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CHAPTER LXIX.

SHERMAN IN EASTERN GEORGIA.

THE track of the Central Railroad, one hundred and ninetyone 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 boxcar, on plain board seats, they seemed to think it was great fun they said they were riding on Sherman's hair-pins," apt name applied to the most frequent form in which the rails were bent.

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"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 varity 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 dol lars, 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 dead

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enings, 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 had n't been brought up to luxuries, and did n'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 would n'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

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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 corn-field sticking in their bayonets, but they did n'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 would n'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 did n't discover anything, though they passed right by the edge of them.

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"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 cornmeal. 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