WHY WE WERE HURRIED OUT OF ANDERSONVILLE--THE FALL OF ATLANTA
--OUR LONGING TO HEAR THE NEWS--ARRIVAL OF SOME FRESH FISH--HOW WE KNEW
THEY WERE WESTERN BOYS--DIFFERENCE IN THE APPEARANCE OF THE SOLDIERS OF
THE TWO ARMIES.
The reason of our being hurried out of Andersonville under the false
pretext of exchange dawned on us before we had been in Savannah long.
If the reader will consult the map of Georgia he will understand this,
too. Let him remember that several of the railroads which now appear
were not built then. The road upon which Andersonville is situated
was about one hundred and twenty miles long, reaching from Macon to
Americus, Andersonville being about midway between these two. It had
no connections anywhere except at Macon, and it was hundreds of miles
across the country from Andersonville to any other road. When Atlanta
fell it brought our folks to within sixty miles of Macon, and any day
they were liable to make a forward movement, which would capture that
place, and have us where we could be retaken with ease.
There was nothing left undone to rouse the apprehensions of the Rebels
in that direction. The humiliating surrender of General Stoneman
at Macon in July, showed them what our folks were thinking of, and
awakened their minds to the disastrous consequences of such a movement
when executed by a bolder and abler commander. Two days of one of
Kilpatrick’s swift, silent marches would carry his hard-riding troopers
around Hood’s right flank, and into the streets of Macon, where a
half hour’s work with the torch on the bridges across the Ocmulgee
and the creeks that enter it at that point, would have cut all of the
Confederate Army of the Tennessee’s communications. Another day and
night of easy marching would bring his guidons fluttering through the
woods about the Stockade at Andersonville, and give him a reinforcement
of twelve or fifteen thousand able-bodied soldiers, with whom he could
have held the whole Valley of the Chattahoochie, and become the nether
millstone, against which Sherman could have ground Hood’s army to
powder.
Such a thing was not only possible, but very probable, and doubtless
would have occurred had we remained in Andersonville another week.
Hence the haste to get us away, and hence the lie about exchange, for,
had it not been for this, one-quarter at least of those taken on the
cars would have succeeded in getting off and attempted to have reached
Sherman’s lines.
The removal went on with such rapidity that by the end of September
only eight thousand two hundred and eighteen remained at Andersonville,
and these were mostly too sick to be moved; two thousand seven hundred
died in September, fifteen hundred and sixty in October, and four
hundred and eighty-five in November, so that at the beginning of
December there were only thirteen hundred and fifty-nine remaining.
The larger part of those taken out were sent on to Charleston, and
subsequently to Florence and Salisbury. About six or seven thousand of
us, as near as I remember, were brought to Savannah.
.......................
We were all exceedingly anxious to know how the Atlanta campaign had
ended. So far our information only comprised the facts that a sharp
battle had been fought, and the result was the complete possession of
our great objective point. The manner of accomplishing this glorious
end, the magnitude of the engagement, the regiments, brigades and
corps participating, the loss on both sides, the completeness of the
victories, etc., were all matters that we knew nothing of, and thirsted
to learn.
The Rebel papers said as little as possible about the capture, and the
facts in that little were so largely diluted with fiction as to convey
no real information. But few new, prisoners were coming in, and none
of these were from Sherman. However, toward the last of September, a
handful of “fresh fish” were turned inside, whom our experienced eyes
instantly told us were Western boys.
There was never any difficulty in telling, as far as he could be
seen, whether a boy belonged to the East or the west. First, no one
from the Army of the Potomac was ever without his corps badge worn
conspicuously; it was rare to see such a thing on one of Sherman’s men.
Then there was a dressy air about the Army of the Potomac that was
wholly wanting in the soldiers serving west of the Alleghanies.
The Army, of the Potomac was always near to its base of supplies,
always had its stores accessible, and the care of the clothing and
equipments of the men was an essential part of its discipline. A ragged
or shabbily dressed man was a rarity. Dress coats, paper collars,
fresh woolen shirts, neat-fitting pantaloons, good comfortable shoes,
and trim caps or hats, with all the blazing brass of company letters
an inch long, regimental number, bugle and eagle, according to the
Regulations, were as common to Eastern boys as they were rare among the
Westerners.
The latter usually wore blouses, instead of dress coats, and as a rule
their clothing had not been renewed since the opening, of the campaign
--and it showed this. Those who wore good boots or shoes generally had
to submit to forcible exchanges by their captors, and the same was true
of head gear. The Rebels were badly off in regard to hats. They did not
have skill and ingenuity enough to make these out of felt or straw, and
the make-shifts they contrived of quilted calico and long-leaved pine,
were ugly enough to frighten horned cattle.
I never blamed them much for wanting to get rid of these, even if they
did have to commit a sort of highway robbery upon defenseless prisoners
to do so. To be a traitor in arms was bad certainly, but one never
appreciated the entire magnitude of the crime until he saw a Rebel
wearing a calico or a pine-leaf hat. Then one felt as if it would be a
great mistake to ever show such a man mercy.
The Army of Northern Virginia seemed to have supplied themselves with
head-gear of Yankee manufacture of previous years, and they then quit
taking the hats of their prisoners. Johnston’s Army did not have such
good luck, and had to keep plundering to the end of the war.
Another thing about the Army of the Potomac was the variety of the
uniforms. There were members of Zouave regiments, wearing baggy
breeches of various hues, gaiters, crimson fezes, and profusely braided
jackets. I have before mentioned the queer garb of the “Lost Ducks.”
(Les Enfants Perdu, Forty-eighth New York.)
One of the most striking uniforms was that of the “Fourteenth
Brooklyn.” They wore scarlet pantaloons, a blue jacket handsomely
braided, and a red fez, with a white cloth wrapped around the head,
turban-fashion. As a large number of them were captured, they formed
quite a picturesque feature of every crowd. They were generally good
fellows and gallant soldiers.
Another uniform that attracted much, though not so favorable, attention
was that of the Third New Jersey Cavalry, or First New Jersey Hussars,
as they preferred to call themselves. The designer of the uniform
must have had an interest in a curcuma plantation, or else he was a
fanatical Orangeman. Each uniform would furnish occasion enough for a
dozen New York riots on the 12th of July. Never was such an eruption
of the yellows seen outside of the jaundiced livery of some Eastern
potentate. Down each leg of the pantaloons ran a stripe of yellow braid
one and one-half inches wide. The jacket had enormous gilt buttons,
and was embellished with yellow braid until it was difficult to tell
whether it was blue cloth trimmed with yellow, or yellow adorned with
blue. From the shoulders swung a little, false hussar jacket, lined
with the same flaring yellow. The vizor-less cap was similarly warmed
up with the hue of the perfected sunflower. Their saffron magnificence
was like the gorgeous gold of the lilies of the field, and Solomon in
all his glory could not have beau arrayed like one of them. I hope he
was not. I want to retain my respect for him. We dubbed these daffodil
cavaliers “Butterflies,” and the name stuck to them like a poor
relation.
Still another distinction that was always noticeable between the two
armies was in the bodily bearing of the men. The Army of the Potomac
was drilled more rigidly than the Western men, and had comparatively
few long marches. Its members had something of the stiffness and
precision of English and German soldiery, while the Western boys had
the long, “reachy” stride, and easy swing that made forty miles a day a
rather commonplace march for an infantry regiment.
This was why we knew the new prisoners to be Sherman’s boys as soon as
they came inside, and we started for them to hear the news. Inviting
them over to our lean-to, we told them our anxiety for the story of the
decisive blow that gave us the Central Gate of the Confederacy, and
asked them to give it to us.