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 had n'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 did n'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

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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."

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CHAPTER LXX.

A GLANCE AT SAVANNAH.

On the 16th of November, 1864, Sherman began his grand march from Atlanta. In less than a month his army had made a journey of three hundred miles, consuming and devastating the country. On December 13th, by the light of the setting sun, General Hazen's Division of the 15th Corps made its brilliant and successful assault on Fort McAlister on the Ogeechee, opening the gate to Savannah and the sea. On the night of the 20th, Savannah was hurriedly evacuated by the Rebels, and occupied by Sherman on the 21st. The city, with a thousand prisoners, thirty-five thousand bales of cotton, two hundred guns, three steamers, and valuable stores, thus fell into our hands without a battle. Within forty-eight hours a United States transport steamer came to the wharf, and the new base of supplies, about which we were all at that time so anxious, was established.

The city was on fire during the evacuation. Six squares and portions of other squares were burned. At the same time a mob collected and commenced breaking into stores and dwellings. The destroyers of railroads were in season to save the city from the violence of its own citizens.

A vast multitude of negroes had followed the army to the sea. This exodus of the bondmen from the interior had been permitted, not simply as a boon to them, but as an injury to the resources of the Confederacy, like the destruction of its plantations and railroads. What to do with them now became a serious problem. Of his conference with Secretary Stanton on the subject at Savannah, General Sherman says: "We agreed perfectly that the young and able-bodied men should be enlisted as soldiers or employed by the quartermaster in

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the necessary work of unloading ships, and for other army purposes; but this left on our hands the old and feeble, the women and children, who had necessarily to be fed by the United States. Mr. Stanton summoned a large number of the old negroes, mostly preachers, with whom he held a long conference, of which he took down notes. After this conference, he was satisfied the negroes could, with some little aid from the United States by means of the abandoned plantations on the sea islands and along the navigable rivers, take care of themselves." Sherman's "General Orders No. 15" were the result, giving negro settlers "possessory titles" to these lands. Thus originated the knotty Sea-Island controversy, of which more by-and-by.

The aspect of Savannah is peculiarly Southern, and not without a certain charm. Its uniform squares, its moist and heavy atmosphere, the night fogs that infest it, the dead level of its sandy streets, shaded by two and four rows of mossdraped trees, and its frequent parks of live-oaks, water-oaks, wild-olives, and magnolias, impress you singularly. The city, notwithstanding its low, flat appearance, is built on a plain forty feet above the river. The surrounding country is an almost unbroken level. Just across the Savannah lie the low, marshy shores of South Carolina. It is the largest city of Georgia, having something like twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Here, before the war, dwelt the aristocracy of the country, living in luxurious style upon the income of slave labor on the rice and cotton plantations.

Trade was less active at Savannah than in some of the interior towns, owing to its greater isolation. A flood of business passed through it, however. The expense of transportation was very great. Every bale of cotton brought down the river from Augusta, two hundred and thirty miles, cost eight dollars; and the tariff on returning freights was two cents a pound.

There were sixteen hundred colored children in Savannah, twelve hundred of whom attended school. Three hundred and fifty attended the schools of the Savannah Educational

Association, organized and supported by the colored population. I visited one of these schools, taught by colored persons, in a building which was a famous slave-mart, in the good old days of the institution. In the large auction-room, and behind the iron-barred windows of the jail-room over it, the children of slaves were now enjoying one of the first, inestimable advantages of freedom.

If you go to Savannah, do not fail to visit the Bonaventure Cemetery, six miles from the city. You drive out southward on the Thunderbolt Road, past the fortifications, through fields of stumps and piny undergrowths, whose timber was cut away to give range to the guns, to the fragrant, sighing solitude of pine woods beyond. Leaving the main road, you pass beneath the low roof of young evergreen oaks overarching the path. This leads you into avenues of indescribable beauty and gloom. Whichever way you look, colonnades of huge liveoak trunks open before you, solemn, still, and hoary. The great limbs meeting above are draped and festooned with long fine moss. Over all is a thick canopy of living green, shutting out the glare of day. Beneath is a sparse undergrowth of evergreen bushes, half concealing a few neglected old family monuments. The area is small, but a more fitting scene for a cemetery is not conceivable.