The Western and Atlantic Railroad (often called the State Road) at the

time discussed in the preceding pages, was the only line of communication

between the southern centre of the Confederate States and the Army of

Tennessee. It was worthy of notice that this road was not paralleled by

any of the roads now in existence. The Memphis and Charleston Railroad

came into the Nashville and Chattanooga at Stevenson as now, and the

latter road reached from Nashville to Chattanooga. The East Tennessee and

Georgia Road also came into Chattanooga then as now, and also into Dalton.

These three railroad lines were “the feeders” for the Western and Atlantic

Railroad at Chattanooga and Dalton. At the south or Atlanta end of that

line we had the old Macon & Western (now the Georgia Central), the Atlanta

and West Point, and the Georgia Railroad, as feeders for the Western and

Atlantic, which reached from Atlanta via Dalton to Chattanooga. As has

been stated, the Army of Tennessee, under General Beauregard at Corinth,

the army under General E. Kirby Smith at Knoxville, the army under General

Ledbetter at Chattanooga, and all detailed men on duty along the whole

front of the Confederates from Corinth to Bristol, depended upon this

single line (the old reliable Western and Atlantic Railroad) for army

supplies. There was no other road in the whole distance of eight hundred

miles, reaching from Mobile, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, that ran

north and south. These facts were well known to northern commanders, and

it has always seemed strange that the road should have been so

unprotected. The many bridges on the Western and Atlantic were guarded at

the time under consideration, April 1862, by a single watchman at each

bridge, and he was employed by the railroad authorities. The bridges were

of the Howe Tress pattern, weatherboarded with common wooden boards, and

covered with shingles. They were exceedingly inflammable and could easily

have been set on fire.

One of the rules for the running of the trains was that “if any two trains

failed to make the meeting point they would be considered irregular

trains, and the conductor of each train should be required to send a

flagman ahead, and thus proceed until the two flagmen met.” This

cumbersome rule frequently occasioned great disorder, and sometimes many

trains of all grades were massed together at one station. Railroad men

will understand this condition of affairs. These things were known and

understood not only by the Confederates, but by the Federals through their

spies. J. J. Andrews especially understood them, as the sequel will prove.

It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the plans adopted by

Captain J. J. Andrews and his twenty-two auxiliaries, to descend into the

heart of the South; suffice it to say, their plans were successful, and

they passed the Confederate lines and entered the pretty town of Marietta,

twenty miles north of Atlanta, unmolested and unsuspected. The solving of

the mystery will appear at the proper time. For present purposes it is

enough to state that they not only entered the town mentioned, but boarded

the north-bound train on the morning of April 12th, 1862. The well-known

and intrepid Captain William A. Fuller was the conductor in charge of that

train--the now celebrated “General” was his engine--and Jeff Cain his

engineer. There was nothing suspicious in the environments of the

occasion. In those days it was not unusual, even in a country town, for a

large number of men to board a train, and they were coming in from all

over the country to join the Confederate army.

There was a Camp of Instruction at Big Shanty, seven miles north of

Marietta, and this fact, as well as many others more important, was known

to Andrews, who from the beginning of the war had been “a commercial

traveller,” “in full sympathy with the South,” and had ridden over this

line many times. The conductor, therefore, took up the tickets as usual,

some to one point and some to another, but the most of them to Big Shanty.

The raiders were dressed in various styles and appeared like a good class

of countrymen. They claimed to be “refugees from beyond the Lincoln

lines.”

Big Shanty was a mere station, having only one or two business houses, and

noted by the traveling public as having a most excellent “eating-house”

for the accommodation of the passenger trains. When Captain Fuller’s train

arrived at Big Shanty, the passengers and train hands went into the hotel

for breakfast. The absence from the table of the large crowd that got on

the train at Marietta was noticed by the conductor, and just as he took

his seat, which commanded a view of his train, the gong on the old

“General” rang. It should be stated here that the train was as follows:

“The general,” three freight cars, one second and two first-class coaches,

a baggage car and express car. Andrews had detached the entire passenger

train, put his surplus men into the three freight cars, and on “The

General” he had with himself his own engineer and fireman.

The very moment the gong rang Captain Fuller sprang from the table, and

with a swift run reached the main track and pursued the flying train,

which was now fast disappearing around a curve in the road. As he ran out

of the hotel Captain Fuller called to his engineer, Jeff Cain: “Some one

who has no right to do so has taken our train!” Cain and Mr. Anthony

Murphy joined in the race, but were soon distanced by the fleet-footed

Fuller. The limestone soil between the tracks was wet and clung to his

feet so that fast running was very fatiguing to Captain Fuller, but he ran

with a determination that overcame all obstacles. Moon’s Station, a little

more than two miles from Big Shanty, was reached by him in an incredibly

short time. Here he found that the Andrews raiders had stopped and had

taken all of the tools from the railroad section hands. They had climbed

the telegraph poles, cut the wire, and carried a hundred feet of it along

with them to prevent the repair of the line in time to thwart their plans.

The track hands were amazed at their conduct, and hurriedly told Captain

Fuller what had been done. Up to this time he had been in doubt as to the

true character of the raiders. He had thought that possibly some of the

Confederates at Camp McDonald, (the Camp of Instruction at Big Shanty),

tired of strict discipline and confinement, might have taken the train in

order to enable them to pass the environment of their camp. But from this

moment there was no room for doubt. As quickly as possible Captain Fuller

and two track hands placed upon the rails an old timber car used for

hauling crossties, iron, and other heavy material. This was an unwieldy

and cumbersome medium of locomotion, but it rendered good service,

nevertheless. Captain Fuller knew that every moment of time was most

valuable, as the raiders were speeding along up the road and his chances

for overtaking and capturing them were very doubtful. While putting on the

hand-car he debated with himself these questions: “Should he proceed

immediately in the pursuit, or would it be best to push back and get his

engineer?” He decided to push back for Cain, and when he had gone nearly a

mile he met Cain and Mr. Anthony Murphy. They were taken on the hand-car

and the pursuit of the raiders, now far ahead, was begun again. Captain

Fuller says that if he had not gone back, as above stated, he would have

captured the raiders at Kingston, as more than twenty minutes were lost,

and he was quite that close to them at Kingston. He says, however, he is

now glad he did not do so, as the run from that point furnished the most

thrilling event of his life.

Murphy, Cain, the two track hands, and Fuller, pushed and ran, and ran and

pushed, alternately, and each and every man on the old hand-car did his

full duty. Soon after passing Moon’s Station, where Captain Fuller got

the hand-car, the pursuers came upon a pile of cross-ties, but they were

soon removed from the track and the race resumed.

The intelligent reader will not for a moment suppose that Captain Fuller

and his comrades entertained any hope of overtaking the raiders on foot,

or even by the hand-car. Captain Fuller’s thoughts ran ahead of his

surroundings, and he disclosed his plans to his comrades in these words:

“If we can get to Etowah by 9:40, we will catch the old Yonah. This we can

do by very hard work, unless hindered by obstructions.” This suggestion

doubled the energy of every man, and they abandoned themselves to the task

before them. It is difficult to write, with deliberation, a story so full

of push and haste. This run of twenty miles with an old clumsy hand-car,

under so many difficulties, is replete with interest. At length, after

Captain Fuller and his comrades were thoroughly exhausted, standing on the

turn-table at Etowah more than a mile away, “the old Yonah” was espied. A

yell and cry of great joy went up from these gallant men; but, alas, their

vision had extended beyond their immediate danger! The raiders had removed

an outside rail in a short curve, and unexpectedly the whole party was

thrown into a ditch full of water. This, however, was a small matter to

men of resolute will and iron nerve. The car was soon carried across the

break in the track and put upon the run again. One of the track hands was

left to watch this break, to prevent danger to following trains--the other

was left with the hand-car at Etowah. Although the old Yonah was standing

on the turn-table at Etowah, her tender was on another track. Willing and

eager hands soon had the engine and tender coupled together, and the Yonah

was “pressed into service.” An empty coal car was taken on, and a few

Confederate soldiers, who were at the station waiting for a south-bound

train, volunteered to join in the chase. The engineer of the Yonah, Mr.

Marion Hilly, and his own hands, ran the Yonah from Etowah to Kingston,

and Captain Fuller gives them great credit for their loyalty and faithful

service.

A more dangerous run was never made. The track was in a bad condition, and

the line quite crooked; and the pursuers could not tell at what moment

they might be thrown into a ditch by a removal of rails, or obstructions

placed upon the track; but they were absolutely blind to all personal

danger or considerations. The Yonah had only two drivers and they were six

feet, and she had a very short strike. She was built for fast running with

a small passenger train on an easy grade. Under all the difficulties by

which he was surrounded, Hilly ran the Yonah from Etowah to Kingston,

thirteen miles in fourteen minutes, and came to a full stop at

Cartersvile, and also at Kingston. Several crossties had been put upon the

track, but the pursuers said “they were literally blown away as the Yonah

split the wind.”

At Kingston, Captain Fuller learned that he was only twenty minutes behind

the raiders. At this point, Andrews had represented himself as a

Confederate officer. He told the railroad agent that he “passed Fuller’s

train at Atlanta, and that the cars which he had contained fixed

ammunition for General Beauregard at Corinth.” He carried a red flag on

“The General,” and said that “Fuller’s train was behind with the regular

passenger train.”

This plausible story induced the agent to give him his keys to unlock the

switch at the north end of the Kingston railroad yard. Several heavy

freight trains were at Kingston, bound southward. Those furthest behind

reached a mile or so north of the switch on the main line. Owing to

Andrews’s “fixed ammunition” story, the agent, being a patriotic man,

ordered all trains to pull by, so as to let Andrews out at the north end

of the yard. This was done as quickly as possible, though it was difficult

to make the railroad men understand why the great haste, and why Andrews

should be let pass at so much trouble when Fuller’s train would soon be

along, and both could be passed at the same time. But Andrews’s business

was so urgent, and so vitally important, as a renewal of the fight between

Beauregard and Buell was expected at any hour, the freightmen were induced

to pull by and let him out. This delay gave Captain Fuller an inestimable

advantage, and but for the delay at Moon’s Station, Andrews and his

raiders would have been captured at Kingston.

When Fuller arrived at Kingston on the Yonah, he was stopped by a flagman

more than a mile south of the depot, on account of the trains that had

pulled by to let Andrews out. He saw at once that he would have to abandon

the Yonah, as he could not get her by without much delay. So taking to his

feet again, he ran around those freight trains to the depot and held a

short conversation with the agent from whom he learned the particulars of

Andrews’s movements and representations, etc. He then ran to the north

prong of the Rome railroad “Y,” where that road intersected with the

Western and Atlantic mainline. There he found “The Alfred Shorter,” the

Rome railroad engine, fired up and ready to move. He hurriedly told Wyley

Harbin the engineer of “The Alfred Shorter,” about the raiders, and he and

his fireman, noble fellows, at once put themselves and their engine at his

service. The pursuers were gone in thirty seconds. Captain Fuller says

that Jeff Cain got into the train, but that Mr. Murphy who was in another

part of the car yard, considering some other plan, came near being left;

but Fuller saw him and held Harbin up until he ran up and got on.

Captain Fuller rode on the cowcatcher of the “Shorter,” that he might

remove crossties and other obstructions that would probably be put on the

track. Further down the road, when Andrews was running more at leisure, he

loaded the three box cars with ties and other timber, and when he feared

pursuit he punched out the rear end of his hindermost car and dropped

obstructions in the way of his pursuers. The Alfred Shorter had drivers

only four feet--6--, and could make only ordinary time; but Captain Fuller

did not consider that of any great disadvantage, as she ran as fast as it

was safe to do on account of the many obstruction dropped by raiders upon

that part of the road.

Six miles north of Kingston, Captain Fuller found it necessary to abandon

the “Shorter,” because at that point several rails of the track had been

taken up and carried away by the raiders. Knowing the schedule as he did,

and seeing he could not get by in less time than thirty minutes, Captain

Fuller decided that the best thing to be done was to go to Adairsville,

four miles north, where he hoped to find a south-bound train, “tied up”

because of the delay of his train. Possibly he might meet this train

before reaching Adairsville. Leaving the “Shorter,” he called upon all who

wished to join in one more effort to follow him, and started in a run on

foot for another four miles. There were none to follow--all preferred to

remain in the Rome passenger coach. (It is not amiss here to state that,

at Kingston, Fuller took on one coach belonging to the Rome Railroad, and

that some thirty or forty persons had volunteered and boarded the Rome

car; but, when invited to join in a four-mile foot race, they preferred to

remain in the coach.)

When Fuller had run about two miles he looked back and saw Murphy just

rounding a curve about three hundred yards behind. When he had run about a

mile further, to his great delight he met the expected south-bound freight

train. Fuller gave the signal, and, having a gun in his hand, was

recognized by the conductor, who stopped as quickly as possible.

Fortunately Peter I. Brachen was the engineer of the freight, and had “The

Texas,” a Danforth & Cook, 5 feet 10 driver, as his engine. Captain Fuller

knew that Brachen was a cool, level-headed man, and one of the best

runners that ever pulled a throttle. As soon as the train stopped, Fuller

mounted and was about to back it, when, seeing Murphy coming, he held

Brachen a few seconds until his comrade got on “The Texas.” Then the long

train was pushed back to Adairsville, where Fuller changed the switch,

uncoupled the train from the engine, and pushed in upon the side track. In

the further pursuit of the raiders, Captain Fuller never changed his

engine or his crew again.

From hence “The Texas” is after “The General”--both are new, both 5 feet

10 driver, with the same stroke--“The General” a Rogers, “The Texas” a

Danforth & Cook. But “The General” was forward, while “The Texas” had to

back.

Captain Fuller rode on the back end of the tender, which was in front, and

swung from corner to corner, so that he could see round the curves and

signal to Brachen. His only chance to hold on was by two hooks, one at

each corner of the tender, such as were formerly used to secure “spark

catchers.” Many times he bounced two feet high when the tender ran over

obstructions not seen in time to stop the engine. The ten miles from

Adairsville to Calhoun was made in twelve minutes, including the time

consumed in removing obstructions. (Here it may be in order to state that

when Andrews had met Brachen at Adairsville, on his south-bound trip

before being met by Fuller, that he told him to hurry to Kingston, as

Fuller would wait there for him. This Brachen was doing, when Captain

Fuller met him a mile south of Adairsville. But if Fuller had not met and

stopped him, he would not have gone on to Kingston, but would have plunged

into the break in the railroad where the raiders had taken up the rails

at the point where the “Shorter” was abandoned. This was one of Andrews’

best moves. He hoped to occasion a disastrous wreck, and block the road.)

As Captain Fuller with “The Texas” and her crew figure exclusively in the

remainder of this wonderful chase, he thinks it eminently due them that

the names of those actually engaged on the engine should be given. Federal

reports of the affair have put under the command of Fuller a regiment or

more of armed soldiers. Some illustrations show long trains of cars packed

to overflowing with armed men.

From the time he stopped Brachen, a mile south of Adairsville, to the

point where Andrews abandoned “The General,” three miles north of

Ringgold, he had with him only Peter J. Brachen as engineer, Henry Haney,

fireman of the engine (who, at the suggestion of Brachen, stood at the

brakes of the tender, and had for additional leverage a piece of timber

run through the spokes of the brake-wheel), Flem Cox, an engineer on the

road, who happened to be along, and fired the “Texas,” and Alonzo Martin,

train hand of the freight train left at Adairsville, who passed wood to

Cox. Thus it is seen that Captain Fuller, Peter J. Brachen, Flem Cox, and

Alonzo Martin were the members of the pursuing party in toto, during the

last fifty-five miles of the chase.

As has been stated, Mr. Anthony Murphy, of Atlanta, rode on “The Texas”

with Brachen from Adairsville to the point at which the Andrews raiders

were caught, and there is no doubt he would have aided in their capture

at the forfeit of his life had he been called upon to do so.

As the pursuers ran past Calhoun, an enthusiastic old gentleman, Mr.

Richard Peters, himself a Northern man, and who died an honored citizen of

Atlanta, offered a reward of a hundred dollars each for all the raiders

captured. Had this promise been fulfilled Captain Fuller would have

received $2,300, which no doubt he would have divided with his comrades in

the pursuit.

At Calhoun Captain Fuller met the south-bound “day passenger train,”

delayed by his unexpected movements. He had his engine run slowly by the

depot, and exchanged a few words with the excited crowd of people, who

were amazed at the sudden appearance and disappearance of the runaway

train which had passed there a few moments before. Here he also saw Ed

Henderson, the telegraph operator at Dalton. Discovering that the line was

down below Dalton, Henderson had gone down on the passenger train to try

to repair the break in the wire. Seeing him, Fuller reached out his hand

as he was running by and took the operator into the tender, and as they

ran at the rate of a mile a minute he wrote the following dispatch:

“_To General Ledbetter, Chattanooga_:

My train was captured this morning at Big Shanty, evidently by Federal

soldiers in disguise. They are making rapidly for Chattanooga, and will no

doubt burn the Chickamauga bridges in their rear, if I should fail to

capture them. Please see that they do not pass Chattanooga.

Signed,

W. A. FULLER.”

He handed this dispatch to the operator, and instructed him to put it

through at all hazards when he should arrive at Dalton.

Just at that moment the pursuers came in sight of the raiders for the

first time. They had halted two miles north of Calhoun and were removing a

rail from the track. As the pursuers hove in sight, the raiders detached

their third car and left it before Captain Fuller could reach them.

Coupling this abandoned car to “The Texas,” Captain Fuller got on top of

it and began the race again. The rails had only been loosened and the

intrepid conductor took the chances of running over them. From this point

the raiders ran at a fearful rate, and the pursuers followed after them as

fast as “The Texas” could go.

One mile and a half further up, the raiders detached another car in the

front of the pursuers. This was witnessed by Fuller, who was standing on

the rear end of the car he had coupled to when the raiders were first

seen. He gave Brachen the signal, and he advanced slowly to the abandoned

car and coupled it to the first one obtained in this way. Then getting on

top of the newly captured one he was off again in the race with scarcely

the loss of a moment’s time.

Just in front of the raiders, and not more than a mile away, was an

important railroad bridge over the Oostanaula river at Resaca. The

pursuers had greatly feared that the raiders would gain time to burn this

bridge, after passing over it. But they were pressed so hotly and so

closely that they passed over the bridge as rapidly as the “General” could

carry them. The pursuers were, therefore, greatly rejoiced on their

arrival at Resaca to see that the bridge was standing, and that it had not

been set on fire. The two cars picked up as described were switched off at

Resaca, and the pursuers again had “The Texas” untrammeled. The race from

Resaca to Dalton has seldom been paralleled. It is impossible to describe

it.

At Dalton the telegraph operator was dropped, with instructions to put the

dispatch to General Ledbetter through to the exclusion of all other

matter. All was excitement at this point. The unusual spectacle of a wild

engine flying through the town with only one car attached was bewildering

indeed; and when Captain Fuller arrived and ran through, slacking his

speed just enough to put the operator off the train, the excitement became

intense. The operator was besieged on every side for an explanation, but

he knew nothing save that contained in the dispatch.

Two miles north of Dalton, Andrews stopped. Some of his men climbed

telegraph poles and cut the wire, while others were engaged in an effort

to take up the track behind them. The operator at Dalton had sent the

dispatch through to Ledbetter at Chattanooga; but just as he had finished

and was holding his finger on the key, waiting for the usual “O. K,” click

went the key, and all was dead. He did not know until the next day that

Captain Fuller’s dispatch had reached its destination. Had the raiders

been thirty seconds earlier in cutting the wire, the dispatch would not

have gone through. As it was Ledbetter received it, and not being able to

hear anything further by telegraph or otherwise he had a regiment placed

in ambush (some of the soldiers on either side of the track), and had a

considerable part of the track taken up. This was about a mile from

Chattanooga, so that by the intervention of the telegram Fuller had

Andrews both front and rear.

Andrews was run away from the point where the wires were cut before any

material damage was done to the track. The rails had been partially

removed, but not so much as to prevent the safe passage over them of “The

Texas” and her crew.

Now the last long race begins. The pursued and the pursuers are in sight

of one another. In every straight line of the road, Andrews was in plain

view. This tended to increase the interest and excitement, if, indeed, the

thrilling scenes and incidents of the seconds as they flitted by could

have been heightened. I say seconds, because minutes in this case would be

too large to use for a unit of time. The experience, practice, and

knowledge of machinery possessed by the engineers was brought into full

play. “The Texas” was kept at a rate of one hundred and sixty-five pounds

of steam, with the valve wide open. Brachen would appear a little pale

sometimes, but he was encouraged by Fuller standing the full length of the

tender before him, and watching around the curves. At every straight line

in the road Andrews was sighted, and a yell went up from the throats of

the pursuers, but they did not lose their wits. Their aim was forward,

onward, at all hazards. They were now convinced that Andrews had exhausted

his supply of obstructive material, and were not so uneasy on that

account. But as prudence is the better part of valor, and as they had so

few men on board, they dared not approach too close, lest their little

band should be fired upon; or what appeared to be a greater danger,

Andrews might suddenly stop and give fight. Captain Fuller had only five

person on “The Texas” besides himself, and all accounts heard by them at

points below had placed Andrews’s party as high as twenty or twenty-five.

Fuller knew that the fire-arms he had gathered up early in the race, such

as “squirrel guns,” and most of them unloaded, would have but little

showing in a hand-to-hand contest; so these things had to be considered as

they sped along so swiftly. Another danger was to be feared--Andrews might

stop, abandon “The General,” let her drive back, and thus force a

collision with the pursuers.

In approaching the tunnel, seven miles north of Dalton, our brave

conductor slackened speed until he could see dimly through the smoke of

“The General,” which had only passed out of the further end by a few

seconds, and was in sight beyond. For the next seven miles from Tunnel

Hill to Ringgold, nothing occurred except a race between engines such as

has never been excelled. When Ringgold was reached, both engines literally

flew through the town, the “Texas” only about one-fourth of a mile behind.

When the pursuers were passing through the north end of the town, Captain

Fuller noticed a company of militia drilling. Their horses were hitched to

the small shade trees near the muster grounds, and this fact fastened

itself upon his mind.

In a few minutes the pursuers swung around the second short curve north

of Ringgold, just in time to see Andrews slack his speed, and himself and

his men jump off the “General” to seek concealment in the dense woods. The

foliage of the trees and undergrowth was about half grown, and it would

have been an easy matter to hide in the forest. When the raiders were

first seen north of Ringgold, it was obvious that the heroic old “General”

was almost exhausted. Her smoke was nearly white, and ran up at an angle

of 45 degrees, while before that it lay flat, and appeared to the eyes of

the pursuers as if fresh from the stack. When Andrews abandoned the

“General,” his engineer threw the lever back and gave the engine all the

steam it had, but in his haste the brake was left on, so the engine was

unable to drive back and collide with the “Texas,” as Andrews had hoped it

would.

The pursuers ran up to the “General” to which was attached one box

car--the one historians and statesmen have so often said was fired and

left to burn in a bridge below Ringgold. This car had been fired, but was

easily extinguished. It had never been uncoupled from the “General” since

Fuller left Atlanta with it that morning. Brachen hastily coupled the

“Texas” to this car and the “General.” Captain Fuller reminded Brachen of

the militia company they had seen drilling at Ringgold a few minutes

before, and encouraged him to go back there as soon as possible and tell

of the capture of the “General,” and to beseech the soldiers to mount

their horses and come to his aid, as he, Flem Cox, and Alonzo Martin were

already chasing through the woods after Andrews and his men. Mr. Murphy

and Henry Haney went back to Ringgold with Brachen after the militia.

It was probably three minutes after the “General” was overtaken before

Captain Fuller and his two comrades were ready to take to the woods, as

they assisted in getting the car and two engines started back to Ringgold.

The raiders, therefore, had the advantage and were deep in the forest

before the woodland chase began. Besides, the reader will see at once that

the raiders were fresh--that they had done no really hard work, except the

fireman and engineer. They had not already run on foot more than twenty

miles, as Fuller had done. After the pursuing party had gone about two

miles through the woods, they came to a fifty-acre wheat field just in

time to see the raiders cross the fence at the further side. It had been

raining nearly all day, and the ground was wet. It was limestone soil, and

almost as sticky as tar. The boots of the pursuers would clog up, and the

mud on them would sometimes weigh doubtless two or three pounds. Another

source of annoyance was the growing wheat, which was half leg high and

very difficult to tread. Captain Fuller has said that it appeared to be

up-hill every way that he ran.

Finally the woods beyond were reached, and, by accident, Captain Fuller

and his two comrades got separated. In the afternoon four of the raiders

were captured. About 8 P. M. Captain Fuller became completely exhausted.

Some old farmers put him on a mule and carried him back to Ringgold,

distant seven miles direct route, but by the one he was carried three

times that distance. He lay down on the mule’s back, and a man on either

side held him on.

Soon after they arrived at Ringgold the down night passenger train came,

and Captain Fuller was put on board and carried to Atlanta. At Tunnel

Hill, seven miles south, a train of soldiers passed them on the way to the

scene of interest. The Andrews Raiders had already been captured, and the

“General” was safe on the side track at Ringgold, eight hours before. And

this train of soldiers just spoken of is “the second pursuing train” that

Pittenger so often speaks of in his “Capturing a Locomotive,” and “Daring

and Suffering.”

We have followed Captain Fuller and his wise and intrepid men, in the

pursuit of spies no less wise and intrepid, from the first step in an act

which, under the usages of war in all countries, meant death to them if

captured; and over that lamentable scene we drop the curtain. We have the

testimony of reliable men that they were humanely treated while in prison.

After a trial, conducted on the highest principles of military law and

honor, eight of these spies were condemned and executed.

The following list gives the names of the Andrews raiders, all of whom

were captured in the manner described:

J. J. Andrews,

Wilson Brown,

Marion Ross,

W. H. Campbell,

John Scott,

Perry G. Shadrack,

George D. Wilson,

Samuel Slavens.

These were tried and executed.

S. Robinson,

Ed. Mason,

Wm. Knight,

Robert Bruffum,

William Pittenger,

M. J. Hawkins,

I. Parroth,

W. Bensinger,

A. Wilson,

W. Reddie,

D. A. Dorsey,

I. R. Porter,

M. Wood,

W. W. Brown.

The last named fourteen were never tried.

CONFEDERATE LOVE SONG.

Over the mountains of Winter,

And the cold, cold plains of snow,

Down in the valleys of Summer,

Calling my love I go.

And strong in my woe and passion,

I climb up the hills of Spring,

To listen if I hear his voice

In songs he used to sing.

I wait in the fields of Autumn,

And gather a feast of fruit,

And call my love to the banquet;

His lips are cold and mute.

I say to the wild bird flying:

“My darling sang sweet as you;

Fly o’er the earth in search of him,

And to the skies of blue.”

I say to the wild-wood flowers:

“My love was a friend to you;

Send one of your fragrant spirits

To the cool Isles of Dew,”

“Gold-girt by a belt of moonbeams,

And seek on their gleaming shore

A breath of the vanished sweetness

For me his red lips bore.”

I stand at the gates of Morning,

When the radiant angel, Light,

Draws back the great bolt of darkness,

And by the gates of Night,

When the hands of bright stars tremble

While clasping their lanterns bright;

And I hope to see him passing,

And touch his garments white.

O, love! if you hear me calling,

Flee not from the wailing cry;

Come from the grottoes of Silence

And hear me, or I die!

Stand out on the hills of Echo;

The sensitive, pulsing air

Will thrill at your softest whisper--

Speak to me, love, from there!

O, love, if I hear you calling,

Though far on the heavenly side,

My voice will float on the billow:

“Come to your spirit bride.”

--MARY A. H. GAY.

TO THE READER,

Who has kindly perused these sketches, I would say, as they have already

attained length and breadth not anticipated from the beginning, I will

withhold the sequels to many of them for, perhaps, another volume of

reminiscences.

Were I possessed of the Sam Weller genius and versatility, and the happy

faculty of making the reader wish I had written more, I would throw open

the doors of the store-house of my war memories, a structure as capacious

as the “Southern Confederacy” and canopied by the firmament, and invite

the public to enter and share with me the treasures hidden there. The

coruscations of wit and the profound displays of wisdom by many who donned

Confederate grey and went forth in manhood’s prime to battle for the

principles of their country, would employ the minds and feast the

intellect of the most erudite. There are living, glowing pictures hanging

upon the walls which delineate the mysteries of humanity in all its varied

forms, and, by example, demonstrate that we often spurn with holy horror

that which is better far than that which we embrace with all the fervor of

affection. I would resurrect the loftest patriotism from the most humble

graves in the Southern land, and prove by heroic deeds and noble acts that

valor on the battle-field was as often illustrated by the humble soldier

whose name has not been preserved in “storied urn,” as by the gallant son

of chivalrous ancestors who commanded the applause of an admiring

multitude. I would place by the side of those greatest of chieftains,

Robert E. Lee, and our impregnable “Stonewall” Jackson and Albert Sidney

Johnston, many of our soldiers “unknown to fame,” in faded grey jackets

and war-worn pants, and challenge the world for the difference. I would

dwell with loving interest upon the innumerable sad, sweet faces of the

mighty throng of bereaved mothers, sisters and aunts, out of whose lives

all light had gone, and who, though hopeless, uttered no words of

complaint against our cause or its leader, but toiled on with unswerving

faith and souls that borrowed the lustre of heaven. All these sad things

in my gallery I would clothe in living form and glowing color. And,

saddest of all, I would live over with them that melancholy period when

the very few, comparatively, that were left of the noble defenders of our

principles, came back, not with buoyant step and victor crown, but with

blighted hopes and despondent mien to desolated homes and decimated

families. Under the new regime I would tell of despair and suicide, of

hope, energy and success; I would tell how I have lived in this

gallery--its silent occupants my companions and friends, my inspiration to

useful deeds. There is not a day that I do not arouse by muffled tread the

slumbering echoes of this past, and look upon the cherished souvenirs of

the patriotic friends now roaming the beautiful gardens of Paradise, or

sleeping the mystic waiting of the resurrection. I ponder upon their

lives, their ambitions, their disappointments, and it requires no effort

of the imagination to animate those dead forms and invest them with living

attributes. And daily, in imagination I weave for them a laurel crown that

shall grow greener and greener as the cycles of Time speed on to

Eternity.

APPENDIX.

The author has selected the article, “Gleanings from General Sherman’s

Despatches,” as an appendix for these sketches, not because of a desire to

keep up the issues of the war between the States (for she would gladly

bury them so deep they could never be resurrected until the great Judge of

all issues calls them up to receive sentence by his unerring judgment),

but rather, because of the persistent insistence of Northern Republicans

to make it appear to the world that the Southern people are a

semi-barbarous people, solely responsible for the war and altogether

unworthy fraternal consideration in the compact called the Union.

The article mentioned, “Gleanings from General Sherman’s Despatches,” is

to be found, word for word, in The Southern Magazine, May, 1873, Vol. XII.

Baltimore: Turnbull Brothers.

GLEANINGS FROM GENERAL SHERMAN’S DESPATCHES.

Those thick, loosely-bound octavos printed on soft and rather dingy paper,

which Congress publishes and distributes under the name of Public

Documents, are not generally considered very entertaining reading. But

there are exceptions; and one of these is the report of the joint

committee of Congress on the conduct of the war. Indeed, compared with

such mild pastorals as “Some Accounts of the Cheese Manufacture in Central

New York,” or “Remarks on the Cultivation of Alfalfa in Western

Tennessee,” it is quite luridly sensational, and in parts reminds us of

those striking reports of the Duke of Alva to his royal master, which have

been disinterred in the dusty archives of Simancas. As a study of

congressional nature, military nature, and human nature generally, in its

least attractive aspects, these eight stout volumes are richly worth

perusal. Here the reader is allowed to peep behind the scenes of that

portentous drama; here he may see the threads of the intrigues that

centered in Washington; may hear a petty newspaper correspondent

demonstrating, with an animation that we can scarcely ascribe to fervid

patriotism, the incapacity, the ignorance and even the doubtful “loyalty”

of the commander-in-chief; may see private malignity and vindictiveness

putting on grand Roman airs, and whispering debaters draping themselves in

the toga of Brutus.

However, it is not with these aspects of the reports that we at present

have to do, but with the despatches of General Sherman on his march

through Georgia and South Carolina. A great deal of fiction and some

verse,[5] we believe, have been written about this famous march or grand

foray; but here we have the plain matter-of-fact statement of things as

they were, and they form a luminous illustration of the advance of

civilization in the nineteenth century as exemplified in the conduct of

invasions, showing how modern philanthropy and humanitarianism, while

acknowledging that for the present war is a necessary evil, still strive

to mitigate its horrors and spare all avoidable suffering to

non-combatants. For this purpose we have thought it worth while to

reproduce a few of the most striking extracts illustrating the man, his

spirit, and his work.

A kind of keynote is sounded in the dispatches to General Stoneman, of May

14, which, after ordering him to “press down the valley strong,” ends with

the words, “Pick up whatever provisions and plunder you can.”

On June 3, the question of torpedoes is discussed, and General Stedman

receives the following instructions: “If torpedoes are found in the

possession of an enemy to our rear, you may cause them to be put on the

ground and tested by wagon loads of prisoners, or, if need be, by citizens

implicated in their use. In like manner, if a torpedo is suspected on any

part of the railroad, order the point to be tested by a carload of

prisoners or citizens implicated, drawn by a long rope.” “Implicated,” we

suppose here meant “residing or captured in the neighborhood.”

On July 7, we have an interesting dispatch to General Garrard on the

subject of the destruction of the factories at Roswell. “Their utter

destruction is right, and meets my entire approval; and to make the matter

complete, you will arrest the owners and employees and send them under

guard charged with treason, to Marietta, and I will see as to any man in

America hoisting the French flag and then devoting his labor and capital

to supplying armies in open hostility to our government, and claiming the

benefit of his neutral flag. Should you, under the impulse of anger,

natural at contemplating such perfidy, hang the wretch, I approve the act

beforehand.... I repeat my orders that you arrest all people, male and

female, connected with those factories, no matter what the clamor, and let

them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, whence I will send them by cars to

the North. Destroy and make the same disposition of all mills, save small

flouring mills, manifestly for local use; but all saw mills and factories

dispose of effectually; and useful laborers, excused by reason of their

skill as manufacturers, from conscription, are as much prisoners as if

armed.” On the same day he further enlarges on this subject in a despatch

to General Halleck:

“General Garrard reports to me that he is in possession of Roswell, where

were several very valuable cotton and wool factories in full operation,

also paper mills, all of which, by my order, he destroyed by fire. They

had been for years engaged exclusively at work for the Confederate

government; and the owner of the woolen factory displayed the French flag,

but, as he failed to show the United States flag also, General Garrard

burned it also. The main cotton factory was valued at a million of United

States dollars. The cloth on hand is reserved for the use of the United

States hospitals; and I have ordered General Garrard to arrest for treason

all owners and employees, foreign and native, and send them to Marietta,

whence I will send them North. Being exempt from conscription, they are

as much governed by the rules of war as if in the ranks. The women can

find employment in Indiana. This whole region was devoted to

manufactories, but I will destroy everyone of them.” There are two points

specially worth notice in this despatch. The first, that _since_ these men

and women, by reason of sex, or otherwise, are exempt from conscription,

they are, therefore, as much subject to the rules of war as if in the

ranks. Why not do less violence to logic and state frankly that factory

hands were in demand in Indiana? The next point is that the Roswell

factories, whether French property or not, were destroyed because they

were making cloth for the Confederate government, followed presently by

the declaration that every manufactory in that region shall be destroyed,

evidently without reference to its products or their destination. How much

franker it would have been to have added to this last sentence, “and thus

get rid of so many competitors to the factories of the North.” The South

must learn that while she may bear the burden of protective tariffs, she

must not presume to share their benefits. Another despatch to General

Halleck, of July 9, again refers to these factories. After referring to

the English and French ownership, comes this remark: “I take it a neutral

is no better than one of our citizens, and we would not respect the

property of one of our own citizens engaged in supplying a hostile army.”

This is the kind of logic proverbially used by the masters of legions. A

despatch to General Halleck, of July 13, gives General Sherman’s opinion

of two great and philanthropic institutions. Speaking of “fellows hanging

about” the army, he says: “The Sanitary and Christian Commission are

enough to eradicate all traces of Christianity from our minds.”

July 14, to General J. E. Smith, at Allatoona: “If you entertain a bare

suspicion against any family, send it North. Any loafer or suspicious

person seen at any time should be imprisoned and sent off. If guerrillas

trouble the road or wires they should be shot without mercy.”

September 8, to General Webster after the capture of Atlanta: “Don’t let

any citizens come to Atlanta; not one. I won’t allow trade or manufactures

of any kind, but you will remove all the present population, and make

Atlanta a pure military town.” To General Halleck he writes: “I am not

willing to have Atlanta encumbered by the families of our enemies.” Of

this wholesale depopulation, General Hood complained, by flag of truce, as

cruel and contrary to the usages of civilized nations and customs of war,

receiving this courteous and gentlemanly reply (September 12): “I think I

understand the laws of civilized nations and the ‘customs of war;’ but, if

at a loss at any time, I know where to seek for information to refresh my

memory.” General Hood made the correspondence, or part of it, public, on

which fact, General Sherman remarks to General Halleck: “Of course, he is

welcome, for the more he arouses the indignation of the Southern masses,

the bigger will be the pill of bitterness they will have to swallow.”

About the middle of September, General Sherman, being still in Atlanta,

endeavored to open private communication with Governor Brown and

Vice-President Stephens, whom he knew to be at variance with the

administration at Richmond on certain points of public policy. Mr.

Stephens refused to reply to a verbal message, but wrote to Mr. King, the

intermediary, that if the general would say that there was any prospect of

their agreeing upon “terms to be submitted to the action of their

respective governments,” he would, as requested, visit him at Atlanta. The

motives urged by Mr. King were General Sherman’s extreme desire for peace,

and to hit upon “some plan of terminating this fratricidal war without the

further effusion of blood.” But in General Sherman’s despatch of September

14, to Mr. Lincoln, referring to these attempted negotiations, the

humanitarian point of view is scarcely so prominent. He says: “It would be

a magnificent stroke of policy if I could, without surrendering a foot of

ground or principle, arouse the latent enmity to Davis.”

On October 20, he writes to General Thomas from Summerville, giving an

idea of his plan of operations: “Out of the forces now here and at

Atlanta, I propose to organize an efficient army of 60,000 to 65,000 men,

with which I propose to destroy Macon, Augusta, and it may be, Savannah

and Charleston. By this I propose to demonstrate the vulnerability of the

South, and make its inhabitants feel that war and individual ruin are

synonymous terms.”

Despatch of October 22, to General Grant: “I am now perfecting

arrangements to put into Tennessee a force able to hold the line of the

Tennessee, while I break up the railroad in front of Dalton, including

the city of Atlanta, and push into Georgia and break up all its railroads

and depots, capture its horses and negroes, make desolation everywhere;

destroy the factories at Macon, Milledgeville and Augusta, and bring up

with 60,000 men on the seashore about Savannah and Charleston.”

To General Thomas, from Kingston, November 2: “Last night we burned Rome,

and in two more days will burn Atlanta” (which he was then occupying).

December 5: “Blair can burn the bridges and culverts and burn enough barns

to mark the progress of his head of columns.”

December 18, to General Grant, from near Savannah: “With Savannah in our

possession, at some future time, if not now, we can punish South Carolina

as she deserves, and as thousands of people in Georgia hope we will do. I

do sincerely believe that the whole United States, north and south, would

rejoice to have this army turned loose on South Carolina, to devastate

that State in the manner we have done in Georgia.”

A little before this he announces to Secretary Stanton that he knows what

the people of the South are fighting for. What do our readers suppose? To

ravage the North with sword and fire, and crush them under their heel?

Surely it must be some such delusion that inspires this ferocity of

hatred, unmitigated by even a word of compassion. He may speak for

himself: “Jefferson Davis has succeeded perfectly in inspiring his people

with the truth that liberty and government are worth fighting for.” This

was their unpardonable crime.

December 22, to General Grant: “If you can hold Lee, I could go on and

smash South Carolina all to pieces.”

On the 18th General Halleck writes: “Should you capture Charleston, I hope

that by some accident the place may be destroyed; and if a little salt

should be sown upon its site, it may prevent the growth of future crops of

nullification and secession.” To this General Sherman replies, December

24: “This war differs from European wars in this particular--we are not

only fighting hostile armies, but hostile people; and must make old and

young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their

organized armies. I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and

don’t think _salt_ will be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth corps

will be on the right of the right wing, and their position will naturally

throw them into Charleston first; and, if you have studied the history of

that corps, you will have remarked that they generally do their work up

pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning with insatiable

desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her

fate, but she deserves all that seems in store for her.

“I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston, and I doubt if we

shall spare the public buildings there as we did at Milledgeville.”

And now we look with interest for the despatches that would settle the

vexed question as to whether Sherman or his officers, acting under his

orders, burned Columbia on the 17th of February. Unfortunately, a paternal

government, not thinking it good that the truth should be known, has

suppressed all the despatches between the 16th and the 21st, and every

other allusion to the transaction.

On the 23d, he writes to General Kilpatrick: “Let the whole people know

the war is now against them, because their armies flee before us and do

not defend their country or frontier as they should. It is pretty nonsense

for Wheeler and Beauregard and such vain heroes to talk of our warring

against women and children and prevent us reaching their homes.”

If, therefore, an army defending their country can prevent invaders from

reaching their homes and families, the latter have a right to that

protection; but if the invaders can break through and reach these homes,

these are justified in destroying women and children. Certainly this is a

great advance on the doctrine and practice of the dark ages. Another

extraordinary moral consequence flows from this insufficiency of defence:

“If the enemy fails to defend his country, we may rightfully appropriate

what we want.” Here, now, is a nice question of martial law or casuistry,

solved with the simplicity of an ancient Roman. In other words, when in

the enemy’s country, the army shall be strictly careful not to seize,

capture or appropriate to military or private uses, any property--that it

cannot get.

“They (the Southern people) have lost all title to property, and can lose

nothing not already forfeited.”

What, nothing? Not merely the houses we had built, the lands we had

tilled, the churches we worshipped in--had we forfeited the right to drink

of the streams, to behold the sun, to breathe the free air of heaven?

What unheard of, what inconceivable crime had we committed that thus

closed every gate of mercy and compassion against us, and provoked an

utterance which has but one parallel--the death warrant signed by Philip

II. against all Netherlanders? General Sherman has himself told us what it

was: We had dared to act on the “truth that liberty and government are

worth fighting for.”

On March 15, he writes to General Gillmore, advising him to draw forces

from Charleston and Savannah (both then in Federal hands) to destroy a

railroad, etc. “As to the garrisons of those places I don’t feel disposed

to be over-generous, and should not hesitate to burn Savannah, Charleston

and Wilmington, or either of them, if the garrisons were needed.”

Such are some of the results of our gleanings in this field. Is it any

wonder that after reading them we fervently echo General Sherman’s devout

aspiration: “I do wish the fine race of men that people the United States

should rule and determine the future destiny of America.”

SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA.

(Reprinted by Permission of the Illustrator Company. From the April, 1896,

Number of “The Illustrator.” Copyrighted. All Rights Reserved.)

It is a proud thing for Americans to feel that there is little to bring

the blush of shame to their cheeks in the contemplation of their country’s

history. It is a glorious thing for our young manhood to know that the

annals of their race tell of the earnest and upward progress of a people,

Christian from the first, toward an ever higher civilization. It is well

to reflect that when the ruthless hand of war has turned American

citizenship from the paths of peace it could do little more than array

strong man against sturdy foeman in an honest battle for principle, and

that outrage and pillage in our broad domain have been the almost

undisputed heritage of the Aborigines.

Enduring with patient fortitude the raids of savage foes upon our early

frontiers, meeting the armed invasion of foreign hosts with a resistance

vigorous but manly, pressing our own victorious arms to the very citadel

of our Mexican neighbors without spoliation or rapine, it is sad to

realize that it remained for an internecine conflict, where brother stood

against brother, for an invasion by an army void of pretext of reprisal or

revenge, to write upon American warfare the stigma of vandalism, rapacity

and theft.

The movement from Atlanta to Savannah, which figured in history as “The

March to the Sea,” was, from the standpoint of the tactician, no great

achievement; it involved no more than the passage of an invincible army

across some three hundred miles of country, where it could gather supplies

upon its way, to effect a junction with its naval allies at a practically

defenceless city. It was peculiarly lacking in the daring which is

customarily ascribed to it, for it was made, practically, without

resistance and along a route where no considerable force of the enemy

could have been encountered. It was not a venture in the dark with a

conclusion to be determined by circumstances; for the authorities at

Washington were fully advised of its author’s purpose, and Gen. Sherman

was assured that he would meet a formidable fleet at Savannah before he

undertook it. It was no more nor less than the yielding, by this most

typical barbarian conqueror of the Nineteenth century, to the spirit of

pillage and excess which distinguished his prototypes in the days of the

Goths and Vandals, when the homes and firesides of their enemies were at

their mercy. It was a campaign remarkable only for the revival of military

methods abandoned since Attila the Hun. It was, nevertheless, as carefully

planned as it was ruthlessly executed. It was no sudden impulse which laid

the torch to every roof-tree upon the invading army’s path. It was no

spirit of retaliation for vigorous but ineffective resistance which goaded

these conquerors to excess, for out of 62,204 men who began the march but

103 lost their lives before they reached Savannah. It was simply the

grasping of the amplest opportunity by a man who glories in looting and

destruction, and to whom human misery was a subject for jest.

At the outset let us understand that General Sherman, through all that

portion of his career which began with the destruction of Atlanta, was

acting upon a plan and a theory devised and adopted weeks before; that his

own actions and that of his army were in no sense impulsive, but in every

way controlled by premeditation, and that our authority for such a

conclusion lies in the repeated statements of the General himself.

With the brutal frankness which was one of his characteristics, he wrote

on September 4th, 1864, in a letter to General Halleck, which he

reproduces in his autobiography: “If the people raise a howl against my

barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not

popularity-seeking.” “I knew, of course,” he says, “that such a measure

would be strongly criticized, but made up my mind to do it with the

absolute certainty of its justness, and that time would sanction its

wisdom. I knew that the people of the South would read in this measure two

important conclusions; one that we were in earnest, and the other that if

they were sincere in their common and popular clamor ‘to die in the last

ditch,’ the opportunity would soon come.”

The cold-blooded candor of this statement leaves little doubt of the

temperature of the well-springs which fed that organ of General Sherman

corresponding to the heart of an ordinary man; but if evidence were

wanting of his absolute unconcern for the sufferings of others when his

own plans might be interfered with to the slightest degree, it might be

found in his answer to General Hood’s proposition for an exchange of

prisoners. “Some of these prisoners,” he says, “had already escaped and

got in, and had described the pitiable condition of the remainder.” He had

at that time about two thousand Confederate prisoners available for

exchange. “These I offered to exchange for Stoneman, Buell, and such of my

own army as would make up the equivalent; but I would not exchange for his

prisoners generally, because I knew these would have to be sent to their

own regiments away from my army, whereas all we could give him could at

once be put to duty in his immediate army.” No possible suffering which

his unfortunate companions in arms could be forced to bear by reason of

the Confederates’ lack of supplies with which to feed and clothe them,

could induce him to exchange for men who would not strengthen his own

immediate army!

Geneseric, the Vandal, is said to have been “cruel to blood thirstiness,

cunning, unscrupulous and grasping; but he possessed great military

talents and his manner of life was austere.” Let the impartial reader of

history say how nearly the barbarian who marched to the sea in the

nineteenth century, approached to his prototype of the fifth century. One

is not surprised, therefore, to find this man writing to General Hood on

September 7th, 1864, that he “deemed it to the interest of the United

States that the citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove.”

In the midst of a region desolated by war, their fathers, husbands,

brothers, sons, in the army hundreds of miles away, it was “deemed to be

in the interest of the United States” that the helpless women and children

of Atlanta should be driven from their homes to find such shelter as God

gives the ravens and the beasts of the wood. It was a course that wrung

from General Hood these forceful words of reply:

“Permit me to say that the unprecedented measure you propose transcends,

in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my

attention in the dark history of war. In the name of God and humanity I

protest, believing that you will find you are expelling from their homes

and firesides the wives and children of a brave people.” To this burning

arraignment General Sherman could find no better answer than argument

concerning the right of States to secede. But it was followed on September

11th by an appeal from the mayor and councilmen of Atlanta which would

have touched a heart of stone. It was humble, it was earnest, it was

pitiful. It provoked these words in reply: “I have your letter of the 11th

in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the

inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit

to your statements of distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not

revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of

the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of

good people outside of Atlanta have an interest.”

The same unalterable resolution must have dominated Geneseric, the Vandal,

when he prepared for his fourteen days sacking of Rome. The vandal of the

fifth century had at least the pretext of reprisal for his actions; the

vandal of the nineteenth century could find no better plea for his

barbarity than that it might wring the hearts of absent men until they

would sacrifice principle and honor for the relief of their loved ones.

President Davis says: “Since Alva’s atrocious cruelties to the

non-combatant population of the low countries in the sixteenth century,

the history of war records no instance of such barbarous cruelty as this

order designed to perpetrate. It involved the immediate expulsion from

their homes and only means of subsistence of thousands of unoffending

women and children, whose husbands and fathers were either in the army, in

Northern prisons, or had died in battle.”

At the time appointed the women and children were expelled from their

houses, and, before they were passed within our lines, complaint was

generally made that the Federal officers and men who were sent to guard

them had robbed them of the few articles of value they had been permitted

to take from their homes. The cowardly dishonesty of the men appointed to

carry out this order, was in perfect harmony with the temper and the

spirit of the order.

It was on the 12th day of November, 1864, that “The March to the Sea”

began. Hood’s army had been followed to Tennessee, and Sherman’s forces

had destroyed the railroad during their return trip to Atlanta. They were

now ready to abandon the ruins of the Gate City for fresher and more

lucrative fields of havoc. It is fair to General Sherman to say that his

plans and intentions had been fully communicated to the authorities at

Washington, and that they met with the thorough approbation of General

Halleck, then Chief of Staff.

General Halleck will be remembered as the hero who won immortal fame

before Corinth. With an immensely superior force he so thoroughly

entrenched himself before that city that he not only held his position

during General Beauregard’s occupancy of the town, but retained it for

several days after the Confederate evacuation. He retired from active

service after this, his only piece of campaigning, to act in an advisory

capacity at Washington, and it was he who wrote these encouraging words to

Sherman at Atlanta: “The course which you have pursued in removing rebel

families from Atlanta, and in the exchange of prisoners, is fully approved

by the War Department.... Let the disloyal families thus stripped go to

their husbands, fathers, and natural protectors in the rebel ranks.... I

would destroy every mill and factory within reach, which I did not want

for my own use.... I have endeavored to impress these views upon our

commanders for the last two years. _You are almost the only one who has

properly applied them._” These words of encouragement fell upon willing

ears. No one knew better than Sherman how to read the sentiments between

those lines; he understood the motives which moved their doughty author as

thoroughly as when later the same hand gathered courage to advise him in

plain unvarnished words to wipe the city of Charleston off the face of the

earth, and sow her site with salt. The valiant Chief of Staff, who urged

on campaigns from a point sufficiently to the rear, had found at last a

man who would carry out his instructions, and the war upon women and

children was about to begin.

General Halleck was not the sole confidant of General Sherman’s plan. Less

than a month before the memorable march was undertaken, he telegraphed to

General Grant: “I propose that we break up the railroad from Chattanooga

forward, and that we strike out for Milledgeville, Millen and Savannah.

Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it, but

the utter destruction of its roads, houses and people will cripple their

military resources. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl!”

Sir Walter Raleigh conceived and attempted to execute the plan of

exterminating the Irish race, and colonizing their lands from England. The

Sultan of Turkey is about to carry out a similar policy with his

Armenians.

The difference between these other exterminators and Sherman, is that they

expected to be met at the doors of the homes they intended to destroy by

men capable of offering resistance, while the American General knew he

would have to do with women and children alone.

He evidently met with some expostulation from General Grant, for he

afterwards telegraphed him that he would “infinitely prefer to make a

wreck of the road and the country from Chattanooga and Atlanta, including

the latter city, send back all wounded and unserviceable men, and with the

effective army move through Georgia, smashing things to the sea.”

Receiving no answer to this latter dispatch, he did not hesitate to

execute the campaign as he had planned it, and in his own language

proceeded to “make the interior of Georgia feel the weight of war.”

Sherman and his staff rode out of the Gate City at 7 o’clock in the

morning of the 16th. “Behind us,” he says, “lay Atlanta, smouldering and

in ruins, the black smoke rising high in the air and hanging like a pall

over the ruined city. Some band, by accident, struck up the anthem of

‘John Brown’s soul goes marching on’. The men caught up the strain, and

never before or since have I heard the chorus of ‘Glory, glory,

hallelujah!’ done with more spirit or in better harmony of time and

place.” To the credit of the slandered soul of that other marauder, let us

say, that John Brown’s lawless warfare was upon men alone, and that booty

formed no part of his incentive.

Knowing that no effective resistance was to be expected, Sherman so

scattered his columns that the sixty-mile “swath” which it was his purpose

to devastate, was covered by them with ease. In order that the work might

be thoroughly and effectively done, a sufficient number of men were

detailed for that branch of military service peculiar to Sherman’s army,

and known as “bummers.”

“These interesting individuals always,” says the General, “arose before

day and preceded the army on its march.” “Although this foraging was

attended with great danger and hard work, there seemed to be a charm about

it that attracted the soldiers, and it was a privilege to be detailed on

such a party.” “No doubt,” he adds with that same blunt frankness, “many

acts of pillage, robbery and violence were committed by these parties of

foragers usually called ‘bummers’; for I have since heard of jewelry taken

from women, and the plunder of articles that never reached the

commissary.” But these playful fellows, in spite of such indiscretions,

were never more to the General than an exhibition of that charming humor

invariably apparent in him in the presence of human suffering.

We may gather an idea of them from the following description given by a

correspondent of the New York Herald, who accompanied the army: “Any man

who has seen the object that the name applies to will acknowledge that it

was admirably selected. Fancy a ragged man, bleached by the smoke of many

a pine-knot fire, mounted on a scraggy mule without a saddle, with a gun,

a knap-sack, a butcher-knife and a plug hat, stealing his way through the

pine forests far out in the flanks of a column, keen on the scent of

rebels, or bacon, or silver spoons, or coin, or anything valuable, and you

have him in your mind. Think how you would admire him if you were a lone

woman, with a family of small children, far from help, when he blandly

inquired where you kept your valuables! Think how you would smile when he

pried open your chests with his bayonet, or knocked to pieces your tables,

pianos and chairs, tore your bed clothing into three-inch strips and

scattered them about the yard. The ‘bummers’ say it takes too much time to

use keys. Color is no protection from the rough raiders. They go through a

negro cabin in search of diamonds and gold watches with just as much

freedom and vivacity as they ‘loot’ the dwelling of a wealthy planter.

They appear to be possessed of a spirit of ‘pure cussedness.’ One

incident, illustrative of many, will suffice. A bummer stepped into a

house and inquired for sorghum. The lady of the house presented a jug,

which he said was too heavy, so he merely filled his canteen. Then taking

a huge wad of tobacco from his mouth he thrust it into the jug. The lady

inquired, in wonder, why he spoiled that which he did not want. ‘Oh, some

feller’ll come along and taste that sorghum and think you’ve poisoned him,

then he’ll burn your d----d old house.’ There are hundreds of these

mounted men with the column, and they go everywhere. Some of them are

loaded down with silverware, gold coin, and other valuables. I hazard

nothing in saying three fifths (in value) of the personal property of the

country we have passed through was taken by Sherman’s army.”

In an address delivered before the Association of the Maryland Line,

Senator Zeb Vance, of North Carolina, has laid the vigorous touch of his

characteristic English upon the void until it stands out in barbarous bold

relief, so far beyond the pencil of the present writer that he best serves

his readers by quoting: “With reference to his famous and infamous march,

I wish to say that I hope I am too much of a man to complain of the

natural and inevitable hardships, or even cruelties of war; but of the

manner in which this army treated the peaceful and defenseless inhabitants

in the reach of his columns, all civilization should complain.

“There are always stragglers and desperadoes following in the wake of an

army, who do some damage to and inflict some outrages upon helpless

citizens, in spite of all efforts of commanding officers to restrain and

punish; but when a General organizes a corps of thieves and plunderers as

a part of his invading army, and licenses beforehand their outrages, he

and all who countenance, aid or abet, invite the execration of mankind.

This peculiar arm of military service, it is charged and believed, was

instituted by General Sherman in his invasion of the Southern States.

Certain it is that the operations of his ‘Bummer Corps’ were as regular

and as unrebuked, if not as much commended for efficiency, as any other

division of his army, and their atrocities are often justified or excused,

on the ground that ‘such is war.’

“In his own official report of his operations in Georgia, he says: ‘We

consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country thirty miles either

side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah, also the sweet potatoes, hogs,

sheep and poultry, and carried off more than ten thousand horses and

mules. I estimate the damage done to Georgia at one-hundred million

dollars, at least twenty million of which inured to our benefit, and the

remainder was simply waste and destruction!’... The ‘remainder’ delicately

alluded to, that is say damage done the unresisting inhabitants to over

and above the seizing of necessary army supplies, consisted in private

houses burned, stock shot down and left to rot, bed clothes, money,

watches, spoons, plate and ladies’ jewelry stolen, etc., etc. A lane of

desolation sixty miles wide through the heart of three great states,

marked by more burnings and destructions than ever followed in the wake of

the widest cyclone that ever laid forest low! And all done, not to support

an invading army, but for ‘pure waste and destruction’; to punish the

crime of rebellion, not in the persons of those who had brought these

about, but of peaceful non-combatants, the tillers of the soil, the women

and the children, the aged and feeble, and the poor slaves! A silver spoon

was evidence of disloyalty, a ring on a lady’s finger was a sure proof of

sympathy with rebellion, whilst a gold watch was _prima facie_ evidence of

the most damnable guilt on the part of the wearer. These obnoxious

earmarks of treason must be seized and confiscated for private use--for

‘such is war!’ If these failed, and they sometimes did, torture of the

inhabitants was freely employed to force disclosure. Sometimes with noble

rage at their disappointment, the victims were left dead, as a warning to

all others who should dare hide a jewel or a family trinket from the

cupidity of a soldier of the Union. No doubt the stern necessity for such

things caused great pain to those who inflicted, but the Union must be

restored, and how could that be done whilst a felonious gold watch or a

treasonable spoon was suffered to remain in the land, giving aid and

comfort to rebellion? For ‘such is war.’ Are such things war indeed? Let

us see. Eighty-four years before that time, there was a war, in that same

country; it was a rebellion, too, and an English nobleman led the troops

of Great Britain through that same region, over much of the same route,

in his efforts to subdue that rebellion. The people through whose land he

marched were bitterly hostile, they shot his foraging parties, his

sentinels and stragglers, they fired upon him from every wood.

“He and his troops had every motive to hate and punish those rebellious

and hostile people. It so happens that the original order-book of Lord

Cornwallis is in possession of the North Carolina Historical Society. I

have seen and read it. Let us make a few extracts and see what he

considered war, and what he thought to be the duty of a civilized soldier

towards non-combatants and the helpless:

“‘CAMP NEAR BEATTY’S FORD,

January 28, 1781.

“‘Lord Cornwallis has so often expressed the zeal and good will of the

army that he has not the slightest doubt that the officers and soldiers

will most cheerfully submit to the ill conveniences that must naturally

attend war, so remote from water carriage and the magazines of the army.

The supply of rum for a time will be absolutely impossible, and that of

meal very uncertain. It is needless to point out to the officers the

necessity of preserving the strictest discipline, and of preventing the

oppressed people from suffering violence by the hands from whom they are

taught to look for protection.’

“Now, General Sherman was fighting, as he said, for the sole purpose of

restoring the Union, and for making the people of the rebellious States

look to the United States alone for protection; does any act or order of

his anywhere indicate a similar desire of protecting the people from

suffering at the hands of those whose duty it was to protect them? Again:

“‘HEADQUARTERS, LANSLER’S PLANTATION,

February 2, 1781.

“‘Lord Cornwallis is highly displeased that several houses have been set

on fire to-day during the march--a disgrace to the army--and he will

punish with the utmost severity any person or persons who shall be found

guilty of committing so disgraceful an outrage. His lordship requests the

commanding officers of the corps will endeavor to find the persons who set

fire to the houses to-day.’

“Now think of the march of Sherman’s army which could be discovered a

great way off by the smoke of homesteads by day and the lurid glare of

flames by night, from Atlanta to Savannah, from Columbia to Fayetteville,

and suppose that such an order as this had been issued by its commanding

officers and rigidly executed, would not the mortality have been quite

equal to that of a great battle?

“Arriving in Fayetteville on the 10th of January, 1865, he not only burned

the arsenal, one of the finest in the United States, which perhaps he

might properly have done, but also burned five private dwelling houses

near by; he burned the principal printing offices, that of the old

‘Fayetteville Observer;’ he burned the old Bank of North Carolina, eleven

large warehouses, five cotton mills and quite a number of private

dwellings in other parts of the town, whilst in the suburbs almost a clean

sweep was made; in one locality nine houses were burned. Universally

houses were gutted before they were burned, and after everything portable

was secured the furniture was ruthlessly destroyed, pianos on which

perhaps rebel tunes had been played--‘Dixie’ or ‘My Maryland’--disloyal

bureaus, traitorous tables and chairs were cut to pieces with axes, and

frequently, after all this damage, fire was applied and all consumed.

Carriages and vehicles of all kinds were wantonly destroyed or burned;

instances could be given of old men who had the shoes taken from their

feet, the hats from their heads and clothes from their persons; and their

wives and children subjected to like treatment. In one instance, as the

marauders left they shot down a dozen cattle belonging to an old man, and

then left their carcasses lying in the yard. Think of that, and then

remember the grievance of the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers who came in all

seriousness to complain to General Longstreet in the Gettysburg campaign,

of the outrage which some of his ferocious rebels had committed upon them

_by_ ‘_milking their cows_.’ On one occasion, at Fayetteville, four

gentlemen were hung up by the neck until nearly dead to force them to

disclose where their valuables were hidden, and one of them was shot to

death. Again:

“‘HEADQUARTERS DOBBINS HOUSE,

February 17, 1781.

“‘Lord Cornwallis is very sorry to be obliged to call the attention of the

officers of the army to the repeated orders against plundering, and he

assures the officers that if their duty to their King and country, and

their feelings for humanity are not sufficient to force their obedience

to them, he must, however reluctantly, make use of such powers as the

military laws have placed in his hands.... It is expected that Captains

will exert themselves to keep good order and to prevent plundering. Any

officer _who looks on with indifference and does not do his utmost to

prevent shameful marauding, will be considered in a more criminal light

than the persons who commit these scandalous crimes_, which must bring

disgrace and ruin on his Majesty’s service. All foraging parties will give

receipts for supplies taken by them.’

“Now, taking it for granted that Lord Cornwallis, a distinguished soldier

and a gentleman, is an authority on the rights of war, could there be

found any where a more damnatory comment upon the practices of General

Sherman and his army? Again:

“‘HEADQUARTERS, FREELANDS,

February 28, 1781.

“‘Memorandum:--A watch found by the regiment of Bose. The owner may have

it from the adjutant of the regiment upon proving property.’ Another:

“‘SMITH’S PLANTATION, March 1, 1781.

“‘Brigade Orders. A woman having been robbed of a watch, a black silk

handkerchief, a gallon of peach brandy and a shirt, and as, by the

description, by a soldier of the guards, the camp and every man’s kit is

to be immediately searched for the same by the officers of the Brigade.’

“Are there any poets in the audience, or other persons in whom the

imaginative faculty has been largely cultivated? If so, let me beg him to

do me the favor of conceiving, if he can, and make manifest to me, the

idea of a notice of a lost watch being given, in general orders, by

William Tecumseh Sherman, and the offer to return it on proof of property

by the rebel owner! Let him imagine, if he can, the searching of every

man’s kit in the army for a stolen watch, a shirt, a black silk

handkerchief and a gallon of peach brandy! Sherman says ‘such is war.’ I

venture to say that up to the period when that ‘great march’ taught us the

contrary, no humane general or civilized people in Christendom believed

_that_ ‘_such was_ war.’ Has civilization gone backward since Lord

Cornwallis’ day? Have arson and vulgar theft been ennobled into heroic

virtues? If so, when and by whom? Has the art of discovering a poor man’s

hidden treasure by fraud or torture been elevated into the strategy which

wins a campaign? If so, when and by whom?

“No, it will not do to slur over these things by a vague reference to the

inevitable cruelties of war. The time is fast coming when the conduct of

that campaign will be looked upon in the light of real humanity, and

investigated in the real historic spirit which evolves truth; and all the

partisan songs which have been sung, or orations which subservient orators

have spoken about that great march to the sea; and all the caricatures of

Southern leaders which the bitterness of a diseased sectional sentiment

has inspired; and all the glamour of a great success, shall not avail to

restrain the inexorable, the illuminating pen of history. Truth, like

charity, never faileth. Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail,

whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it

shall vanish away; but when the truth, which is perfect, has come, then

that which is in part shall be done away.

“Now let us contrast General Sherman with his greatest foe; likewise the

greatest, the most humane general of modern times, and see whether he

regarded the pitiless destruction of the substance of women and children

and inoffensive inhabitants a legitimate war:

“‘HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VA.,

June 27, 1863.

“‘General Order No. 73. The commanding general has observed with marked

satisfaction the conduct of troops on this march. There have, however,

been instances of forgetfulness on the part of some that they have in

keeping the yet unsullied reputation of this army, and that the duties

exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in

the country of an enemy than in our own. The commanding general considers

that no greater disgrace could befall the army and through it our whole

people, than the perpetration of barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and

defenceless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have

marked the course of the enemy in our country.... It will be remembered

that we make war only upon armed men.

R. E. LEE, General.’

“The humanity and Christian spirit of this order was such as to challenge

the admiration of foreign nations. The ‘London Times’ commented upon it,

and its American correspondent said: ‘The greatest surprise has been

expressed to me by officers from the Austrian, Prussian and English

armies, each of which has representatives here, that volunteer troops,

provoked by nearly twenty-seven months of unparalleled ruthlessness and

wantonness, of which their country has been the scene, should be under

such control, and willing to act in harmony with the long-suffering and

forbearance of President Davis and General Lee.’

“To show how this order was executed, the same writer tells a story of how

he witnessed with his own eyes General Lee and a surgeon of his command

repairing the damage to a farmer’s fence. Colonel McClure, of

Philadelphia, a Union soldier himself, bears witness to the good conduct

of Lee’s ragged rebels in that famous campaign. He tells of hundreds of

them coming to him and asking for a little bread and coffee, and others

who were wet and shivering asking permission to enter a house, in which

they saw a bright fire, to warm themselves until their coffee should be

ready. Hundreds of similar instances could be given, substantiated by the

testimony of men on both sides, to show the splendid humanity of that

great invasion. Blessed be the good God, who, if in His wisdom denied us

success, yet gave to us and our children the rich inheritance of this

great example.

“Major General Halleck, the commander-in-chief, under the President, of

the armies of the Union, on the 18th of December, 1864, dispatched as

follows to Sherman, then in Savannah: ‘Should you capture Charleston, I

hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed; and if a little

salt should be sown upon its site it may prevent the growth of future

crops of nullification and secession.’ On December 27th, 1864, Sherman

made the following answer: ‘I will bear in mind your hint as to

Charleston, and don’t think “salt” will be necessary. When I move, the

15th corps will be on the right of the right wing, and their position will

bring them naturally into Charleston first, and if you have watched the

history of the corps you will have remarked that they generally do their

work up pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning with

insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble

at her fate; but feel that she deserves all that seems to be in store for

her.... I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston.’ Therefore

Columbia was burned to ashes. And though he knew what was in store for

South Carolina, so horrible that he even trembled, he took no steps to

avert it, for he felt that she deserved it all. Did she, indeed? What

crime had she committed that placed her outside the protection of the law

of civilized nations? What unjust, or barbarous, or brutal conduct had she

been guilty of to bring her within the exceptions laid down by the writers

on the laws of war as authorizing extraordinary severity of punishment?

They are not even imputed to her. South Carolina’s crime, and the crime of

all the seceding States, was that of a construction of the constitution of

the United States differing from that of General Sherman and the 15th

corps--which ‘always did up its work pretty well.’ Happily the Divine

Goodness has made the powers of recuperation superior to those of

destruction; and though their overthrow was so complete that ‘salt’ was

not needed as the type of utter desolation, Marietta and Atlanta are

thriving and prosperous cities.”

Governor Vance does not wish to confine himself, in quoting, to Southern

testimony. There are plenty of honest and truthful soldiers in the Federal

army, who served in its ranks, to tell all we want and more. This is what

one of them says, writing to the “Detroit Free Press” of that campaign:

“One of the most devilish acts of Sherman’s campaign was the destruction

of Marietta. The Military Institute and such mills and factories as might

be a benefit to Hood could expect the torch, but Sherman was not content

with that; the torch was applied to everything, even the shanties occupied

by the negroes. No advance warning was given. The first alarm was followed

by the crackling of flames. Soldiers rode from house to house, entered

without ceremony and kindled fires in garrets and closets, and stood by to

see that they were not extinguished.” Again he says: “Had one been able to

climb to such a height at Atlanta as to enable him to see for forty miles

around, the day Sherman marched out, he would have been appalled at the

destruction. Hundreds of houses had been burned; every rod of fence

destroyed; nearly every fruit tree cut down, and the face of the country

so changed that one born in that section could scarcely recognize it. The

vindictiveness of war would have trampled the very earth out of sight, had

such a thing been possible.”

One cold and drizzly night in the midst of this marching General Sherman

found shelter and warmth beneath the roof of a comfortable plantation

home.

“In looking around the room,” he says, “I saw a small box, like a candle

box, marked ‘Howell Cobb,’ and, on inquiring of a negro, found we were at

the plantation of General Howell Cobb, of Georgia, one of the leading

rebels of the South, then a General in the Southern army, and who had been

Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Buchanan’s time. Of course we confiscated

his property, and found it rich in corn, beans, peanuts, and sorghum

molasses. Extensive fields were all around the house. I sent word back to

General Davis to explain whose plantation it was, and to instruct him to

spare nothing. That night huge bonfires consumed the fence-rails, kept our

soldiers warm, and the teamsters and men, as well as slaves, carried off

an immense quantity of corn and provisions of all sorts.”

Do the records of civilized warfare furnish a parallel to this petty and

mercenary wreaking of spite upon the helpless home of a gallant foeman?

The General furnished us with proof of how worthy of their selection his

staff-officers proved during that memorable raid. While camped that night

on Cobb’s plantation, Lieutenant Snelling, who was a Georgian commanding

his escort, received permission to visit his uncle, who lived some six

miles away.

“The next morning,” says the General, “he described to me his visit. The

uncle was not cordial by any means to find his nephew in the ranks of the

host that was desolating the land, and Snelling came back, having

exchanged his tired horse for a fresher one out of his uncle’s stables,

explaining that surely some of the ‘bummers’ would have got the horse had

he not.” It was the eternal fitness of things that the staff-officers of

this prince of free-booters should be renegades capable of stealing from

their nearest kin.

The unfailing jocosity of this merry marauder breaks out in his recital of

a negro’s account of the destruction of Sandersville: “First, there came

along some cavalrymen, and they burned the depot; then came along some

infantrymen, and they tore up the track and burned it, and, just before

they left, they sot fire to the well!” The well, he explains, was a boxed

affair into which some of the debris was piled, and the customary torch

was applied, making the negro’s statement literally true. This was one of

the incidents to leaving the pretty town of Sandersville a smoking mass of

ruins.

But why enumerate further details of an unresisted movement which cost

Sherman one hundred and three lives, and the State of Georgia one hundred

million dollars, twenty millions of which he frankly states he carried

off, and eighty millions of which he destroyed? It began in shame at

Atlanta--it passed with a gathering burden of infamy to Savannah.

Starvation, terror, outrage hung upon its flanks and rear. Its days were

darkened by the smoking incense from unparalleled sacrifices upon the

altar of wantonness; its nights were lurid with flames licking the last

poor shelter from above the heads of subjugated wives and children.

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

TESTIMONIALS.

STATE OF GEORGIA,

EXECUTIVE OFFICE,

ATLANTA, September 1st, 1894.

“Life in Dixie During the War,” by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, presents a

striking picture of home life among our people during that dark period of

our history.

While such presentation is hardly looked for in more elaborate history of

those times, Miss Gay’s conception was a wise one, and the record she has

given will preserve a most desirable part of the history of our section.

Her book deserves to be widely circulated.

W. J. NORTHEN,

Governor.

“LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.”

This handsome volume from the pen of Miss Mary A. H. Gay, whose many acts

of self-denial entitle her to the name of philanthropist, will meet with a

hearty welcome from her wide circle of friends. But a casual glance at the

volume leads us to conclude that outside of this circle, even with the

reader who will look into it as a key to the history of the “times that

tried men’s souls,” it will be a book of more than passing interest. The

author writes with the feelings of a partisan, but time has mellowed her

recollections of these stormy times, and even the reader whose sympathies

were with the other side will agree with Joel Chandler Harris in his

introduction to the book. In its mechanical get-up, the book is a

gem.--_Atlanta Constitution_, December 18, 1892.

“LIFE IN DIXIE.”

Miss Mary A. H. Gay has published a volume entitled “Life in Dixie During

the War,” which should be in every Southern home. It is one of the truest

pictures of the life of our people during the war that has yet been drawn.

In fact, it could not be better, for it shows things just as they were.

The struggles and sufferings of the Southern people during that awful

period exhibited a heroism that has seldom been matched in the world’s

history. Miss Gay was among them. She looked on their trials with

sympathetic eyes and suffered with them. Fortunately she is gifted with

the power of describing what she saw, and her book will be a classic of

war literature. Its every page is interesting. The story of Dixie during

the war reads like romance to the generation that has arisen since, but it

should have for generations an interest as deep as that with which it is

read by those who lived and acted amid the scenes it records. It shows how

grand was the courage and virtue, how sublime the faith and endurance of

the men and women of the South throughout that terrible ordeal. It is a

book that will live, and one that will give to the world a true

representation of the conduct of a noble people in affliction. Miss Gay

has made numerous contributions to our literature which mark her as a

woman of rare capacity and exquisite feelings, but she has done no work

that is worthier of gratitude and praise than that embodied in “Life in

Dixie.”--_The Atlanta Journal_, January 17, 1893.

“LIFE IN DIXIE.”

Miss Mary Gay’s recent book, “Life in Dixie During the War,” is rapidly

winning favor with the public. Some of our most distinguished writers

speak of it in very high terms as a notable contribution to our history.

The Rev. Dr. J. William Jones says of it:

“‘Life in Dixie During the War’ is a charming story of home-life during

those dark days when our noble women displayed a patient endurance, and

active zeal, a self-denying work in the hospitals, a genuine patriotism, a

true heroism which equalled the record of their fathers, husbands, sons

and brothers in the army.

“But Decatur, near Atlanta, was the scene of stirring events during

Sherman’s campaign against the doomed city, and Miss Gay’s facile pen

vividly portrays historic events of deepest interest.

“Visits from the soldier boy to the old home, letters from the camp,

visits to the camps and hospitals, the smoke and changing scenes of battle

in the enemy’s lines, refugeeing, and many other events of those stirring

days, are told with the vividness of an eye-witness and the pen of an

accomplished writer.

“It is, in a word, a vivid and true picture of ‘Life in Dixie During the

War,’ and should find a place not only in our Southern homes, but in the

homes of all who desire to see a true account of the life of our noble

women during those trying days.

“REV. JOHN WILLIAM JONES.”

_The Constitution_, May 2nd, 1893.

The “Confederate Love Song,” by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Decatur, was

written during the late war. It is a charming bit of verse, and forms one

of a galaxy of beautiful songs from the same true pen. In 1880, Miss Gay

published a volume of verses which received the unusual compliment of

public demand for no less than eleven editions. The author’s life is one

of the most beautiful; it is, therefore, quite natural that her poetry

should partake of the simple truth and sincerity of that life, consecrated

as it is, and ever has been, to the noblest work.--_Atlanta Constitution._

Miss Gay’s Book, “Life in Dixie During the War.”--Editor “_Sunny South_:”

Permit me to say a few words through the columns of your widely read and

popular paper about Miss Mary A. H. Gay’s “Life in Dixie During the War,”

the second and enlarged edition of which book has just been issued from

the press.

The fact that a second and enlarged edition has been called for is proof

that the merits of this genuine Southern story has been appreciated by our

people. Not only has the author in her book perpetuated interesting and

historically valuable material of merely local character, but, to the

careful reader, she also presents matter that goes to the deep moral,

social and political roots of the cause of the people of the South, that

grew and flowered into the crimson rose of war, which the South plucked

and wore upon her heart during four of the most tragic yet glorious years

recorded in history.

But the chief charms of the book are its simple, earnest, homely style,

its depth of womanly and loyal feeling, and the glimpses we get of the

homes and hearts of our people during these years of patient suffering and

“crucifixion of the soul;” and along with the passion and the pain, we are

presented with pictures of our people’s frequently laughable “makeshifts”

to supply many of the common necessaries of life and household appliances

of which the stress and savage devastation deprived nearly every Southern

family. Above all we are impressed by the more than Spartan heroism, the

tender love, the unwavering loyalty, the devoted, self-sacrificing spirit

of our noble Southern womanhood, of which this book speaks so eloquently

in its _naive_ simplicity, and of which traits of character, the modest

author herself is a living and universally beloved example.

The book deserves a place in the hearts and homes of our people. Surely

the patriotic motives that inspired its author to write it is the only

passport it needs to public favor and patronage.

CHARLES W. HUBNER,

“_Sunny South_,” Atlanta, Ga., November 3, 1894.

A WAR STORY.

Even in these piping times of peace (peace as far as our own borders are

concerned, at any rate)--there is a relish in a war story. And when the

scene is laid right here in Georgia, in Decatur, in Atlanta; when familiar

names come up in the course of the narrative, and familiar events are

pictured by an honest eye-witness; when all through the little volume you

feel the truthfulness of the writer, and know that the incidents she

narrates happened just so; when, too, you see the writer herself--see her

to be an old lady now, who really was a heroine in her young days; and

then read the simple, personal narrative--now stirring, as the battle-guns

sound--now touching, as some dear one falls; with all this combination of

interest, a war story claims and holds the attention.

Such is the little book, called “Life in Dixie,” written by Miss Mary Gay,

and telling of those stirring times in and about Atlanta, back yonder in

the sixties.

There are some vivid pictures in that modest little volume, as well as

some interesting facts. Miss Gay was in the thick of the strife, and tells

what she saw in those dark days.

Among the well-known characters, associated with the recorded events, we

find Mrs. L. P. Grant, Mr. and Mrs. Posey Maddox, Dr. J. P. Logan and many

others.

A most interesting fact disclosed in those pages is the surprising one

that two sisters of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln married Alabama officers in the

Confederate army; there is recorded the public presentation, by those two

ladies, of an elegant silk banner made for a gallant young company in

Georgia’s daughter-State. Thus conspicuous were those women in the

Southern Confederacy, while their sister and her dearest interests lay on

the other side.

Another matter of history which will be interesting to the present

generation of readers, however much we may have read of the mammoth prices

for the necessaries of life in those hard days, is the following list of

articles, with the cost thereof in Confederate money, bought by Miss Gay,

after a ride of forty miles to obtain them:

One bushel of meal, $10.00; four bushels of corn, $40.00; fifteen pounds

of flour, $7.50; four pounds of dried apples, $5.00; one and a half pounds

of butter, $6.00; a bushel of sweet potatoes, $6.00; three gallons of

syrup, $15.00; for shoeing the horse, $25.00; for a night’s lodging for

self and horse, at Mrs. Born’s, $10.00.

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

It was contrived by “Uncle Mack,” a dusky hero of those times. “It was a

something he had improvised which baffled description,” writes Miss Gay,

“and which, for the sake of the faithful service I obtained from it, I

will not attempt to describe. Suffice it to say that it carried living

freight over many a bridge; and in honor of this, I will call it a wagon.”

The horse, which the author herself captured to draw this remarkable

vehicle, was equally remarkable, and his subsequent history is one of the

most interesting bits of narrative in the book. I wish I could give it

all in Miss Gay’s own words, but my space does not admit of that.

But there is not a child in your household who would not be interested in

the account of how the poor starved horse was lassoed and secured--how he

was fed and strengthened, and cared for, and finally harnessed up with

ropes and pieces of crocus sacks; how the letters, “U. S.” were found

branded on each of his sides, causing his mistress to name him “Yankee”;

how she grew to love him so that she deemed that name ill-fitting, and

decided to re-christen him “Johnnie Reb.,” which she did one day with

effective ceremonial by a brook-side; how he rendered invaluable service

to his mistress many and many a time, and was a treasured member of the

little family that passed such stormy times in the war-stricken village of

Decatur; all this is worth reading, told, as it is, with a gentle humor,

and a strict truthfulness which is the chief charm of that historic

picture. For it is historic. And it were well for the rising generation to

read its vivid portrayals of that period.

And though Miss Gay was evidently an ardent secessionist, and is now, I

fancy, one of the altogether unreconstructed few, her book contains

records of more than one kindness received at the hands of officers of the

United States army--kindness proffered, too, in the face of her fearless

avowal of opinion.

Some parts of the book (I will add, if the gentle author will allow me)

seem somewhat too bitter towards our brethren of the North. But this

criticism is from the standpoint of one who knew not the horrors of that

dreadful war. If I had seen the desolation and destruction which followed

it in the wake of Sherman’s army, as Miss Gay saw it and suffered by it

(through mother and brother and friends, as well as through personal

privation),--if I had thus suffered, doubtless I, too, would be unable to

look impartially upon these Federal leaders and their actuating

motives--unable to see that, though Sherman was a most unmerciful

conqueror, he was not altogether a fiend.

But there is only a touch of this severe judgment in Miss Gay’s little

book. The greater portion of it is simply historic--a faithful chronicling

of events experienced by the writer herself, who was a veritable heroine

in those days of horrors.

Miss Gay is to be congratulated upon the fact that “Life in Dixie” is

entering upon its second edition. Let me suggest that you get it for your

children, you parents. The rising generation should learn of the stirring

events which happened right here in Atlanta thirty years ago.

The story will hold their attention and interest throughout--the

soldier-brother who fell in the strife, the faithful black Toby sketched

so tenderly, the perilous trip of Miss Gay herself, as she carried the

blankets and overcoats through the enemy’s ranks to the boys in gray--all

this will vastly entertain those young folks, at the same time it teaches

them of the Battle of Atlanta, and the concurrent events.--EMEL JAY[6], in

_The Atlanta Journal_, November 24th, 1894.

“Life in Dixie During the War” is the title of a volume just perused which

transcends in interest, truth and beauty all the historical tomes and

garlanded fiction to which that epoch has given birth. It embraces the

personal experiences and observations of a woman, gifted far beyond the

ordinary, who came in contact with the sadness, the bloodshed and the

misery of the unhappy struggle. A loved brother laid down his life on the

bloodiest battle-field, friends parted and vanished from her, and wealth

was swallowed in the maw of destruction.

She tells her story--for story it is--with an exquisite grace, and with a

woman’s tenderness and sympathy for the people she loved and the cause she

adored. Her language is lofty upon occasion, her memories perhaps too

keen, her gentleness possibly too exclusive to her own, but her work is

done with a fidelity and consistency beyond comparison. The scene is

Decatur, Ga., but threads, visible or invisible, reach to every hamlet and

entwine every heart in the evanished Confederacy. The heroism of men, the

daring of boys, the endurance of women, alike are painted with a skill

that requires no color.

Those who wish to embalm their recollections of home-life during the war,

and those who desire to know what it was, should read this book. It is one

of the records of the past that should be in every library. It is

beautifully printed, neatly cloth-bound, and contains 300 pages.--_The

Tampa Daily Times_, January 17, 1895.

FROM THE OTHER SIDE.

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

EVANSTON, ILL., December 30th, 1895.

_Mary A. H. Gay_:

DEAR MADAM: Allow me to thank you for giving to the world inside home life

in the South during the war. All histories of the war that have been

written have been confined to battles and movements of armies, which are

so likened to the histories of other wars that when you have read one you

may say that you have read them all. But yours gives a local and romantic

description of real life, and I feel like congratulating you and calling

the scenes in which you played so important a part the heyday of your

existence. I take it you were the daughter, pampered and cuddled child, of

rich and influential people, and had it not been for the war you would

have been raised with much pomp, arrogance and importance of family,

which, in the very nature of your surroundings, would have destroyed all

the finer and nobler traits which want and misery have developed into a

grand, noble, self-sacrificing and heroic woman. And although you portray

the scenes freighted with misery, want and desolation, yet they were

halcyon days to one like you, romantic, energetic, patriotic and

self-sacrificing, and now, as you are passing down the shady lane of life,

you live in the memories of the past, the part you played in the heroic

struggle, and the noble womanhood developed; and the assurance that you

did well your part in the great tragedy strews roses and garlands along

the path of your declining years.

“I follow you through all these stirring scenes; I sit beside you in your

hours of gloom and blighted hopes; I follow you beside the ox-cart that

drew its freight of human misery; I walk with you into the woody retreats

and sit beside you upon the banks of the limpid stream and mix my tears

with yours; I tramp with you over the scenes of desolation; I sorrow with

you over the death of Toby; I mourn with you over the sudden death of

noble Thomie; I sit beside the death-bed of your sainted mother and mingle

my tears with yours; I gladly accompany you on your weary tramp with your

much-loved ‘Yankee’ or Johnnie Reb; I gather with you the leaden missiles

of death to buy food for starving friends and fellow-sufferers; I pass

with you through all the scenes that are freighted with hope, love,

despair and expectation; I am your friend and sympathizer in all your

misfortunes, and yet I am one of those ‘accursed’ Yankee soldiers who have

been the bane of your life.

“The strange blending of pathos and diplomacy on pages 91 and 92 may be

said to be amusingly expressive. Chapter 13 is intensely interesting,

dramatic and romantic; still I see no reason that I should speak of these

isolated passages, for the whole book is equally interesting, and would

foreshadow for it a large sale in the North if properly handled. As to the

mechanical construction of the book, I am much pleased with your language,

as it is free from Carlylism and ostentatious English, which mars so much

of the writings of many of our modern authors. I hold that when a book is

overloaded with this disgusting use of the dictionary it is what Goldsmith

terms ‘display of book learned skill.’

“The book was kindly sent me by a lady friend in Atlanta, Mrs. Delbridge,

and I hope when I visit Atlanta again I may have the pleasure of meeting

the authoress that nature has endowed with such wonderful power of

description.”

Most respectfully,

CHARLES AIKIN.

Published in _The Atlanta Constitution_ January 5th, 1896.

“LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR,

is the title of one of the best series of sketches that has been written

about the ‘late unpleasantness.’ It contains the record of one woman’s

experience during the five years of warfare between the North and the

South. The author, Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Decatur, Georgia, one of the

most graceful writers in the South, has handled the subject in a masterful

manner. ‘Truth is stranger than fiction,’ and the work abounds in truth.

The volume ought to be on sale at every news-stand in the South. The book

has been described as containing ‘a living picture of those trying

times--not to stir up bitter feelings and hatred, but a history, and such

history as cannot be obtained in any other form.’ Miss Gay was in the

thick of the strife, ‘and in a modest way shows herself a heroine worthy

of any romance.’ Her pen describes scenes that bring tears for the pain

and suffering, and laughter at the ‘makeshifts’ resorted to by those

noble people in the hour of actual need. ‘Some parts of the narrative may

be judged as rather bitter towards the enemy by those who know not the

horrors of that war. But let such critics put themselves in the wake of

Sherman’s army and suffer as the writer, and they will feel more

charitable towards her who, in recalling those experiences, finds it hard

to love all her enemies. There is only a touch of this old-time

bitterness, however; most of the book is simply historic, and Miss Gay

does not hesitate to record many kindnesses received at the hands of

Federal officers.’ Such a valuable contribution to the history of the war

should be prized. It is a vivid chronicle, and the rising generation

should learn of those stirring events. They will read with unflagging

interest to the end of the narrative. We wish for it a wide

circulation.”--_The Arkansas Gazette_, March 10th, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

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

We endorse most heartily the praise bestowed on this modest volume by the

general press. Within the same scope we do not believe a truer or more

sympathetic picture of the ghastly war time has ever been written. It is

not fiction, but a faithful presentation of one woman’s experience during

the five years that bounded the war between the States.

The writer was in the very thick of the strife, and while with admirable

modesty she has endeavored to keep herself out of her book, it is clear

that she was one of the heroic and indefatigable women who brought into

scenes of suffering the ministry of tenderness. The recital of events as

they were, brings humor into the book, whose tenor in the main, however,

is necessarily sad.

By those to whom the war is simply a tale that is told, there are parts of

the book in which the writer will be accused of undue bitterness. However,

no such critics, we think, will be found among the people to whom the war

was a reality. Miss Gay records, without hesitation, many kindnesses

received at the hands of the Federal officers.

Texas soldiers of Granbury’s brigade, Cleburne’s division, and Hood’s

corps, figure conspicuously and by name in the book. Miss Gay visited

Hood’s headquarters twice while the brigade was encamped in Georgia, the

last time just before they left Georgia for the fatal march into

Tennessee. The night-scene she describes near Jonesboro, where they were

encamped, is most graphic and pathetic. Miss Gay is the woman who

collected the money to have the soldiers who fell at Franklin, Tennessee,

reburied, when she heard that the owners of the battlefield said their

graves should be ploughed over. She collected $7,000, and her name is

engraved on the silver plate on the entrance gate at the McGavock

cemetery, which she so largely helped to build.--_The Richmond Times_,

Feb. 16, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

The following deserved complimentary notice of the book, “Life in Dixie

During the War,” written by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Georgia, we clip from

the New York Times: “Joel Chandler Harris’ brief introduction to Miss

Gay’s reminiscences of the civil war tells of the authenticity of this

simple story, and how a book of this character is of that kind from whence

‘history will get its supplies.’ The dark days are described with absolute

fidelity, and this is a quality we may look for in vain ‘in more elaborate

and ambitious publications.’ Think of the strangeness of things, the

breaks in families, when the author tells how, at the presentation of a

flag, the banner was made for a company of Confederate soldiers by Miss

Ella Todd and Mrs. White, of Lexington, Kentucky, the sisters of Mrs.

Abraham Lincoln, the wife of the great President.

It was in and around Decatur, Georgia, where the author now lives, that,

in the storm and heat of the war, heroically and unflinchingly the women

of the South did their duty in helping those in the field. You will find

no incidents of the war which do not show the colored man in the South at

his best. Miss Gay describes their devotion and what true friends they

were. The author tells how more than once she was near starvation. It

happened that the house in which she lived became the headquarters of a

troop of United States Cavalry. Very possibly bureau drawers became

convenient feed troughs for horses. After the cavalry had left there was

not a morsel to eat. The famished children, white and black, were crying

for food. The day was spent by the women picking up grains of corn from

the cracks and crevices in bureau drawers, and other improvised troughs

for Federal horses. In this way, by diligent and persevering work, about a

half bushel of corn was obtained. The corn, having been thoroughly washed

and dried, was taken to a small mill and coarsely ground, and served to

give the hungry ones their bread. The utter destitution of the people

after the fall of Atlanta is shown in this way: Lead was in demand, and on

the battlefields around Atlanta it could be picked up, pellet by pellet.

Delicately nurtured women dug up the spent minie balls from the frozen

clods and exchanged them for bread.--The Mechanicsburg, Pa., _Free Press_,

February, 20, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

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

Of the numerous stories which have had as their basis the war between the

States, there are few truer pictures, in our opinion, than that presented

by a Southern woman in this volume, with a telling preface by Joel

Chandler Harris. The writer’s home was in Decatur, but the stories include

the history of the entire section, and give much very interesting

information relative to life in Atlanta, particularly during the war era.

Miss Gay was in the very heart of the strife, and she describes with the

vigorous pen of one to whom the matter is a vital reality.--_The Southern

Churchman_, Richmond, Va., March 12, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

The volume written and published by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Georgia,

entitled “Life in Dixie During the War,” is one of the few books in the

flood tide of literature on the great civil conflict that many will read

with interest, because it is a woman’s story of actual life in Dixie from

the beginning to the close of the great conflict. We have volumes in

abundance which tell of the great battles of the war, of the achievement

of heroes and the sacrifices which attended the victories, but the story

of the home life of Southern people during the war must ever be of

absorbing interest to every American. They are our people, our countrymen,

sharing the common inheritance of heroism in all the conflicts of the

Republic, and that part of the history of the war of the rebellion that is

least understood is the extraordinary sufferings and sacrifices of the

Southern women, who heroically aided their fathers, husbands, sons and

brothers in the unequal contest. Miss Gay gives a plain unvarnished story

of life in Georgia during the war, and of the many sad sacrifices to which

the families of Southern people were subjected. One of the noticeable

features of this story, commencing with the expression of confident hope

for the success of the Confederacy and ending in the starless midnight of

gloom that attended the surrender of Lee and his legions, is given in the

description of a presentation of a silken banner to the Magnolia Cadets

when the war began. The banner was prepared and finished by Mrs. Dr.

White, of Lexington, Kentucky, and her sister Miss Todd, sisters of Mrs.

President Lincoln, and they were presented to the enthusiastic audience by

Captain Dawson, who subsequently married Miss Todd.

Miss Gay’s volume is full of interesting incidents, showing the heroism

and sublime faith and endurance of the women of the South during the

terrible ordeal. Like all Southern women, she was intensely devoted to the

Southern Cause, and often exposed herself to great peril to serve the

Confederacy. More than once she took her life into her hand to aid the

hopeless cause in which the Southern armies had engaged. It was

principally by her efforts that money was raised to entomb the

Confederates that fell at the bloody battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Her

name is engraved on a silver plate that is mounted on the entrance gate of

the cemetery, and there are few who will not become readers of her book.

It is in every way interesting to people both North and South, and should

have a very wide circulation.--From _The Times_, Philadelphia, Pa., May

27, 1896.

LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.

Many stories of the late war have been written, some from the stand point

of the “Blue,” and some from the “Grey,” but we doubt whether a truer

picture of real war times in the South has ever been depicted than the one

found in this modest little volume. There is no fiction in it, but it is

the record of one woman’s experiences during the war.

Her home was in Decatur, Georgia, but her narrative includes the history

of all that portion of country. Very few persons who did not live in that

section know or remember to what extent those people suffered. And we

would commend them to this book--a living picture of those trying

times--not to stir up bitter feelings and hatred, but because it is

history, and such history as cannot be obtained in any other form.

Miss Gay was in the thick of the strife, and in a modest way she shows

herself a heroine worthy of any romance. Her pen describes scenes that

bring tears for the pain and suffering, and laughter at the “makeshifts”

resorted to by these noble people in the hour of actual needs. Some parts

of the narrative may be regarded as rather bitter towards the enemy by

those who know not the horrors of that war. But let such critics put

themselves in the wake of Sherman’s army, and suffer as the writer did,

and we think they will feel more charitably towards her, who, in recalling

those experiences, find it hard to love all her enemies. There is only a

touch of this old time bitterness, however; most of the book is simply

historic, and Miss Gay does not hesitate to record many kindnesses

received at the hands of the Federal officers. Such a valuable

contribution to the history of the war should be prized. It is a vivid

chronicle and the rising generation should learn of those stirring events.

They will read with unflagging interest to the end of the narrative. We

wish for it a wide circulation.--“_The Christian Observer_,” Louisville,

Kentucky, May 8th, 1896.

Commendatory notices have also appeared in “The Hampton (Florida)

_Advocate_,” “The Decatur _Record_,” “The DeKalb County _New Era_,” “The

Wesleyan _Christian Advocate_,” etc.

The following letter was written to Mr. C. D. Mitchell, Secretary and

Treasurer of Chattanooga Plow Company, Chattanooga, Tennessee:

CINCINNATI, OHIO, November 30, 1896.

MY DEAR MITCHELL--I have read Miss Gay’s book on “Life in Dixie During the

War,” and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to read it. I

fancy you will think I am a good deal of a “calf,” but I couldn’t help

choking up a good many times as I read of the terrible experience of the

poor women and children and helpless aged people when misfortune placed

them in the path of the armies during that bloody period, and we who were

at the front knew but little of the misery in the wake of the armies.

I was glad to see that Miss Gay speaks kindly of our command, and that we

afforded protection to her family without leaving any harm to them in any

way.

To-day is the anniversary of the death of her brother, killed in front of

our works at Franklin. When I read of his death the whole bloody scene was

revived, and how useless and fool-hardy that charge of Cleburne’s over the

open cotton fields at Franklin upon our works. The dead were almost

countless, and one long grave was dug for all. I well remember this

immense trench where the Confederates were laid side by side. I commanded

the 1st Batallion that day at the battle of Franklin, and we had a very

warm time of it. We retreated on Nashville the following day, and I was

cut off from the Regiment for a while, but we finally made a big detour

and regained our lines. After the battle of Nashville we occupied the

Franklin battlefield, and I went carefully over the whole field. Hood’s

charge upon our Franklin works, if successful, would have been a moderate

victory only, but unsuccessful, it was a most terrible loss to him.

At 57 you and I look at things rather different than we did in our youth

of 22, and while scars of war may be healed, they are nevertheless not

forgotten. With kind regards.

Yours very truly,

T. F. ALLEN.

I think General Garrard would like to read this book, if he has not

already done so, and if you approve I will send it up to him and return it

to you later. At this season of the year he has time to read.

T. F. A.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This lady, Miss “Frank” Whitney, is now the wife of Mr. Charles W.

Hubner, the well-known Atlanta poet.

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

1864.

[3] The fifth and seventh verses are criticisms upon four Southern

surgeons, who gave the Federal authorities a certificate that our

prisoners were well treated, and our sick well cared for, and that the

average loss by death was only four per day.

[4] This gentleman, who married sweet Maggie Morgan, (the sister of Dewitt

and Billy), has now been Sunday school treasurer for twenty-seven years.

[5] One of these poems, “Marching Through Georgia,” we learn by the

evidence, was a favorite canticle of Murray, the kidnapper and butcher of

Captain Polynesius.

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

Jackson, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

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