SHERMAN IN EASTERN GEORGIA.
The track of the Central Railroad, one hundred and ninety-one miles in
length, was destroyed with conscientious thoroughness by Sherman’s army.
From Gordon, twenty miles below Macon, to Scarborough Station, nine
miles below Millen, a distance of one hundred miles, there was still an
impassable hiatus of bent rails and burnt bridges, at the time of my
journey; and in order to reach Savannah from Macon, it was necessary to
proceed by the Georgia road to Augusta, either returning by railroad to
Atlanta, or crossing over by railroad and stage to Madison, between
which places the Georgia road, destroyed for a distance of sixty-seven
miles, had been restored. From Augusta I went down on the Augusta and
Savannah road to a station a few miles below Waynesboro’, where a break
in that road rendered it necessary to proceed by stages to Scarborough.
From Scarborough to Savannah the road was once more in operation.
The relaid tracks were very rough; many of the old rails having been
straightened and put down again. “General Grant and his staff passed
over this road a short time ago,” said a citizen; “and as they went
jolting along in an old box-car, on plain board seats, they seemed to
think it was great fun: they said they were riding on Sherman’s
_hair-pins_,”—an apt name applied to the most frequent form in which the
rails were bent.
“Sherman’s men had all sorts of machinery for destroying the track. They
could rip it up as fast as they could count. They burnt the ties and
fences to heat the iron; then two men would take a bar and twist it or
wrap it around a tree or a telegraph post. Our people found some of
their iron-benders, and they helped mightily about straightening the
rails again. Only the best could be used. The rest the devil can’t
straighten.”
Riding along by the destroyed tracks, it was amusing to see the curious
shapes in which the iron had been left. Hair-pins predominated.
Corkscrews were also abundant. Sometimes we found four or five rails
wound around the trunk of a tree, which would have to be cut before they
could be got off again. And there was an endless variety of most
ungeometrical twists and curves.
The Central Railroad was probably the best in the State. Before the war
its stock paid annual dividends of fifteen per cent.,—one year as high
as twenty seven and a half per cent. It owned property to the amount of
a million and a half dollars, mostly invested in Europe. This will be
nearly or quite sunk in repairing the damage done by Sherman. Then the
road will have all of its bent iron,—for Sherman could not carry it away
or burn it;—and this was estimated to be worth two thirds as much as new
iron. The track, composed partly of the T and partly of the U rail, was
well laid; and the station-houses were substantially built of brick. I
was told that the great depot building at Millen, although of wood, was
equal in size and beauty to the best structures of the kind in the
North. Sherman did not leave a building on the road, from Macon to
Savannah. For warehouses, I found box-cars stationed on the side tracks.
The inhabitants of Eastern Georgia suffered even more than those of
Middle Georgia from our army operations,—the men having got used to
their wild business by the time they arrived there, and the General
having, I suspect, slipped one glove off. Here is the story of an old
gentleman of Burke County:—
“It was the 14th Corps that came through my place. They looked like a
blue cloud coming. They had all kinds of music,—horns, cow-bells,
tin-pans, everything they could pick up that would make a hideous noise.
It was like Bedlam broke loose. It was enough to frighten the old stumps
in the deadenings, say nothing about the people. They burned everything
but occupied dwellings. They cut the belluses at the blacksmith-shops.
They took every knife and fork and cooking utensil we had. My wife just
saved a frying-pan by hanging on to it; she was considerable courageous,
and they left it in her hands. After that they came back to get her to
cook them some biscuit.
“’How can I cook for you, when you’ve carried off everything?’ she said.
“They told her if she would make them a batch of biscuit they would
bring back a sack of her own flour, and she should have the balance of
it. She agreed to it; but while the biscuit was baking, another party
came along and carried the sack off again.
“The wife of one of my neighbors,—a very rich family, brought up to
luxuries,—just saved a single frying-pan, like we did. Their niggers and
all went off with Sherman; and for a week or two they had to cook their
own victuals in that frying-pan, cut them with a pocket-knife, and eat
them with their fingers. My folks had to do the same, but we hadn’t been
brought up to luxuries, and didn’t mind it so much.
“General Sherman went into the house of an old woman after his men had
been pillaging it. He sat down and drank a glass of water. Says she to
him, ‘I don’t wonder people say you’re a smart man; for you’ve been to
the bad place and got scrapings the devil wouldn’t have.’ His soldiers
heard of it, and they took her dresses and hung them all up in the
highest trees, and drowned the cat in the well.
“A neighbor of mine buried all his gold and silver, and built a hog-pen
over the spot. But the Yankees were mighty sharp at finding things. They
mistrusted a certain new look about the hog-pen, ripped it away, stuck
in their bayonets, and found the specie.
“Another of my neighbors hid his gold under the brick floor of his
smoke-house. He put down the bricks in the same place; but the rascals
smelt out the trick, pulled up the floor, got the gold, and then burnt
the smoke-house. They made him take off his boots and hat, which they
wore away. They left him an old Yankee hat, which he now wears. He
swears he never’ll buy another till the government pays him for his
losses.
“My wife did the neatest thing. She took all our valuables, such as
watches and silver-spoons, and hid them in the cornfield. With a knife
she would just make a slit in the ground, open it a little, put in one
or two things, and then let the top earth down, just like it was before.
Then she’d go on and do the same thing in another place. The soldiers
went all over that cornfield sticking in their bayonets, but they didn’t
find a thing. The joke of it was, she came very near never finding them
again herself.
“One of my neighbors, a poor man, was stopped by some cavalry boys, who
demanded his watch. He told ’em it was such a sorry watch they wouldn’t
take it. They wanted to see it, and when he showed it, they said, ‘Go
along!—we won’t be seen carrying off such a looking thing as that!’”
The following story was related to me by a Northern man, who had been
twenty-five years settled in Eastern Georgia:—
“My neighbors were too much frightened to do anything well and in good
order. But I determined I’d save as much of my property as I could drive
on its own feet or load on to wagons. I took two loads of goods, and all
my cattle and hogs, and run ’em off twenty miles into Screven County. I
found a spot of rising ground covered with gall bushes, in the middle of
a low, wet place. I went through water six inches deep, got to the
knoll, cut a road through the bushes, run my wagons in, and stuck the
bushes down into the wet ground where I had cut them. They were six or
eight feet high, and hid everything. My cattle and hogs I turned off in
a bushy field. After that, I went to the house of a poor planter and
staid. That was Friday night.
“Sunday, the soldiers came. I lay hid in the woods, and saw ’em pass
close by the knoll where my goods were, running in their bayonets
everywhere. The bushes were green yet, and they didn’t discover
anything, though they passed right by the edge of them.
“All at once I heard the women of the house scream murder. Thinks I, ‘It
won’t do for me to be lying here looking out only for my own interests,
while the soldiers are abusing the women.’ I crawled out of the bushes,
and was hurrying back to the house, when five cavalrymen overtook me.
They put their carbines to my head, and told me to give ’em my money.
“As soon as I’d got over my fright a little, I said, ‘Gentlemen, I’ve
got some Confederate money, but it will do you no good.’
“’Give me your pistol,’ one said. I told him I had no pistol. They
thought I lied, for they saw something in my pocket; but come to snatch
it out, it was only my pipe. Then they demanded my knife.
“’I’ve nothing but an old knife I cut my tobacco with;—you won’t take an
old man’s knife!’
“They let me go, and I hurried on to the house. It was full of soldiers.
I certainly thought something dreadful was happening to the women; but
they were screeching because the soldiers were carrying off their butter
and honey and corn-meal. They were making all that fuss over the loss of
their property; and I thought I might as well have stayed to watch mine.
“That night the army camped about a mile from there; and the next
morning I rode over to see if I could get a safeguard for the house. But
the officers said no;—they were bound to have something to eat. I went
back, and left my horse at the door while I stepped in to tell the women
if they wished to save anything that was left they must hide it. Before
I could get out again my horse was taken. I went on after it; the army
was on the march again, and I was told if I would go with it all day, I
should have my horse come night. I marched a few miles, but got sick of
it, and went back. I could see big fires in the direction of my house,
and I knew that the town was burning.
“I got back to the poor planter’s house, and found a new misfortune had
happened to him. The night before, all his hogs and mine came together
to his door,—the soldiers having let the fences down. ‘This won’t do,’ I
said; ‘I’m going to make another effort to save my hogs.’ But he was
true Southern; he hadn’t energy; he said, ‘No use!’ and just sat still.
I tolled my hogs off with corn, and scattered corn all about in the
bushes to keep them there. The next day it was hot, and they lay in the
shade to keep cool; so the soldiers didn’t find them.
“But when, as I said, I got back to his house, I found the soldiers
slaughtering his hogs right and left. They killed every one. So much for
his lack of faith. But the worst part of the joke was, they borrowed his
cart to carry off his own hogs to the wagon-train which was passing on
another road half a mile away. They said they’d bring it back in an
hour. As it didn’t come, he went for it, and found they’d piled rails on
to it and burnt it. I had taken care of my wagons, and he might have
done the same with his. But that’s the difference between a Northern and
a Southern man.
“Monday I returned home, and found my family living on corn-meal bran.
They had been robbed of everything. The soldiers had even taken the hat
off from my little grandson’s head, six years old. They took a
mother-hen away from her little peeping chickens. There were fifty or a
hundred soldiers in the house all one day, breaking open chests and
bureaus; and those that come after took what the first had left. My
folks asked for protection, being Northern people; and there was one
officer who knew them; but he could control only his own men. So we
fared no better than our neighbors.”
The staging to Scarborough was very rough; but our route lay through
beautiful pine woods, carpeted with wild grass. It was January, but the
spring frogs were singing.
The best rolling-stock of the Central Road had been run up to Macon on
Sherman’s approach, and could not be got down again. So I had the
pleasure of riding from Scarborough to Savannah in an old car crowded
full of wooden chairs, in place of the usual seats.
The comments of the passengers on the destruction wrought by Sherman
were sometimes bitter, sometimes sentimental. A benevolent gentleman
remarked: “How much good might be done with the millions of property
destroyed, by building new railroads elsewhere!” To which a languishing
lady replied: “What is the use of building railroads for _slaves_ to
ride on? I’d rather be free, and take it afoot, than belong to the
Yankees, and ride.”
Our route lay along the low, level borders of the Ogeechee River, the
soil of which is too cold for cotton. We passed immense swamps, in the
perfectly still waters of which the great tree-trunks were mirrored. And
all the way the spring frogs kept up their shrill singing.
At some of the stations I saw bales of Northern hay that had come up
from Savannah. “There is a commentary on our style of farming,” said an
intelligent planter from near Millen. “This land, though worthless for
cotton, could be made to grow splendid crops of grass,—and we import our
hay.”