December 21st.-This morning we walk through the Seventh's camp, and everywhere we see the men with their clubs hulling out rice; this is all they have, but they are in fine spirits, all seem firm; seem confident and hopeful that this the most daring march in the military history of the nineteenth century, will be successful.

December 22d.-Last night Savannah was evacuated-her power yielded. The grand army is tramping now. Soon Sherman's terrible battle-flag will be flying beneath the shades of Bonniventure, where the chivalric knights have so often rehearsed their gallant deeds to the South's fair ones. With drums beating and colors flying we enter a fallen city. Our work in this campaign is done. We behold rebellion dying. The tramp of armies; the burning of cities; the destruction of railroads, have ruined Georgia. Such destruction and desolation never before followed in the wake of armies. tory has never recorded a parallel. Sherman was terrible, severe, unmerciful. But his severity and unmercifulness have stamped his name high upon the "Table Rock of immortality" as the boldest, most fearless and most consummate leader of the nineteenth century, and second to none in the world. In the language of a Soldier Poet,

Proud was our army that morning,

When Sherman said, "boys, you areweary,

But to-day fair Savannah is ours."

Then sang we a song to our chieftain,

That echoed over river and lea;

And the stars in our banner shown brighter,
When Sherman marched down to the Sea.

His

CHAPTER XVII.

Major Johnson on the flanks of the army-Stopping all night with an old planter-Lieutenant Flint's poem-Our camp at Savannah-Fort Brown-Bonniventure-The wounded men ordered to Pocotaligo-Leaving Savannah-Crossing the Savannah River-Entering South Carolina-Crossing the swamps—Joining the Fifteenth Corps at Midway-Crossing the Edisto-Crossing the Congaree-In front of Columbia-Crossing the Soluda River-The surrender of Columbia-The burning of the cityThe march to Cheraw-Crossing the Pedee River-At Fayetteville, North Carolina-Crossing the Cape Fear River-The march to Bentonville-The battle of Bentonville-The march to Goldsboro-Camp at Goldsboro-Arrival of new companies -The consolidation.

During the siege of Savannah Major Johnson was off on the flanks of the army with the mounted portion of the regiment, scouting, foraging, doing outpost duty, and gathering up stragglers from their commands. After the fall of the city General Corse sends a dispatch ordering him to join his regiment. On the evening of the twenty-second he halts on a plantation near the Ogeechee River, and after camping his men, accompanied by Lieutenant S. F. Flint, he wends his way to the planter's mansion. It is now dark and raining. The Major knocks at the door, and after an assurance of friendship, they are received into the household. Their sabres' frightful clang grates harshly upon the ears of the inmates— an old man, woman and daughter and for a while they seem frightened, but the gentlemanly demeanor

of the Major and Lieutenant soon wins their confidence, causing them to come to the conclusion that the Yankees were not the wild creatures they had been represented to be. The midnight hour approximating, they all retire, leaving the Major and Lieutenant the occupants of the parlor. In the morning, while all is quiet, they make their exit, leaving the following beautiful lines (written by the Lieutenant,) in the clock:

Where the Savannas of the South

Spread out their golden breadths to sea,
The fearful tide of war has rolled

Around this lonely household tree.

I know the hearts that linger here,
Their broken hopes, their wounded pride,
Have felt what I may never feel,

Are tried as I have not been tried.

This aged man, this fair browed girl,
What wonder if they learn to blend

His memory with hate-the foe

Who might in peace have been their friend.

One common tongue, one blood, one God,
The God whose ways are dark, are ours;

And He can make war's blackened path,
Rustle with harvests-bloom with flowers.

And here before he seeks his rest,

The hated North-man bends his knee,
And prays, restore this household band-
As dear to them as mine to me;

Oh! let the fearful storm sweep by,

And spare this roof that sheltered me.

After our entrance into the city, we go into camp in the suburbs, where we remain during the night and the following day. On the twenty-fourth we are ordered to Fort Brown, two miles from the city, where we go into a more permanent camp. During our first days at Savannah, the Seventh's boys are seen strolling everywhere, viewing the fortifications and the great guns; they are also seen pacing the streets of the beautiful city, looking with admiration upon her gorgeous buildings, and standing in awe in the shade of the peerless monument reared by a generous people to that noble Pole, Count Pulaski, who fought, bled and died in America's first revolution for independence. Can it be that traitors have walked around its base and sworn that the great Union for which this grand and liberal spirit sacrificed his life should be consigned to the wrecks of dead empires? As we stand and gaze upon this marble cenotaph, we are constrained to say, Oh! wicked men, why stood here above the dust of Poland's martyr, seeking to defame his name and tear down what he helped to rear! May God pity America's erring ones! In our wanderings we are made to stop, by an acre enclosed with a high but strong palisade, the work of Colonel G. F. Wiles, Seventy-eighth Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, commanding Second Brigade, Third Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, and his gallant command. This is God's acre and liberty's, and emphatically can this be said, for here three hundred or more of our fallen comrades sleep death's silent sleep. Here in trenches, unknelled, uncoffined, but not alone, "life's fitful fever over," they sleep well.

ye

They fell not in the deadly breach, nor yet on the grassy plain. For them no choir of musketry rattled, no anthem of cannon rolled, but unclad and unfed, their lamps of life flickered out in that worse than Egyptian bondage—a Confederate prison. For long weary months they suffered and waited for the time to come when they would inhale freedom's pure air; for long weary nights they watched the signal lights as they flashed upwards from the monitors to guide Sherman through the wilderness of pines, down to the sea; long did they wait to see the sunlight from the waters flash on his serried lines, but he came not. They suffered on, and died-died martyrs upon the altar of human freedom; died that not one single star, however wayward, should be erased from the Union's great banner of freedom. Has the world, in all its history of blood, from the creation to the christian era, from the reformation to the revolution, ever produced examples of such heroic endurance as this second revolution has given to the world? Echoes coming from the soft south winds that sweep along the Atlantic shore, answer no. These men were murdered! Yes, murdered because they wore the blue, and fought for the flag and freedom. The poet alludes most touchingly to an incident that caused the murder of one of these lonely sleepers who plead for his wife's letters.

"First pay the postage, whining wretch."
Despair had made the prisoner brave-

"I'm a captive, not a slave;

You took my money and my clothes,