FROM THE LETTERS OF MAJOR STEPHEN BRICE
Of the Staff of General Sherman on the March to the Sea, and on the March
from Savannah Northward.
HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI GOLDSBORO, N.C. MARCH
24, 1865
DEAR MOTHER: The South Carolina Campaign is a thing of the past. I pause
as I write these words--they seem so incredible to me. We have marched
the four hundred and twenty-five miles in fifty days, and the General
himself has said that it is the longest and most important march ever
made by an organized army in a civilized country. I know that you will
not be misled by the words "civilized country." Not until the history of
this campaign is written will the public realize the wide rivers and all
but impassable swamps we have crossed with our baggage trains and
artillery. The roads (by courtesy so called) were a sea of molasses and
every mile of them has had to be corduroyed. For fear of worrying you I
did not write you from Savannah how they laughed at us for starting at
that season of the year. They said we would not go ten miles, and I most
solemnly believe that no one but "Uncle Billy" and an army organized and
equipped by him could have gone ten miles. Nothing seems to stop him. You
have probably remarked in the tone of my letters ever since we left
Kingston for the sea, a growing admiration for "my General."
It seems very strange that this wonderful tactician can be the same man I
met that day going to the Arsenal in the streetcar, and again at Camp
Jackson. I am sure that history will give him a high place among the
commanders of the world. Certainly none was ever more tireless than he.
He never fights a battle when it can be avoided, and his march into
Columbia while threatening Charleston and Augusta was certainly a master
stroke of strategy.
I think his simplicity his most remarkable trait. You should see him as
he rides through the army, an erect figure, with his clothes all angular
and awry, and an expanse of white sock showing above his low shoes. You
can hear his name running from file to file; and some times the new
regiments can't resist cheering. He generally says to the Colonel:
--"Stop that noise, sir. Don't like it."
On our march to the sea, if the orders were ever given to turn northward,
"the boys" would get very much depressed. One moonlight night I was
walking my horse close to the General's over the pine needles, when we
overheard this conversation between two soldiers:-- "Say, John," said
one, "I guess Uncle Billy don't know our corps is goin' north."
"I wonder if he does,'" said John. "If I could only get a sight of them
white socks, I'd know it was all right."
The General rode past without a word, but I heard him telling the story
to Mower the next day.
I can find little if any change in his manner since I knew him first. He
is brusque, but kindly, and he has the same comradeship with officers and
men--and even the negroes who flock to our army. But few dare to take
advantage of it, and they never do so twice. I have been very near to
him, and have tried not to worry him or ask many foolish questions.
Sometimes on the march he will beckon me to close up to him, and we have
a conversation something on this order:-- "There's Kenesaw, Brice."
"Yes, sir."
Pointing with his arm.
"Went beyond lines there with small party. Rebel battery on summit. Had
to git. Fired on. Next day I thought Rebels would leave in the night. Got
up before daylight, fixed telescope on stand, and waited. Watched top of
Kenesaw. No Rebel. Saw one blue man creep up, very cautious, looked
around, waved his hat. Rebels gone. Thought so."
This gives you but a faint idea of the vividness of his talk. When we
make a halt for any time, the general officers and their staffs flock to
headquarters to listen to his stories. When anything goes wrong, his
perception of it is like a lightning flash,--and he acts as quickly.
By the way, I have just found the letter he wrote me, offering this staff
position. Please keep it carefully, as it is something I shall value all
my life.
GAYLESVILLE, ALABAMA, October 25, 1864.
MAJOR STEPHEN A. BRICE:
Dear Sir,--The world goes on, and wicked men sound asleep. Davis
has sworn to destroy my army, and Beauregard has come to do the
work,--so if you expect to share in our calamity, come down. I
offer you this last chance for staff duty, and hope you have had
enough in the field. I do not wish to hurry you, but you can't get
aboard a ship at sea. So if you want to make the trip, come to
Chattanooga and take your chances of meeting me.
Yours truly,
W. T. SHERMAN, Major General.
One night--at Cheraw, I think it was--he sent for me to talk to him. I
found him lying on a bed of Spanish moss they had made for him. He asked
me a great many questions about St. Louis, and praised Mr. Brinsmade,
especially his management of the Sanitary Commission.
"Brice," he said, after a while, "you remember when Grant sent me to beat
off Joe Johnston's army from Vicksburg. You were wounded then, by the
way, in that dash Lauman made. Grant thought he ought to warn me against
Johnston.
"'He's wily, Sherman,' said he. 'He's a dangerous man.'
"'Grant,' said I, 'you give me men enough and time enough to look over
the ground, and I'm not afraid of the devil.'"
Nothing could sum up the man better than that. And now what a trick of
fate it is that he has Johnston before him again, in what we hope will
prove the last gasp of the war! He likes Johnston, by the way, and has
the greatest respect for him.
I wish you could have peeped into our camp once in a while. In the rare
bursts of sunshine on this march our premises have been decorated with
gay red blankets, and sombre gray ones brought from the quartermasters,
and white Hudson's Bay blankets (not so white now), all being between
forked sticks. It is wonderful how the pitching of a few tents, and the
busy crackle of a few fires, and the sound of voices--sometimes merry,
sometimes sad, depending on the weather, will change the look of a lonely
pine knoll. You ask me how we fare. I should be heartily ashamed if a
word of complaint ever fell from my lips. But the men! Whenever I wake up
at night with my feet in a puddle between the blankets, I think of the
men. The corduroy roads which our horses stumble over through the mud,
they make as well as march on. Our flies are carried in wagons, and our
utensils and provisions. They must often bear on their backs the little
dog-tents, under which, put up by their own labor, they crawl to sleep,
wrapped in a blanket they have carried all day, perhaps waist deep in
water. The food they eat has been in their haversacks for many a weary
mile, and is cooked in the little skillet and pot which have also been a
part of their burden. Then they have their musket and accoutrements, and
the "forty rounds" at their backs. Patiently, cheerily tramping along,
going they know not where, nor care much either, so it be not in retreat.
Ready to make roads, throw up works, tear up railroads, or hew out and
build wooden bridges; or, best of all, to go for the Johnnies under hot
sun or heavy rain, through swamp and mire and quicksand. They marched ten
miles to storm Fort McAllister. And how the cheers broke from them when
the pop pop pop of the skirmish line began after we came in sight of
Savannah! No man who has seen but not shared their life may talk of
personal hardship.
We arrived at this pretty little town yesterday, so effecting a junction
with Schofield, who got in with the 3d Corps the day before. I am writing
at General Schofield's headquarters. There was a bit of a battle on
Tuesday at Bentonville, and we have come hither in smoke, as usual. But
this time we thank Heaven that it is not the smoke of burning homes,
--only some resin the "Johnnies" set on fire before they left.
I must close. General Sherman has just sent for me.
ON BOARD DESPATCH BOAT "MARTIN."
AT SEA, March 25, 1865.
DEAR MOTHER: A most curious thing has happened. But I may as well begin
at the beginning. When I stopped writing last evening at the summons of
the General, I was about to tell you something of the battle of
Bentonville on Tuesday last. Mower charged through as bad a piece of wood
and swamp as I ever saw, and got within one hundred yards of Johnston
himself, who was at the bridge across Mill Creek. Of course we did not
know this at the time, and learned it from prisoners.
As I have written you, I have been under fire very little since coming to
the staff. When the battle opened, however, I saw that if I stayed with
the General (who was then behind the reserves) I would see little or
nothing; I went ahead "to get information" beyond the line of battle into
the woods. I did not find these favorable to landscape views, and just as
I was turning my horse back again I caught sight of a commotion some
distance to my right. The Rebel skirmish line had fallen back just that
instant, two of our skirmishers were grappling with a third man, who was
fighting desperately. It struck me as singular that the fellow was not in
gray, but had on some sort of dark clothes.
I could not reach them in the swamp on horseback, and was in the act of
dismounting when the man fell, and then they set out to carry him to the
rear, still farther to my right, beyond the swamp. I shouted, and one of
the skirmishers came up. I asked him what the matter was.
"We've got a spy, sir," he said excitedly.
"A spy! Here?"
"Yes, Major. He was hid in the thicket yonder, lying flat on his face. He
reckoned that our boys would run right over him and that he'd get into
our lines that way. Tim Foley stumbled on him, and he put up as good a
fight with his fists as any man I ever saw."
Just then a regiment swept past us. That night I told the General, who
sent over to the headquarters of the 17th Corps to inquire. The word came
back that the man's name was Addison, and he claimed to be a Union
sympathizer who owned a plantation near by. He declared that he had been
conscripted by the Rebels, wounded, sent back home, and was now about to
be pressed in again. He had taken this method of escaping to our lines.
It was a common story enough, but General Mower added in his message that
he thought the story fishy. This was because the man's appearance was
very striking, and he seemed the type of Confederate fighter who would do
and dare anything. He had a wound, which had been a bad one, evidently
got from a piece of shell. But they had been able to find nothing on him.
Sherman sent back word to keep the man until he could see him in person.
It was about nine o'clock last night when I reached the house the General
has taken. A prisoner's guard was resting outside, and the hall was full
of officers. They said that the General was awaiting me, and pointed to
the closed door of a room that had been the dining room. I opened it.
Two candles were burning in pewter sticks on the bare mahogany table.
There was the General sitting beside them, with his legs crossed, holding
some crumpled tissue paper very near his eyes, and reading. He did not
look up when I entered. I was aware of a man standing, tall and straight,
just out of range of the candles' rays. He wore the easy dress of a
Southern planter, with the broad felt hat. The head was flung back so
that there was just a patch of light on the chin, and the lids of the
eyes in the shadow were half closed.
My sensations are worth noting. For the moment I felt precisely as I had
when I was hit by that bullet in Lauman's charge. I was aware of
something very like pain, yet I could not place the cause of it. But this
is what since has made me feel queer: you doubtless remember staying at
Hollingdean, when I was a boy, and hearing the story of Lord Northwell's
daredevil Royalist ancestor,--the one with the lace collar over the
dull-gold velvet, and the pointed chin, and the lazy scorn in the eyes.
Those eyes are painted with drooping lids. The first time I saw Clarence
Colfax I thought of that picture--and now I thought of the picture first.
The General's voice startled me.
"Major Brice, do you know this gentleman?" he asked.
"Yes, General."
"Who is he?"
"His name is Colfax, sir--Colonel Colfax, I think"
"Thought so," said the General.
I have thought much of that scene since, as I am steaming northward over
green seas and under cloudless skies, and it has seemed very unreal. I
should almost say supernatural when I reflect how I have run across this
man again and again, and always opposing him. I can recall just how he
looked at the slave auction, which seem, so long ago: very handsome, very
boyish, and yet with the air of one to be deferred to. It was
sufficiently remarkable that I should have found him in Vicksburg. But
now--to be brought face to face with him in this old dining room in
Goldsboro! And he a prisoner. He had not moved. I did not know how he
would act, but I went up to him and held out my hand, and said.--"How do
you do, Colonel Colfax?"
I am sure that my voice was not very steady, for I cannot help liking him
And then his face lighted up and he gave me his hand. And he smiled at me
and again at the General, as much as to say that it was all over. He has
a wonderful smile.
"We seem to run into each other, Major Brice," said he.
The pluck of the man was superb. I could see that the General, too, was
moved, from the way he looked at him. And he speaks a little more
abruptly at such times.
"Guess that settles it, Colonel," he said.
"I reckon it does, General," said Clarence, still smiling. The General
turned from him to the table with a kind of jerk and clapped his hand on
the tissue paper.
"These speak for themselves, sir," he said. "It is very plain that they
would have reached the prominent citizens for whom they were intended if
you had succeeded in your enterprise. You were captured out of uniform
You know enough of war to appreciate the risk you ran. Any statement to
make?"
"No, sir."
"Call Captain Vaughan, Brice, and ask him to conduct the prisoner back."
"May I speak to him, General?" I asked. The General nodded.
I asked him if I could write home for him or do anything else. That
seemed to touch him. Some day I shall tell you what he said.
Then Vaughan took him out, and I heard the guard shoulder arms and tramp
away in the night. The General and I were left alone with the mahogany
table between us, and a family portrait of somebody looking down on us
from the shadow on the wall. A moist spring air came in at the open
windows, and the candles flickered. After a silence, I ventured to say:
"I hope he won't be shot, General."
"Don't know, Brice," he answered. "Can't tell now. Hate to shoot him, but
war is war. Magnificent class he belongs to--pity we should have to fight
those fellows."
He paused, and drummed on the table. "Brice," said he, "I'm going to send
you to General Grant at City Point with despatches. I'm sorry Dunn went
back yesterday, but it can't be helped. Can you start in half an hour?"
"Yes, sir."
"You'll have to ride to Kinston. The railroad won't be through until
to-morrow: I'll telegraph there, and to General Easton at Morehead City.
He'll have a boat for you. Tell Grant I expect to run up there in a day
or two myself, when things are arranged here. You may wait until I come."
"Yes, sir."
I turned to go, but Clarence Colfax was on my mind "General?"
"Eh! what?"
"General, could you hold Colonel Colfax until I see you again?"
It was a bold thing to say, and I quaked. And he looked at me in his keen
way, through and through "You saved his life once before, didn't you?"
"You allowed me to have him sent home from Vicksburg, sir."
He answered with one of his jokes--apropos of something he said on the
Court House steps at Vicksburg. Perhaps I shall tell it to you sometime.
"Well, well," he said, "I'll see, I'll see. Thank God this war is pretty
near over. I'll let you know, Brice, before I shoot him."
I rode the thirty odd miles to Kinston in--little more than three hours.
A locomotive was waiting for me, and I jumped into a cab with a friendly
engineer. Soon we were roaring seaward through the vast pine forests. It
was a lonely journey, and you were much in my mind. My greatest
apprehension was that we might be derailed and the despatches captured;
for as fast as our army had advanced, the track of it had closed again,
like the wake of a ship at sea. Guerillas were roving about, tearing up
ties and destroying bridges.
There was one five-minute interval of excitement when, far down the
tunnel through the forest, we saw a light gleaming. The engineer said
there was no house there, that it must be a fire. But we did not slacken
our speed, and gradually the leaping flames grew larger and redder until
we were upon them.
Not one gaunt figure stood between them and us. Not one shot broke the
stillness of the night. As dawn broke I beheld the flat, gray waters of
the Sound stretching away to the eastward, and there was the boat at the
desolate wharf beside the warehouse, her steam rising white in the chill
morning air.