week your husband’s army found me in possession of wealth, tonight our plantations are a scene of ruin and desolation. You bade him Godspeed on his fiendish errand, did you not? You thought it a gallant deed to come amongst us where by his own confession he expected to find “only the shadow of any army,” a brave act to frighten women and children! desolate homes, violate the sanctity of firesides and cause the “widow and orphan to curse the name Sherman for the cause” and this you did for what? To elevate the Negro race!

Be satisfied Madame your wish had been accomplished. Enquire of Gen. Sherman when next you see him Who had been elevated to fill your place?.... Did he tell you of the girl for whom he was so much concerned that she rides in a specially designed wagon as he continues his vandal march? This girl he dances in his arms in public, who is spoken of by the Negroes as “Sherman’s wife.”
Rest satisfied Mrs. Sherman and the apprehension of your northern sisters with regard to the elevation of the Negroes. Your husbands are…most of them provided with “a campanion du voyage”

I will only add that intensely Southern woman as I am I pity you.

END OF PART TWO

Wednesday, November 23, 1864

2009-03-23T12:21:00.000-04:00

MAJOR HENRY HITCHCOCK, Headquarters, Governor’s Mansion, Milledgeville, The Capital of Georgia

“First act of drama well played, General!” “Yes, sir, the first act is played.” General and staff started by 8 A.M.—rode slowly with column five miles,--met courier from Kilpatrick at Milledgeville asking to see him, rode in thence at gallop. K. met us this morning outside of town and rode in: at bridge troops drawun up, grand reception, colors dipped, cheers, music,--all the horses scared and Button disgraced himself jumping and rearing like mad, but soon subdued. General and staff entered Milledgeville at head of troops with band, etc., without show of resistance. Best way for them, sure!

MAJOR JAMES A. CONNOLLY, In Camp, Milledgeville

Division moved at daylight. A bright, beautiful day; roads excellent and surrounding country magnificent. We reached the capital at about 9 A.M., but our troops didn’t get up until noon. Our headquarters in the city in a dwelling house of some runaway citizen. General Davis’ headquarters in the city near the Governor’s mansion. General Sherman’s in the mansion and General Slocum’s at the Milledgeville Hotel, opposite the capital square.

It is announced that we remain in camp today so I took a stroll through the town this forenoon. Here I am, finally, at Milledgeville. My boyish desire is gratified, and I find that my boyish fancy in regard to the appearance of the city was quite correct. The dwellings are scattered and surrounded by large and tastefully decorated grounds. As one rides along its sandy streets, even at this season of the year, the faint perfume from every variety of tree and shrub, bud, blossom and flower fills the air with delicious fragrance. The exterior of the residences bespeak refinement within, and everything about the city serves to impress one with the idea that he is in an old, aristrocratic city, where the worth of a man is computed in dollars and cents.

The streets are regularly laid out and the capital stands on a slight elevation rather east of the center of the city and overlooking the Oconee River. It is built of reddish looking sandstone and is a large square building, with rather a superabundance of fancy cornice outside. It has entrances on the north, south, east and west, each having a broad flight of stone steps. The offices and State library are on the first floor, the legislative halls on the second floor, and also the committee rooms. Each chamber has life size oil paitings of the prominent old men of Georgia hung around its walls in plain gilt frames.

Our soldiers and even some officers have been plundering the State library today and carrying off law and miscellaneous works in armfuls. It is a downright shame. Public libraries should be sacredly respected by all belligerents, and I am sure General Sherman will, some day, regret that he permitted this library to be destroyed and plundered. I could get a thousand dollars worth of valuable law books there if I would just go and take the, but I wouldn’t touch them. I should feel ashamed of myself every time I saw one of them in my bookcase at home. I don’t object to stealing horses, mules, niggers and all such little things, but I will not engage in plundering and destroying public libraries.

MAJOR FREDRICK C. WINKLER, In Camp, Milledgeville

The white people of Milledgeville are cold and for the most part intensely Secesh, and remain true to the most terrible resolutions that they will never give up, but the negroes, black and white--for it is difflcult to distinguish them from white men--are the most devoted friends of the Yankee soldiers. Their demonstrations are literally frantic. They dance and shout and clap their hands when they see our column approach.

Whatever a soldier may ask for, they hasten to do for him. Whatever their masters have, he will get. It is claimed the negroes are so well contented with their slavery; if it ever was so, that day has ceased to be. Hundreds of men go with us, and thousands would if they could take their families along. Most of them have more or less white blood in their veins, and though they are not taught even to count, they are by no means unintelligent.

Up to this time I have thought the South could organize a formidable military force out of their negroes, but I am satisfied now that they dare not attempt it. Every negro in the land will defend a Yankee soldier to the utmost of his power; many of our prisoners have escaped by their aid, and not one I believe has ever been betrayed by them. At Madison they burned the calaboose or whipping post, and the wild transports of men, women and children, dancing about, was really a spectacle worth seeing.

BREVET MAJOR GEORGE WARD NICHOLS, In Camp, Milledgville

We are in full possession of the capital of the State of Georgia, and without firing a gun in its conquest. A few days ago, the Legislature, which had been in session, hearing of our approach, hastily decamped without any adjournment. The legislative panic spread among the citizens to such an extent as to depopulate the place, except a few old gentlemen and ladies and the negroes, the latter welcoming our approach with ecstatic exclamations of joy: “Bress de Lord! tanks be to Almighty God, the Yanks is come! de day ob jubilee hab arribed!” –accompanying their words with rather embarrassing hugs, which those nearest the sidewalks received quite liberally.

General Sherman is at the executive mansion, its former occupant having, with extremely bad grace, fled from his distinguished visitor, taking with him the entire furniture of the building. As General Sherman travels with a menage (a roll of blankets and a haversack full of “hardtack”), which is as complete for a life in the open air as in a palace, this discourtesy of Governor Brown was not a serious inconvenience.

Just before his entrance into Milledgeville, General Sherman camped on one of the plantations of Howell Cobb. It was a coincidence that a Macon paper, containing Cobb’s address to the Georgians as General Commanding, ws received the same day. This plantation was the property of Cobb’s wife, who was a Lamar. I do not know that Cobb ever claimed any great reputation as a man of piety or singular virtues, but I could not help contrasting the call upon his fellow-citizens to “rise and defend their liberties, homes, etc., from the step of the invader, to burn and destroy every thing in his front, and assail him on all sides,” and all that, with his own conduct here, and the wretched condition of his negroes and their quarters.

We found his granaries well filled with corn and wheat, part of which was distributed and eaten by our animals and men. A large supply of sirup made from sorghum (which we have found at nearly every plantation on our march) was stored in an out-house. This was also disposed of to the soldiers and the poor decrepit negroes wihch this humane, liberty-loving major general left to die in this place a few days ago. Becoming alarmed, Cobb sent for and removed all the able-bodied mules, horses, cows, and slaves. He left here some fifty old men—cripples—and women and children, with nothing scarcely covering their nakedness, withlittle or no food, and without means of procuring it. We found them cowering over the fireplaces of their miserable huts, where the wind whirled through the crevices betweenthe logs, frightened at the approach of the Yankees, who, they had been told, would kill them. A more forlorn neglected set of human beings I never saw.

General Sherman distributed to the negroes with his own hands the provisions left here, and assured them that we were their friends, and they need not be afraid that we were foes. One old man answered him: “I spose dat you’se true; but, massa, you’se go way to-morrow, and anudder white man’ll come.” He had never known any thing but persecutions and injury from the white man, and had been kept in such ignorance of us that he did not dare to put faith in any white man.

We are continually meeting with comical incidents illustrative of the ignorance of the people, and more especially of the funny side of negro character.
One old woman stood at her gate watching, with wondering eyes, a drove of cattle as they passed. “Lor’ massy,” said sh, “whar did all them beef come from? Never seed so many in all my life.”

“Those cattle were driven all the way from Chicago more than one thousand miles.”

“Goodness, Lor’; what a population you Yanks is!”

General Sherman invites all able-bodied negroes (others could not make the march) to join the column, and he takes especial pleasure on some occasions, when they join the procession, in telling them they are free; that Massa Lincoln has given them their liberty, and that they can go where they please; that if they earn their freedom they should have it, but that Massa Lincoln had given it to them any how. They seem to understand that the proclamation of freedom had made them free; and I have met but few instances where they did not say they expected the Yankees were coming down some time or other, and very generally they are possessed with the idea that we are fighting for them, and that their freedom is the object of the war. They got this notion hearing the talk of their masters.

“Stick in dar,” was the angry exclamation of one of a party of negroes to another, who was asking too many questions of the officer who had given them permission to join the column. “Stick in dar, it’s all right; we’se gwine along; we’se free.”

At a house a few miles from Milledgeville we halted for an hour. In an old hut I found a negro and his wife, both of them more than sixty years old. In the talk which ensued nothing was said which led me to suppose that they were anxious to leave their mistress, who, by the way, ws a sullen, cruel-looking woman when all at once the old negress straightened herself up, and her face, which a moment before was almost stupid in its expression, assumed a fierce, almost devilish aspect.

Pointing her skinny black finger at the old man crouched in the corner of the fireplace, she hissed out, “What for yousit dar? you s’pose I wait sixty years for nutten? Don’t yer see de door open? I’se follow my child; I not stay. Yes, anudder day I goes ‘long wid dese people; yes, sar, I walks till I drop in my tracks.”

A more terrible sight I never beheld. I can think of nothing to compare with it, except Charlotte Chushman’s Meg Merrilies. Rambrandt only could have painted the scene, with its dramatic surroundings.

It was near this place that several factories were burned. It was odd to see the delight of the negroes at the destruction of places known only to them as task-houses, where they had groaned under the lash.

DANIEL P. CONYGHAM, WAR CORRESPONDENT, Milledgeville

To-night the camps roared with laughter and the songs of revivals and music halls. Negroes danced and sang, juggled, played banjos and fiddles and homemade drums, rattled bones and entertained the troops. Soldiers and black girls made love all about the camps.

JENNIE LEWIS, in camp, Millidgeville

The Colored People of Millidgeville hosted a dance to-night. Sevanda, Nora, Ilene and I got some of the white ladies dresses. We sat in warm, sweet smelling tubs of water and then smoothed our raw skin and sore feet with creams. Sevanda fixed my hair up with a barette. I wore a blue silk dress with a pink and white border. I have never worn anything so fine and never thought I would ever do so. I did not no know who I was in the looking glass. I saw this girl up with Mamas black wavy hair piled on top of her head and did not know that that pretty girl was me.

A man with a twisted arm played the banjo and two more men played the bones. The colored folks cut the pigeon wings, went to the east and went to the west. Old Uncle Ned called out the figures: ‘Ladies sache’ and ‘Gents to the Left’ and ‘Now all swing!’ We watched and then joined in and laf laughed and danced areselves silly. Then it was time to Set the Floor. Thats when the couples set a glass of water on there heads to see how many kinds of steps they make without spilling it. Ilene and her partner did the best and won a turn on the dance floor by themselves.

Papa, you would not beleve what happened next. General Sherman walked into the room. At first everyone was quite quiet. Then people cheered him. He wore a fresh uniform and had taken off his slouchy hat. He cut a handsome figure as he shook hands with the men and bowed to the ladies. Then to everyones surprise he held out his arm to invite me to dance. My knees shook like dry bones underneath my skirts. The fiddler’s played The Blue Juniata because General Sherman said that was his favorite. For a while we had the floor to ourselves and who wirled around the whole room in each others arms, in perfect step. The women clapped and the young girls giggled. The men looked at me with new eyes. I’m not sure I breathed at all. When the song ended, General Sherman bowed to me and I curtseyed back. Then he led me off the floor and said goodbye to the crowd.

After the dance Sevanda said ‘We see now why you still sleeping in the tent—by yourself—and we’s sleeping on the ground.’

‘I mean to ask the General to let you come back, but when he comes around I forget’ I said. It is true. Sometimes I have to remember to brethe breathe when General Sherman is around. They looked at me—mad. ‘I saw him whispering in your ear. We all did.’ said Sevanda. ‘Did he order you to go to his tent to-night?’

I felt hot and it was all I could do to keep from slapping her face. ‘General Sherman is a gentleman. He is loved and respected by every body. He would not do that.’ Even Ilene laughed. ‘Well, Jennie’ Sevanda said. ‘You know what they say about a Yankee soldier and a Colored woman…’

‘They the two free-est things in the world,’ said Nora.

I walked away but Ilene came after me. ‘Its nothing to be ashamed of. Colored women and white mens have been lying together since Day One. My former master didn’t even have no children by white womens. He had all his sweethearts amongst his slaves. The slave girls went to the mistress and told her ‘bout the master forcing them to let him have something to do with them and the mistress told them, ‘Well go on. You belongs to him.’

Ilene told me about a day when her Old Mistress had gone away to spend the day. ‘I always worked in the house and I was alone. Some white boys from town came in and threw me down on the floor and tied me down so I couldn’t struggle and one after another used me as long as they wanted, for the whole afternoon. My Old Mistress had them whipped when she came home, but it was too late. When the baby was born, she sold him away and I aint never even got a good look at him and wouldn’t know him now if I did.’

We stood together crying for her lost baby and then I came back here alone. A jumble of thoughts and feelings.

There it is, The Blue Juniata. Someone is humming outside my tent—

By order of MAJ. GEN. W. T. SHERMAN, Hdqrs. Mil. Div. of the Mississippi, Milledgeville, Ga.

Special Field Orders, No. 127:

The first movement of this army having proved perfectly successful and the weather now being fine, the second stage of the campaign … and the movement will commence to-morrow, November 24.

L. M. Dayton, Aide-de-Camp

Tuesday, November 22, 1864

2009-03-22T12:19:00.000-04:00

W. T. SHERMAN, Ten miles short of Milledgeville

About 4 P.M., General Davis halted his head of column on a wooded ridge, about ten miles short of Milledgeville, and was deploying his troops for camp when I got up. There was a high raw wind blowing, and I asked him why he had chosen so cold and bleak a position. He explained that he had accomplished his full distance for the day, and had there an abundance of wood and water. Seemed odd to me that he would subject his soldiers to the wind, but he is an odd sort of man. I rode on and turned out of the main road into a cluster of wild-plum bushes, that broke the force of the cold November wind, dismounted, and instructed the staff to pick out the place for our camp.

This afternoon was unusually raw and cold. My orderly was at hand with his invariable saddle-bags, which contain a change of under-clothing, my maps, a flask of whiskey, and bunch of cigars. Taking a drink and lighting a cigar, I walked to a row of negro-huts, entered one and found a soldier or two warming themselves by a wood-fire. I took their place by the fire, intending to wait there till our wagons had got up. I was talking to the old negro woman, when some one came and explained to me that, if I would come farther down the road, I could find a better place. So I started on foot, and found on the main road a good double-hewed-log house, in one room of which Colonel Poe, Dr. Moore, and others, had started a fire.

In looking around the room, I saw a small box, like a candle-box, marked “Howell Cobb,” and, on inquiring of a negro, found that we were at the plantation of General Howell Cobb, of Georgia, one of the leading rebels. Of course, we confiscated his property, and find it rich in corn, beans, pea-nuts, and sorghum-molasses. Extensive fields are all round the house; I sent word back to General Davis to explain whose plantation it was, and instructed him to spare nothing. To-night huge bonfires consume the fence-rails, keep our soldiers warm, and the teamsters and men, as well as the slaves, are carrying off an immense quantity of corn and provisions of all sorts.

In due season the headquarters wagons came up, and we got supper. After supper I sat on a chair astride, with my back to a good fire, talking with the servant girl Jennie and became conscious that an old negro, with a tallow-candle in his hand, was scanning my face closely. I inquired, “What do you want, old man?” He answered, “Dey say you is Massa Sherman.” I answered that such was the case, and inquired what he wanted. He only wanted to look at me, and kept muttering, “Dis nigger can’t sleep dis night.” I asked him why he trembled so, and he said that he wanted to be sure that we were in fact “Yankees,” for on a former occasion some rebel cavalry had put on light-blue overcoats, personating Yankee troops, and many of the Negroes were deceived thereby, himself among the number—had shown them sympathy, and had in consequence been unmercifully beaten therefore. This time he wanted to be certain before committing himself; so I told him to look at the whole horizon lit up with camp-fires, and he could then judge whether he had ever seen any thing like it before. The old man became convinced that the “Yankees” had come at last, about whom he had been dreaming all his life; and some of the staff-officers gave him a strong drink of whiskey, which set his tongue going.

MAJOR HENRY HITCHCOCK,ASSISTANT ADJUTANT GENERAL, Howell Cobb’s Plantation, 10 Miles W. of Milledgeville, Ga.

About 4 P.M. General Davis selected queer place for camp—exposed to wind, in ploughed field, etc.: general grumbling by Staff. Presently came orders from General Sherman for horses to go forward to house further on. Rode there—found it Howell Cobb’s plantation, deserted by owner and able-bodied hands three days ago, and all moveable supplies taken. Plenty left—fodder, corn, oats, bin full of peanuts,--twenty sacks fine salt—500 gallons or more of sorghum molasses. Took possession and lodged there.

Old darky came to see “Mr. Sherman”—scared to death—“thought he ws to be killed”—“Dis Mr. Sherman!” “Master, please give me dat light”—takes candle and surveys General trembling all over. “Well—well—and dis is Mr. Sherman! I shan’t git done bein’ skeered all day tomorrow! Dis nigger can’t sleep this night.” General talked kindly—reassured him, etc. It seems that after Stoneman’s raid a party of rebs went round among the negroes, disguised as Feds, coaxed them to leave, etc., and when they got as many as they could committed, revealed themselves and flogged the poor deluded negroes almost to death. This one was in deadly terror when he came in—thought he would be killed anyhow—and if it was Mr. Sherman, that he and his men were savages. Same stories of our cruelty, burning negroes alive, etc., at Atlanta, have been told these negroes. What fools the rebs are!

General told all the darkies to help themselves as well as the soldiers, to the supplies found here, and ordered the balanced burned. I don’t feel much troubled about the destruction of H.C.’s property—one of the head devils.

JENNIE LEWIS, On the Freedom Road

Dear Papa,

General Sherman came by the mess wagon to talk to me to-night. “Well, Jennie what do you think of your freedom so far?

‘It is wonderful, sir.’

‘Tell me what do the people think about me? Do they think I am the devil? Oh, dont worry. Ive been called worse.’

‘But they love you, General Sherman. We all do. You are like Moses. They think you rule the world.’

He sat down next to the fire took out one of his cigars and smoked and talked. ‘How old are you, Jennie?’

‘I’m eighteen, sir.’

‘Do you have any family other than your Mother in Atlanta?’

I did not answer right away. Mama had told me to keep Papa’s letter with me at all times, but not to talk about it to anyone. But I wanted General Sherman to know Papa is a Union solder. So I told him about Papa and Caroline and Papas letter. I took it from my pocket and he read it. ‘He sounds like a strong man, your Father. If I could have 500 like him. Oh, well—we’ll lick these rebels with the Army we have, won’t we Jennie?’

We did not say anything for a long time. Then I asked him about his family. He told me about his wife and children and the little son who died. He said his last letter from home said the new baby was sick as well. He looked very sad for a while. Then he asked me about my studies. I showed him my book of words from Captain Pepper. ‘Captain Pepper says I am a quick study’ I told him. ‘He said my spelling was atrocious! But he teaches me how to spell words like that every night and I can look up other words in my book.’

‘Jennie, your people will need many things once this war is over. You must continue to study with Captain Pepper and prepare to be of service to them and to your new country. There is a college in my home state—Oberlin College. They have been admitting Negro students for some time. Would you like to study there?’

‘Yes, General’ I whispered for I was in awe of him, but I do not know what a college is. I must ask Captain Pepper first thing.

Just then of the elder men from this place walked up to the fire. He stood back at first because his white folks told him the General would sell him to Cuba. He held a candle up and General Sherman just sat still and let him look. ‘Well—well—and this is Mr. Sherman! I shant get done being scared all day tomorrow!’ He said he was so afraid, but he came anyway because if it was Mr. Sherman, he said, he had to look him in the eye and thank him. He just kept saying, ‘This Nigger won’t sleep this night!’

More people came to see him. General Sherman told all of the people to help themselves to everything found here. Later he helped hand out clothes and food. I wish I had fansy words to say it but I don’t. So I will just write it plane and clear. I love General Sherman with all my heart. He is truly an angel sent by God. He cares about the black people.

General Davis is not like General Sherman at all. He hates the Negroes. We all think so. He thinks we do not have a conscience. He asked a man who came into camp on an old horse ‘Don’t you think you did very wrong, Dick, to take your mistresses horse?’

‘Well, I don’t know, sir; I didn’t take the best one. She had three; two of them first rate hosses, but the one I took is old, and not very fast, and I offered to buy him for eight dollars, sir.’

‘But Dick, you took at least a thousand dollars from yourmistress, besides the horse.’

‘How, sir?’

‘Why, you were worth a thousand dollars, and you should have been satisfied with that much, without taking the poor womans horse.’

‘I don’t look at it just that way, massa. I worked hard for missus more than thirty years, and I reckon in that time I about pay for myself. And this year missus gave me leave to raise a patch of cotton for my own. Well, I worked nights, and sabbaths, and spare times, and raised a big patch the way prices is, worth two hundred dollars, I reckon, and when I got it taken care of this fall, ole missus took it way from me; give some to the neighbors, keep some for her own use, and sell some, and keep the money, and I reckon that pay for the ole horse!’

General Davis walked away saying ‘I find no conscience in these darkeys!’ At my lesson to-night I asked Captain Pepper to spell that word for me and I asked him what it means.

‘It is that part of you that knows what is right and what is wrong’ he said. I wanted to know how General Davis knew that Negroes had no part of us like that. So I asked Rev. Quarles. He told me ‘Fools come from all ranks, Virginia. General Davis cannot speak about your conscience. That is between you and God. You remember what your Mama told you. Keep her eyes set in front of you for you are guided by Providence. The Lord is on our side, Jennie. Not the side of those who hate us. He will carry us through.’

I know the Lord is on our side but which side is General Davis fighting for?

Monday, November 21, 1864

2009-03-21T10:37:00.001-04:00

MAJOR JAMES A. CONNOLLY, 123RD ILLINOIS INFANTRY, In the Field

Tonight within 18 miles of Milledgeville. Rain falling heavily all day. Roads in a horrible condition. Things have not looked promising today. What would become of us if this weather should continue two weeks? We couldn’t march; would be compelled to halt here in the midst of a hostile country, and thus let the enemy have time to recover from his surprise and concentrate against us. Well, let the worst come, we’ll get to the capital of Georgia anyhow, and my long desire to see it will at length be gratified.

We are all wet through and covered with mud, and our horses jaded, but our supper of coffee, fried chickens, sweet potatoes, &c, and a good sleep will bring us out all right in the morning, and if our horses give out, the stable of some wealthy Georgian must furnish us a remount. Citizens everywhere look paralyzed and as if stricken dumb as we pass them. Columns of smoke by day, and “pillars of fire” by night, for miles and miles on our right and left indicate to us daily and nightly the route and location of the other columns of our army. Every “Gin House” we pass is burned; every stack of fodder we can’t carry along is burned; every barn filled with grain is destroyed; in fact everything that can be of any use to the rebels is either carried off by our foragers or set on fire and burned.

MAJOR HENRY HITCHCOCK, ASSISTANT ADJUTANT GENERAL, At Mr. Vann’s House—

Horrible weather and bad roads—very bad. Our luck for the last forty-eight hours in these respects has changed. Roads yesterday rather bad: but last night’s rain made them infinitely worse today. We were delayed this morning till 11 a.m. before starting from last night’s Headquarters, though tents were struck, etc., by 8 o’clock. Dismal sky and steady rain, and the wagons of advance brigade standing still in front of house where General waited for Davis to come up—in rear of which we had camped. At last we get off, floundered through heavy clay mud, and under rain sometimes heavy, sometimes drizzling, threading our way through and by wagons laboring along, up hill and down, or stuck fast. No wonder the weather is such an element in warfare.

Our party made in all but six or eight miles today. Tonight we stop at home of Mr. Vann. Saw Aleck and his cousin Jennie with a very smart negro woman who had a child, almost white, by her master. Didn’t hear her talk much, but Beckwith, Nichols, et al. talked with her—smart as a steel trap. She hid and fed three of our men, escaped prisoners: knew about Burnside, McClellan, and Sherman, also the fall of Atlanta, and even the recent unsuccessful rebel attack there. They pointed out Gen. S. to her in the door of the house—they were in an outbuilding. “Dar’s de man dat rules de world!” she exclaimed.

She was about twenty-five, a common hand, negro brogue strong, but very quick and smart. Spoke most bitterly of her mistress, who says she has treated her most cruelly. Mistress never had a child: Sarah and Hagar case only worse. Mistress about forty-five or fifty, heavy sort of woman, sullen and slow, but civil to us: was in great troubling about “perishing.” Soldiers “foraged liberally”—took all her peanuts drying on roof shed: and as we left the house, after riding some distance, saw her barn, old and rickety, on fire.

I am bound to say, while I deplore this necessity daily and cannot bear to see the soldiers swarm as they do through fields and yards,--I do believe it is a necessity. Nothing can end this war but some demonstration of their helplessness, and the miserable inability of J.D. to protect them,--with the understanding also that with the submission of their “leaders” and people to the laws, peace will come. If they do still hold out,--then the only alternative is to destroy or remove them. It is evident General believes the latter—indeed he says so.

Sunday, November 20, 1864

2009-03-20T10:32:00.001-04:00

THE WHIG, Macon, Georgia

The military authorities are active and vigilant, and every man is under arms. Confidence is being restored. The enemy is believed to be on our right, distant about thirty miles. The city will be defended to the last.

JOSEPH E. BROWN, GOVERNOR, The State House, Milledgeville, Georgia
President Davis: A heavy force of the enemy is advancing on Macon, laying waste the country and burning the towns. We have not sufficient force. I hope you will send us troops as re-enforcements till the exigency is passed.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Confederate States of America

To the People of Georgia:
We have had a special conference with President Davis and the Secretary of War, and are able to assure you that they have done, and are still doing, all that can be done to meet the emergency that presses upon you. Let every man fly to arms. Remove your negroes, horses, cattle, and provisions from Sherman’s army, and burn what you cannot carry.
Burn all bridges, and block up the roads in his route. Assail the invader in front, flank, and rear, by night and by day. Let him have no rest.

J. A. SEDDON, SECRETARY OF WAR, Confederate States of America, Richmond, Va.

Governor Joseph E. Brown,
Your telegram to the President has been referred to the Department for answer. The movements of the enemy in Georgia are viewed with interest and concern. Whatever re-enforcements of men and means the Department can command from its limited resources, in consistency with general safety, will be afforded.

DOLLY S. L. BURGE, Burge Plantation, Near Covington

This is the blessed Sabbath.... But how unlike this day to any that has preceded it to me in my once quiet home. I had watched all night and the dawn found me watching for the moving of the Soldiers that were encamped about us. Oh, how I dreaded those that were to pass as I suppose they would straggle and complete the ruin that the others had commenced.

Some of my women had gathered up a chicken that they had shot yesterday, and they cooked it with some yams for our breakfast, the guard complaining that we gave them no supper. They gave us some coffee which I had to make in a tea kettle as every coffee pot is taken off. The rear-guard was commanded by Colonel Carlow, who changed our guard, leaving us one while they passed. They marched directly on scarcely breaking ranks. A bucket of water was called for and they drank without coming in.

About ten o’clock they had all passed save one who came in and wanted coffee made which was done and he too went on. A few minutes elapsed and two couriers riding rapidly passed, back again they came and this ended the passing of Sherman’s army by my place leaving me poorer by thirty thousand dollars than I was yesterday morning. And a much stronger rebel.

MRS. ELLA GERTRUDE CLANTON THOMAS, Thomas House, Milledgeville

Oh God will this war never cease? Will we ever settle quietly in our old peaceful domestic relations? How strange it all seems. Even now I can scarcely realize the state of suspense in which we have all been placed during the past few days. I don’t believe I have felt so gloomy at anytime tho as I did Saturday afternoon. The whole heavens overcast with clouds—All nature appearing to mourn over the wretched degeneracy of her children and weeping to see brothers arrayed in hatred against each other.

“Man, the noblest work of God.” Verily, when I witness and read of the track of desolation which Sherman’s army leaves behind them, I am constrained to think that the work reflects little credit upon the creator. I know that sounds irreverent but I sigh for the memory of those days when man’s noblest, better nature was displayed, when the brute “the cloven foot,” was concealed and I could dream and believe that ours was the very best land—ruled by the very best men under the sun!!

Mr. Scales spent Friday night with us. He was taking a gloomy view of our prospects, but he talked just this way I remember one year ago. Then I confess I felt more determined “to do and dare and die” than I do now.