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With Fire and Sword 
 
 BY 
 
 MAJOR S. H. M. BYERS 
 
 OF GENERAL SHERMAN'S STAFF 
 
 Author of "Sherman's March to the Sea," "Iowa 
 
 in War Times," "Twenty Years in 
 
 Europe,'' and of other books 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1911 
 

 Copyright, 1911, by 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 /x " (Tf 6 
 
 ©ci.a:jo;j555 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 11 
 
 My enlistment in the Union Army — The "Bush- 
 whackers" of Missouri — The Quantrells and the 
 James Brothers — Cutting a man's head off — My 
 first adventure in the war — Capturing a geurrilla. 
 
 CHAPTER II 22 
 
 We leave Missouri and go South — The prisoners of 
 Donelson — The taking of New Madrid — "Kindly 
 bury this unfortunate officer" — Quaker guns at 
 Shiloh — The killing of the colonel. 
 
 CHAPTER III 29 
 
 luka, the fiercest battle of the war, 217 men out of 
 482 of my regiment are shot — The awful rebel 
 charge at Corinth — Moonlight on the battlefield — 
 Bushels of arms and legs — Tombstones for fire- 
 places—One of Grant's mistakes. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 40 
 
 An unlucky campaign led by General Grant — Holly 
 Springs burned up — The first foragers — Some mod- 
 ern Falstaffs — Counting dead men. 
 
6 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER V 49 
 
 The laughable campaign of the war — An army float- 
 ing among the tree tops of the Yazoo Pass. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 54 
 
 Grant's new plan at Vicksburg — Running the Vicks- 
 burg batteries — An hour and a half of horror — The 
 batteries are passed — The most important event 
 in the war, 
 
 CHAPTER VII 63 
 
 Crossing the Mississippi on gunboats and steamers — 
 Battle of Port Gibson — How General Grant looked 
 to a private soldier — A boy from Mississippi — Fights 
 at Raymond — Battle of Jackson in a thunderstorm 
 — Digging his brothers' grave — Grant in battle — 
 Saving a flag — How men feel in battle — An awful 
 spectacle — The critical moment of General Grant's 
 life — A battlefield letter from him to Sherman. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 87 
 
 Assaults on the walls of Vicksburg — Logan in battle — 
 An army mule — A promotion under the guns of 
 Vicksburg — A storm of iron hail at Vicksburg — 
 The Vicksburg clock — The town surrenders — The 
 glad news — Reading my first order to the regiment 
 — My regiment put on guard in the captured city — 
 Eight days' furlough in four years of war. 
 
CONTENTS 7 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER IX 102 
 
 Sherman's army floats across the Tennessee River at 
 midnight — ^Washington at the Delaware nothing 
 compared to this — We assault Missionary Ridge — 
 An awful battle — My capture, 
 
 CHAPTER X Ill 
 
 In Libby Prison — Life there — "Belle Isle" — All prisons 
 bad — The great escape — "Maryland, My Maryland." 
 
 CHAPTER XI 119 
 
 Escaping from Macon — An adventure in Atlanta — 
 In the disguise of a Confederate soldier — My wan- 
 derings inside the Confederate army and what I 
 experienced there — I am captured as a spy — How 
 I got out of it all. 
 
 CHAPTER Xil 137 
 
 Under fire of our own guns at Charleston— Trying to 
 capture a railway train — The secret band — Be- 
 trayed — The desolation of Charleston. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 144 
 
 Living in a grave — An adventure in the woods of 
 South Carolina — Life in the asylum yard at the 
 capital of South Carolina — The song of "Sherman's 
 March to the Sea" — How it came to be written — 
 Pinal escape — The burning up of South Carolina's 
 capitol. 
 
8 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 174 
 
 The army in the Carolinas — General Sherman sends 
 for me — Gives me a place on his staff — Experiences 
 at army headquarters — Sherman's life on the march 
 — Music at headquarters — Logan's violin — The Gen- 
 eral's false friend — The army wades, swims, and 
 fights through the Carolinas — I am sent as de- 
 spatch bearer to General Grant — A strange ride 
 down the Cape Fear River in the night — General 
 Terry — Learn that my song "The March to the 
 Sea" is sung through the North, and has given the 
 campaign its name — I bring the first news of Sher- 
 man's success to the North — An interview with 
 General Grant. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 198 
 
 Washington City in the last three days of the war — 
 Look, the President! — The last man of the regiment. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In war some persons seek adventures ; others have 
 them in spite of themselves. It happened that the 
 writer of tliis hook belonged to a regiment that 
 seemed t6 be always in the midst of great experiences. 
 It was, in fact, one of the few regiments that abso- 
 lutely fought themselves out of existence. It was 
 mustered in a thousand strong ; it lost seven hundred 
 and seventy-seven men by death, wounds, and dis- 
 ease. The fragment that was left over was trans- 
 ferred to a cavalry command. When the writer 
 finally escaped from prison, after many months of 
 confinement and many thrilling adventures both in 
 prison and in the army of the enemy, he was mus- 
 tered out as a ''supernumerary officer." His command 
 had ceased to exist. He was literally the last man of 
 the regiment. Of the eighty of his regiment who 
 had been taken to prison with him all but sixteen 
 were dead. Of the nine captured from his own com- 
 pany all were dead but one. 
 
 While with his command he had served as a 
 private soldier, as sergeant, and as adjutant. On 
 
10 PEEFACE 
 
 escaping from prison he was for a time on General 
 Sherman's staff and was selected to run down the 
 Cape Fear River and carry the great news of Sher- 
 man's successes to the people of the ^North. 
 
 He kept a diary every day in the four years of 
 war and adventure. The substance of the facts re- 
 lated here is from its pages ; occasionally they are 
 copied just as they are there set down. The hook 
 is not a history of great army movements, it is simply 
 a true tale of the thrilling experiences of a sub- 
 ordinate soldier in the midst of great events. 
 
With Fire and Sword 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 My enlistment in the Union Army — The "Bushwhackers" 
 of Missouri — The Quantrells and the James Brothers — 
 Cutting a man's head off — My first adventure in the 
 war — Capturing a guerrilla. 
 
 I am wi'iting down these sketches of adventures 
 of mine from a daily journal or diary kept by me 
 throughout the four years of the Civil War. Its 
 pages are crumpled and old and yellow, but I can 
 read them still. 
 
 Fate so arranged it that I was the very first one 
 to enlist in my regiment, and it all came about 
 through a confusion of names. A patriotic mass- 
 meeting was held in the court-house of the village 
 where I lived. Everybody was there, and every- 
 body w^as excited, for the w^ar tocsin was sounding 
 all over the country. A new regiment had been 
 ordered by the governor, and no town was so quick 
 in responding to the call as the village of Newton. 
 We would be the very first. Drums were beating at 
 the mass-meeting, fifes screaming, people shouting. 
 There was a little pause in the patriotic noise, and 
 
12 WITH FIKE AND SWOED 
 
 then someone called out, "Myers to the platform !'' 
 "Myers ! Myers ! Myers !" echoed a hundred other 
 voices. Mr. Myers never stirred, as he was no public 
 speaker. I sat beside him near the aisle. Again the 
 voices shouted "Myers ! Myers !" Myers turned to 
 me, laughed, and said, "They are calling you, Byers," 
 and fairly pushed me out into the aisle. A handful 
 of the audience seeing Myers would not respond, did 
 then call my own name, and both names w^ere cried 
 together. Some of the audience becoming confused 
 called loudly for me. "Go on," said Myers, half- 
 rising and pushing me toward the platform. 
 
 I was young, — just twenty-two, — ambitious, had 
 just been admitted to the bar, and now was all on 
 fire with the newly awakened patriotism. I went up 
 to the platform and stood by the big drum. The 
 American flag, the flag that had been fired on by the 
 South, was hanging above my head. In a few min- 
 utes I was full of the mental champagne that comes 
 from a cheering multitude. I was burning with 
 excitement, with patriotism, enthusiasm, pride, and 
 my enthusiasm lent power to the words I uttered. I 
 don^t know why nor how, but I was moving my 
 audience. The war was not begun to put down 
 slavery, but what in the beginning had been an inci- 
 dent I felt in the end would become a cause. 
 
 The year before T had been for many months on 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 13 
 
 a plantation in Mississippi, and there with my own 
 eves had seen the horrors of slavery. I had seen 
 human beings flogged ; men and women bleeding 
 from an overseer's lash. Now in my excitement I 
 pictured it all. I recalled everything. "And the 
 war, they tell ns," I cried, "is to perpetuate this 
 curse !" In ten minutes after my stormy words one 
 hundred youths and men, myself the first, had 
 stepped up to the paper lying on the big drum and 
 had put down our names for the war. 
 
 We all mustered on the village green. Alas, not 
 half of them ^vere ever to see that village green again ! 
 No foreboding came to me, the enthusiastic youth 
 about to be a soldier, of the "dangers by flood and 
 field," the adventures, the thrilling scenes, the battles, 
 the prisons, the escapes, that were awaiting me. 
 
 Now we were all enthusiasm to be taken quickly 
 to the front, to the "seat of war." We could bide 
 no delay. Once our men were on the very point of 
 mobbing and "egging" our great, good Governor Kirk- 
 wood, because for a moment he thought he would be 
 compelled to plac€ us in a later regiment. However, 
 we were immediately started in wagons for the near- 
 est railroad, fifty miles away. 
 
 At the town of Burlington, on the 15th of July, 
 1861, we were mustered into the service as Pompany 
 B of the Fifth Iowa Infantry. Our colonel, W. H. 
 
14 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 Worthington, was a military martinet from some 
 soldier school in Kentucky. His sympathies were 
 with his native South. Why he was leading a North- 
 ern regiment was a constant mystery to his mien. 
 
 The regiment spent scant time in Burlington, for 
 in a little while we were whisked down the Missis- 
 sippi River in a steamer to St. Louis, and soon joined 
 the army of Eremont, organizing at Jenerson City 
 to march against General Price, who was flying to- 
 ward Springfield with th6 booty he had gained in his 
 capture of Mulligan and his men at Boonville. Now 
 all began to look like war. Missouri was neither 
 North nor South ; she was simply hell, for her people 
 were cutting one another's throats, and neighboring 
 farmers killed each other and burned each other's 
 homes. The loyal feared to shut their eyes in sleep ; 
 the disloyal did not know if a roof would be above 
 their heads in the morning. Brothers of the same 
 family were in opposing armies, and the State was 
 overrun by Southern guerrillas and murderers. The 
 Quantrells, the James Brothers, and other irregular 
 and roaming bands of villains rode everywhere, way- 
 laying, bushwhacking, and murdering. 
 
 We followed General Price's army to the Ozark 
 Mountains, marching day and night — the nights 
 made hideous by the burning of homes on the track 
 of both the armies, while unburi^d corpses lay at 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 15 
 
 the roadside. We marched half the nights and all 
 the days and just as we got close enough to fight, 
 the Washington politicians caused Fremont to be re- 
 moved from his command. Fremont had been ahead 
 of his time. He had freed some slaves, and the 
 dough-faced politicians were not yet ready for action 
 of that character. 
 
 The campaig-n had been to no purpose. Some of 
 our regiment, indignant at the removal of their gen- 
 eral, had to be guarded to prevent mutiny and dis- 
 order. Xow we turned about and made the long 
 march back to the Missouri River. Half that cold 
 winter was spent near Syracuse, in guarding the 
 Pacific Railway. We lived in wedge tents, and 
 spite of the cold and snow and storm, our squads by 
 turn tramped, for miles up and down the railroad in 
 the darkness every night. What terrible tales, too, 
 we had in our little tents that winter, of the deeds 
 of Quantrell's men. It did not seem possible that 
 the South could set loose a lot of murderers to hang on 
 the skirts of our army, to ^'bushwhack" an honorable 
 foe, burn villages, destroy farms, and drive whole 
 counties into conditions as frightful as war was in 
 the Middle Ages. Only savage Indians fought that 
 way. Yet Quantrell's band of murderers was said 
 to be on the payroll of the Confederate States. Here 
 and there, however, his guerrilla outlaws met with aw- 
 
16 WITH EIRE AND SWORD 
 
 ful punishinent, and horrible incidents became the 
 order of the day and night. 
 
 I recall now how a prize was once offered by one 
 of our commanders for the head of a certain man 
 among those desperate murderers, a desperado with a 
 band of men that knew no mercy. His troop of riders 
 had ambuscaded almost scores of our soldiers, and 
 innocent farmers who did not happen to like his ways 
 were strung up to trees as unceremoniously as one 
 would drown a kitten. The offered prize of a thou- 
 sand dollars stimulated certain of our men in taking 
 chances with this beast of the Confederacy, and a 
 corporal of our cavalry learned of the desperado's 
 occasional visits at night to his home, only a dozen 
 miles away from where we were camped. Several 
 nights he secretly watched from a thicket near the 
 cabin for the bandit's return. Once in the darkness 
 he heard a horse's hoofs, and then a man dismounted 
 and entered at the door. The evening was chilly, 
 and a bright fire in the open fireplace of the cabin 
 shone out as the man entered. 
 
 The corporal, who had disguised himself in an old 
 gray overcoat, knocked for entrance, and pretended 
 to be a sick Confederate going on a furlough to his 
 home not far away. He was cautiously admitted 
 and given a seat by the open fire. He had no arms, 
 and to the bandit and his wife his story of sickness 
 
WITH FIRE A^B SWOED 17 
 
 and a furlough seemed probable enough. The two 
 men and the one woman sat in front of the fireplace 
 talking for an hour. The corporal, with the guerrilla 
 sitting within a few feet of him, thought of the prize, 
 and of his comrades murdered by this man. But 
 what could he do? Suddenly the thought came, "I 
 must kill or be killed." Outside there was only dark- 
 ness and silence; inside the cabin, the low voices of 
 these three people and the flickering fire. 
 
 The corporal glanced about him. There was no 
 gun to be seen that he could seize. The guerrilla's 
 big revolver hung at his belt. While sitting thus, a bit 
 of burning wood rolled out onto the hearth. The guer- 
 rilla stooped over to put it in its place. Instantly the 
 corporal saw his chance and, springing for the iron 
 poker at the fireside, dealt the guerrilla a blow on 
 the head that stretched him dead on the cabin floor. 
 In an instant his big jackknife was out of his pocket 
 and in the presence of the screaming wife the brute 
 severed the man's head from his body. Then he left 
 the cabin, mounted his horse in the thicket, and in 
 the darkness carried his ghostly trophy into camp. 
 It is a horrible ride to think of, that dozen miles, 
 with the bleeding head of a murdered man on the 
 saddle bow. 
 
 So the awful things went on all that winter in 
 Missouri. As for myself, I was traniping about as 
 
18 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 a corporal, lielping iu a siriall way to keep the great 
 railroad free from marauders and in possession of 
 the Union army. 
 
 I don't know how it happened, but one morning 
 our colonel, who had always treated me with extreme 
 gruffness, though he well knew I did my duties with 
 patriotic zeal, sent for me to come to his tent. I was 
 a little alarmed, not knowing what was about to hap- 
 pen to me. The colonel called me by name as I 
 entered, saluting him cap in hand, and for once he 
 actually smiled. 
 
 "Corporal," he said dryly, as if suddenly regret- 
 ting his smile, "I have noticed that you always did 
 the duty assigned you with promptness. I need a 
 quartermaster sergeant. You are the man." 
 
 I was almost paralyzed with astonishment and pleas- 
 ure. I stood stock still, without a word of gratitude. 
 At last, recovering myself, I explained that I had 
 enlisted expecting to fight, and not to fill some easy 
 position with the trains. 
 
 "If I could only be allowed to find a substitute," 
 I ventured to say, "in case of a fight, so I might 
 share the danger with my comrades, I would like the 
 promotion." 
 
 Again the colonel tried to smile. "You probably 
 will change your mind ; you will find excitement 
 enough," he reimarked, dismissing me. 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 19 
 
 I was hardly installed in my new post when to my 
 surprise I was ordered by the colonel to take a good 
 horse and ride twelve miles across the lone prairies 
 and carry a message to a command at the village of 
 Tipton. Instantly my mind was excited with the 
 hopes of an adventure. I don't know, even now, just 
 why I was selected for the venturesome undertaking. 
 I knew there was scarcely a road and not a house in 
 ^he whole distance. I knew, too, the whole country 
 was full of murderous guerrillas. But nevertheless 1 
 was full of elation. This was the kind of a thing I 
 had hoped for when I enlisted. 
 
 Light flakes of snow were falling when, with 
 exultant spirits, I started from the camp. The trip 
 outward proved uneventful, for nothing happened 
 to me on my way. As I was returning, however, at 
 a point halfway across the prairie I was surprised 
 to see a man in gray, probably a guerrilla, ride out 
 of a long slough or hollow to my left and gallop into 
 the road directly ahead of me. He was in complete 
 gray uniform, wore a saber, and had revolvers at 
 his saddle bow. The man glanced back at me, and 
 I saw him reaching for his pistols. "Here comes 
 my first fight in the war,'' I thought instantly, "out 
 here alone on the prairie." Save my one half- 
 loaded revolver, strapped to my waist, I was un- 
 armed. The stranger, without firing, galloped faster. 
 
20 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 I, too, galloped faster, the distance between us re- 
 maining abont the same. Each of us now had a 
 pistol in his hand, but it looked as if each were 
 afraid to commence the duel. If the stranger 
 checked his horse to give him breath, I checked mine. 
 If he galloped again, I, too, put spurs to my ani- 
 mal. Imagining that other guerrillas must be lurk- 
 ing quite near, I was not over-anxious to bring on the 
 engagement, and I suppose the armed man felt much 
 the same way, for he could not have thought that I 
 was in such a place absolutely alone. So neither 
 fired. We just looked at each other and galloped. 
 Finally we approached a little wood, and in a 
 twinkling he turned into a path and was out of 
 sight. I did not care to follow him to his hiding- 
 place just then, and quickly galloped to our camp a 
 few miles off. 
 
 Before midnight that night I, with a dozen of 
 my regiment, surrounded the little wood and a cabin 
 secreted in its center. Approaching, we looked into 
 the windows, and, sure enough, there, roasting his 
 feet in front of an open fire, sat my rider of the 
 day. When three of us suddenly entered the house 
 and demanded his surrender he sprang for a rifle that 
 stood like a poker by the fireside, aimed it at me, 
 and shouted "l^ever ! Surrender yourself." A 
 bayonet that instant against his breast brought him 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 21 
 
 to terms, however. There followed a little fare- 
 well scene between him and his wife, who poured 
 bottles of wrath on the heads of the "bluecoats/' and 
 our captive — my captive^ — was hurried to the guard- 
 house at the camp. It had been a perfectly blood- 
 less encounter, but next morning it turned out that T 
 had by chance captured one of the most dangerous 
 guerrillas in Missouri. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 We leave Missouri and go South — The prisoners of Donel- 
 son — The taking of New Madrid — "Kindly bury this 
 unfortunate officer" — Quaker guns at Shiloh — The kill- 
 ing of the colonel. 
 
 It was a trifling incident, this capture, compared 
 witli the dreadful things I have referred to as going 
 on in Missouri that memorable first year of the 
 Civil War. A great volume would not contain the 
 record of them all. The first dead men I saw while 
 in the army were eight Missouri farmers murdered 
 by guerrillas and left lying in the hot sun and dust 
 at the roadside. The sight moved me as no great 
 battle ever did afterward. 
 
 One half of the male population of Missouri was 
 trying to kill the other half. They were not op- 
 ponents from diiferent far^ofi sections fighting, but 
 near neighbors, and nothing seemed too awful or too 
 cruel for them to do. How I pitied the women and 
 children who lived in the State in those awful days ! 
 
 General Sherman's designation of war as "helF' 
 found more confirmation in the dreadful raids, out- 
 
 22 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 23 
 
 rages, and murders by QuantrelFs guerrillas in Mis- 
 souri than in tbe bloodiest battles of the four years' 
 conflict. 
 
 !N'ow for months my regiment, with others, had 
 chased up and down, and all over that unhappy old 
 State of Missouri, trying to capture and punish 
 these bands of murderers. On the old steamboat 
 War Eagle, too, we paddled for weeks along the 
 "Muddy Missouri" River, landing every here and 
 there to have a little brush with guerrillas who had 
 fired on our boat from the banks or from secret 
 recesses in the woods. It was rare that we could 
 catch them or have a real fight. Their kind of war 
 meant ambuscades and murder. 
 
 At last an end came to this dreadful guerrilla- 
 chasing business in Missouri so far as we were oon* 
 cerned, anyway. We were to stop running after 
 Price's ubiquitous army too. We were no longer to 
 be the victims of ambuscades and night riding mur- 
 derers. 
 
 The glad news came to my regiment that we were 
 to be transferred to the South, where the real war 
 was. 
 
 One morning we left the cold and snow, where we 
 had lived and shivered in thin tents all the winter, 
 left the thankless duty of patrolling railroads in the 
 storm at midnight, and marched in the direction of 
 
24 WITH FIEE AND SWOED 
 
 St. Louis. A long, cold, miserable march it was too, 
 hurrying in the daytime and freezing in our bivouacs 
 in the snow and woods at night. Many a man we 
 left to sicken and die at some farmhouse by the road- 
 side. Our destination was 'New Madrid, where we 
 were to be a part of Pope's army in the siege and 
 capture of that town. 
 
 As we were about to embark on boats at St. Louis 
 we beheld in the snow and storm many steamers 
 anchored out in the pitiless waters of the Missis- 
 sippi River. These vessels were loaded with shiver- 
 ing thousands in gray and brown uniforms, the 
 prisoners whom General Grant had captured at the 
 battle of Fort Donelson. There were twelve or fif- 
 teen thousand of them. Seeing this host of prisoners 
 made us feel that at last the Union army had a 
 general, although we had scarcely heard of TJ. S. 
 Grant before. This army of prisoners taken in battle 
 was his introduction to the world. 
 
 Shortly we were before ISTew Madrid, and the siege 
 conducted by General Pope commenced. The town 
 was defended by strong forts and many cannon, but 
 its speedy capture by us helped to open up the Mis- 
 sissippi River. It was a new experience to us, to 
 hsve cannonballs come rolling right into our camp 
 occasionally. Yet few men were injured by them. 
 We were in more danger when a fool officer one day 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWOKD 26 
 
 took our brigade of infantry down through a corn- 
 field to assault a gunboat that lay in a creek close by. 
 
 The Rebel commander had expected us, and had 
 his grape shot and his hot water hose, and such 
 things all ready for us. We went out of that corn- 
 field faster than we went in. This was real war, the 
 thing my regiment had been so longing for, in placs 
 of chasing murderers and guerrillas in Missouri. 
 
 We entered ]^ew Madrid one morning before 
 daylight. The enemy had left in awful haste. I 
 recall finding a dead Rebel officer, lying on a table 
 in his tent, in full uniform. He had been killed by 
 one of our shells. A candle burned beside him, and 
 his cold hands closed on a pencil note that said, 
 ^^Kindly bury this unfortunate officer. '' His 
 breakfast waited on a table in the tent, showing how 
 unexpected was his taking off. 
 
 Our victory was a great one for the nation, and it 
 put two stars on the shoulder straps of General Pope. 
 It made him, too, commander of the Eastern army. 
 
 A comrade in Company A of my regiment had 
 been wounded a few days before and had died in 
 the enemy's hands. I now found his grave. At its 
 head stood a board with this curious inscription: 
 ^^This man says he was a private in the Eifth Iowa 
 Regiment. He was killed while trying to attend to 
 other people's business." 
 
26 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 Our command was now hurried to the Shiloh 
 battlefield, of course too late to be of any use. But 
 we took part in the long, wonderful, and ridiculous 
 siege of Corinth, under Halleck, when our great army 
 was held back by red tape, martinets, and the fear of 
 a lot of wooden guns that sat on top of the enemy's 
 breastworks, while that enemy, with all his men, and 
 with all his guns, and bag and baggage, was escap- 
 ing to the south Our deeds were no credit to any- 
 body, though here and there we had a little fight. 
 
 One incident of great importance,' however, hap- 
 pened to my regiment here. It was the death of our 
 colonel. One night when he was going the rounds 
 of the picket lines out in the woods he was shot dead 
 by one of our own men. The sentinel who did the 
 killing declared that Rebels had been slipping up to 
 his post all night, and when he would hail with ^'Who 
 goes there ?" they w^ould fire at him and run into the 
 darkness. He resolved to stand behind a tree the next 
 time and fire without hailing. By some accident 
 Colonel Worth ington and his adjutant were ap- 
 proaching this sentinel from the direction of the 
 enemy. Suddenly the sentinel held his gun around 
 the tree and fired. The bullet struck the colonel in 
 the forehead, killing him instantly. As he fell from 
 his horse the adjutant sprang to the ground and cried, 
 "Who shot the officer of the day?" "I fired," ex- 
 
/ 
 
 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 2Y 
 
 claimed the sentinel, and he then told of his experi- 
 ences of the night. He was arrested, tried, and 
 acquitted. Yet there were many among ns who be- 
 lieved that the colonel had been intentionally mur- 
 dered. He was one of the most competent colonels 
 in the army, but among his soldiers he was fearftilly 
 unpopular. He was, however, a splendid disciplina- 
 rian, but this was something the volunteers did not 
 want. In their minds the colonel had been only a 
 petty tyrant, and not even wholly loyal. With a dif- 
 ferent disposition he certainly would have been a dis- 
 tinguished soldier. He was one of the most military- 
 looking men in the whole army, but friends he had 
 none. More than once his life had been threatened 
 by soldiers who regarded themselves as having been 
 treated badly by him. 
 
 His body was brought into camp the next morning 
 and lay in his tent in state. He was given a militar}^ 
 funeral, and the horse that was bearing him when he 
 was killed was led behind his coffin. 
 
 After his death numbers of the men of the regi- 
 ment were indignant, when they found among his 
 papers warrants and commissions intended by the gov- 
 ernor for them, commissions that had never been de- 
 livered. Their promotions had never come about. 
 !N'ow they knew why. 
 
 Worthington was succeeded by Colonel 0. L. Mat- 
 
28 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 thies, one of the bravest, best, and most loved com- 
 manders of our army. Later Mattbies was made a 
 general, and at tbe close of the war died of wounds 
 received in battle. 
 
 Although I was quartermaster sergeant of the regi- 
 ment, I was always careful that this should not keep 
 me away from the command when enduring hard 
 marches or when engagements were coming on. When 
 in camp I kept my rifle in one of the ammunition 
 wagons (of several of which I had charge), but 
 if the alarm sounded my rifle was on my shoulder 
 and I was the private soldier in the ranks of the com- 
 pany. I deserved no special credit for this. I was 
 only doing my duty. We had muzzle-loading Whit- 
 ney rifles and bayonets. The equipment and rations 
 we carried in weight would have been a respectable 
 load for a mule. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 luka, the fiercest battle of the war, 217 men out of 482 of 
 my regiment are shot — The awful Rebel charge at 
 Corinth — Moonlight on the battlefield — Bushels of arms 
 and legs — Tombstones for fireplaces — One of Grant's 
 mistakes. 
 
 All that summer, after taking Corinth, we chased 
 up and down the State of Mississippi, trying to get 
 fair battle with the Rebel army. At last the chance 
 came, and for my regiment it was an awful one — 
 the battle of luka. 
 
 The battle of luka took place on the 19th of 
 September, 1862. It was fought by a handful of the 
 troops of General Rosecrans against half the army 
 of General Price. Grant was only a few miles away, 
 but although commander-in-chief, he knew nothing of 
 the hardest-fought battle of the Civil War until it 
 was over. 
 
 One morning before daylight while camped in 
 the woods near Jacinto half expecting to be attacked, 
 we heard that Price's army was in luka, some eigh- 
 teen miles away, and that if we would hurry there 
 
 29 
 
30 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 and attack from one side, General Grant, with Ord*a 
 troops, would attack from another side. How eagerly 
 the regiment made the forward march on that beauti- 
 ful autumn day! The woods were in their fairest 
 foliage, and it seemed too lovely a day for war and 
 bloodshed. The bugles played occasionally as the 
 men hurried along, but not a shot was fired. No 
 noise like war fell on the soldiers' ears as they 
 tramped over the beautiful country road toward the 
 Tennessee River. They had time for reflection as 
 they marched, and they knew now they were going 
 to battle. There had been no time for letters or fare- 
 wells, and each thought the other one, not himself, 
 moist likely to fall in the coming engagement. 
 
 There were only 482 of my little regiment now 
 marching there, hoping, almost praying, the enemy 
 might only wait. How little anyone dreamed that 
 before the sun set 217 of that little command would 
 be stretched dead or dying among the autumn leaves I 
 
 It was just two o'clock when the regiment ran on 
 to the army of the enemy, lying in line right across 
 the road close to luka. My own regiment was in 
 the advance. Instantly it, too, was in line of battle 
 across that road, and in a few minutes absolutely the 
 fiercest little conflict of the war began. Our brigade 
 was fearfully outnumbered. Rosecrans, had ten 
 thousand soldiers w^ithin five miles of the battlefield. 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 31 
 
 yet let three or four small regiments and a battery do 
 all the fighting. Ten miles away, in another direc- 
 tion, lay General Grant and General Ord, with many 
 other thousands, as silent as if paralyzed. An un- 
 lucky wind blew, they said, and the sound of our 
 cannon, that was to have been the signal for them 
 to attack also, was unheard by them. 
 
 Charge after charge was made upon our little line, 
 and the Eleventh Ohio Battery, which the regiment 
 was protecting, was taken and retaken three times. 
 There were no breastworks, yet that one little bri- 
 gade of Hamilton's division stood there in the open 
 and repulsed assault after assault. It was the Iowa, 
 the Missouri, and the Ohio boys against the boys of 
 Alabama and Mississippi, and the grass and leaves 
 were covered with the bodies in blue and gray. Not 
 Balaldava, nor the Alma, saw such fighting. It was 
 a duel to the death. For hours the blue and the gray 
 stood within forty yards of each other and poured 
 in sheets of musketry. Every horse of the battery 
 at the left of my regiment was killed, and every 
 gunner but one or two was shot and lying among the 
 debris. 'No battery in the whole four years' war 
 lost so many men in so short a time. Antietam, 
 Gettysburg, the Wilderness, could show nothing like 
 it. Only the setting sun put an end to what was 
 part of the time a hand to hand conflict. One dar- 
 
32 WITH EIKE Al^D SWOED 
 
 ing Rebel was shot down and bayoneted clear be- 
 hind the line of Company B, where he had broken 
 through to seize the flag of my regiment. 
 
 That night the enemy slipped away, leaving hun- 
 dreds and hundreds of his dead and wounded on the 
 field. With a few lanterns our men then went about 
 and tried to gather up the wounded; the dead were 
 left till morning. There were 782 Union men lying 
 there in their blood that long night, 608 of them out 
 of a single small brigade. While mothers and sis- 
 ters at home were praying for the safety of these dear 
 ones at the front, their spirits that night were leav- 
 ing their torn bodies in the dark and ascending 
 heavenward. Five of my eight messmates of the day 
 before were shot. It was not a question who was 
 dead, or wounded, but who was not. Fifteen officers 
 of our little half regiment were dead or wounded. 
 The enemy lost more than one thousand men in try- 
 ing to destroy that single brigade and its Ohio 
 battery. 
 
 The burying party the next morning found nine- 
 teen dead Eebels lying together at one place. At 
 another spot 182 Rebel corpses lay in a row covered 
 by tarpaulins. The enemy had not had time to bury 
 them. 
 
 It was a principle among our generals that if a 
 command fought well in a battle or got cut all to 
 
WITH FIRE AiSTD SWORD 33 
 
 pieces, that was tlie particular command to be put 
 at the very front in the next hard scrap. And so it 
 was that within two weeks my regiment was placed 
 outside the breastworks at Corinth, to wait and re- 
 ceive another awful assault. 
 
 The night before the battle of Corinth the Fifth 
 Iowa Regiment lay across the Purdy road, in the 
 bright moonlight. I remained awake all night, talk- 
 ing with a comrade who shared my blanket with me. 
 Poor Jimmy King! he survived the war only to be 
 murdered later on a plantation in Mississippi. As 
 we lay there in the wagon road, the awful losses of 
 my regiment at luka kept us thinking there in the 
 moonlight what would happen on the morrow. When 
 morning came the firing opened, and for all that day 
 the battle raged fiercely at the left and center left, 
 we getting the worst of it, too. The Rebels were 
 charging works that they themselves had built when 
 they held the town during Halleck's siege. General 
 Haccelman and many other of our officers had fallen. 
 Our own division, though fighting some, had lost 
 but few men. That evening an order came for lis — 
 Hamilton's Division — to assault the enemy's left 
 flank at midnight. Before the hour came, however, 
 the move was decided to be too dangerous, and w*» 
 changed our position to one nearer the forts. Al! 
 the night we lay there under the brightest moonlight 
 
34 WITH FIKE AND SWOKD 
 
 I ever saw. Under the same quiet moonliglit, aud 
 only six hundred yards away from us, also lay the 
 victorious Rebel army. They believed Corinth as 
 good as taken, but they had only captured our outer 
 lines of forts. Yet it looked very bad for us. Every 
 house in town was full of our wounded and our dead 
 lay everywhere. 
 
 Once in the night I slipped away from the biv- 
 ouac and hurried to the old Tishimingo Hotel, to 
 see a lieutenant of my company, who had been shot 
 through the breast. Never will I forget the horrible 
 scenes of that night. The town seemed full of the 
 groans of dying men. In one large room of the 
 Tishimingo House surgeons worked all the night, 
 cutting off arms and legs. I could not help my 
 friend. It was too late, for he was dying. "Go 
 back to the regiment,'' he said, smiling, "all will 
 be needed." 
 
 It was a relief to me to get back into the moon- 
 light and out of the horror, yet out there lay thou- 
 sands of others in line, only waiting the daylight to 
 be also mangled and torn like these. The moon 
 shone so brightly the men in the lines, tired though 
 they were, could scarcely sleep. There the thou- 
 sands lay, the blue and the gray, under the same 
 peaceful moon, worshiping the same God, and each 
 praying for dear ones North and South they would 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 35 
 
 never again see. God could not answer the prayers 
 of the men in both armies that night. Had He done 
 so, all would have been killed on the morrow. At 
 early daybreak I again went to see my lieutenant. 
 As I entered the building a cannonball from the 
 enemy crashed through the house and killed four 
 soldiers by the stairway. My friend, with many 
 others, was being carried out to die elsewhere. 
 
 It was soon full day. In one of the rooms I saw 
 the floors, tables, and chairs covered with amputated 
 limbs, some white and some broken and bleeding. 
 There were simply bushels of them, and the floor 
 was running blood. It was a strange, horrible sight, 
 — but it was war. Yes, it was ''hell." I hastened back 
 to the lines. Nine o'clock came, and now we knew 
 that the great assault was to be made. We looked 
 for it against our own division, as we lay in the 
 grass waiting. Suddenly we heard something, al- 
 most like a distant whirlwind. My regiment rose to 
 its feet, fired a few moments at scattering Rebels 
 in our front, and were amazed to see a great black 
 column, ten thousand strong, moving like a mighty 
 storm-cloud out of the woods and attacking the forts 
 and troops at our left. Instantly we changed direc- 
 tion a little and, without further firing, witnessed 
 one of the greatest assaults of any war. It was the 
 storming of Fort Robinett. The cloud of Rebels 
 
36 WITH PIKE AND SWOED 
 
 we had seen divided itself into three columns. These 
 recklessly advanced on the forts, climbing over the 
 fallen trees and bending their heads against the aw- 
 ful storm of grape and canister from all onr cannon. 
 A perfect blaze of close range musketry, too, mowed 
 them down like grass. Even a foe could feel pity to 
 see brave men so cruelly slaughtered. 
 
 When the assault had failed and the noise of battle 
 was stilled, I hurried down in front of Kobinett. 
 My canteen was full of water and I pressed it to 
 the lips of many a dying enemy — enemy no longer. 
 Our grape shot had torn whole companies of men to 
 pieces. They lay in heaps of dozens, even close up to 
 the works. General Rogers, who had led a brigade 
 into the hopeless pit, lay on his back, dead, with 
 his flag in his hand. He was the fifth one to die 
 carrying that flag. When I reached him some cruel 
 one had stripped him of his boots. Another had 
 taken his fine gold watch. 
 
 In this attack on Corinth the brave Southerners 
 lost 5000 w^ounded, and we buried 1423 of their 
 dead on the battlefield. Our own loss had been 2200 
 dead and wounded. That night I stood guard under 
 an oak tree on the battlefield among the unburied 
 dead. Many of the wounded, even, had not yet been 
 gathered up. The moon shone as brightly as the 
 night before, while thousands who had lain there 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 37 
 
 under its peaceful rays before the battle were now 
 again sleeping, but never to waken. 
 
 Our regiment now pursued the flying Rebels with 
 great vigor. The quantities of broken batteries, 
 wagons, tents, knapsacks, guns, etc., strewn along 
 the roads behind them were immense. At the 
 Hatchie River the Rebels were momentarily headed 
 off by a division under Hurlbut that had hurried 
 across from Bolivar. A seven hours' battle was 
 fought at the bridge, but the Rebels got away in 
 another direction. Possibly the best friend I had in 
 the world, save my kin, was killed at that bridge. 
 It was Lieutenant William Dodd, a classmate in 
 school. His head was shot off by a cannonball just 
 as his regiment was charging at the bridge. 
 
 The pursuit of the enemy was being pushed with 
 vigor when the army was ordered to desist and re- 
 turn to camp. It was an astounding order, as it was 
 in our power to destroy the defeated and flying 
 columns. That order was one of the mistakes of 
 Grant's earlier days as a commander. Indeed, we of 
 the rank and file had little confidence in Grant in 
 those days. We reflected that at Shiloh he was miles 
 away from the battlefield at the critical moment. 
 Sherman had saved the Union army from destruction 
 there. At luka, Grant, though commander, did not 
 even know a battle was going on. At Corinth he was 
 
38 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 forty miles away, and now, when we had the enemy 
 almost within our grasp, he suddenly called us back. 
 Rosecrans protested. It was in vain. The order, 
 more imperative than before, was repeated. It re- 
 quired months, and great events, to make Grant the 
 hero of the army which he afterward became. 
 
 This entry I find in my diary in one of those 
 days: '^Our commander of the district is General 
 U. S. Grant, who took Donelson; but aside from 
 that one hour's fighting, and a little fighting at 
 Shiloh, the troops know little about him. Rosecrans 
 is at present the hero of this army, and, with him 
 leading it, the boys would storm Hades." 
 
 With the mercury at one hundred, the dust in the 
 roads ankle deep, and the whole atmosphere yellow 
 and full of it, the regiments exhausted by the pur- 
 suit, and yet disgusted at our recall, slowly tramped 
 their way back to Corinth. IN'ow I visited my 
 wounded companions in the hospital. On inquiry 
 for certain ones I learned that they were dead and 
 lying out in the improvised graveyard near by. 
 
 For some reason the dead at Hatchie Bridge were 
 not buried. A week after the battle my brother 
 rode by there on a cavalry expedition and made the 
 horrible discovery that hogs were eating up the bodies 
 of our dead heroes. That too was ivar. 
 
 We now camped on the edge of the town and went 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 39 
 
 on building still other and greater forts. Many of the 
 soldiers made hnts for themselves. It was getting 
 cooler now, and little fireplaces were built in the 
 huts and tents. Brick was scarce, and in a few in- 
 stances the men used the stone slabs from a grave- 
 yard close at hand. It seemed vandalism, but the 
 dead did not need them and the living did. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 An unlucky campaign led by General Grant — Holly Springs 
 burned up — The first foragers — Some modern Falstaffs 
 — Counting dead men. 
 
 In a month's time, or bj !N*ovember 2, 1862, the 
 army, reorganized, onr division led by Quimby, and 
 Grant in command of the whole force, started on that 
 very first disastrous campaign for the rear of Vicks- 
 burg. Grant had some thirty thousand soldiers to 
 march with him by way of Grand Junction and 
 Holly Springs, and another thirty thousand men, 
 under Sherman, he sent down the Mississippi River 
 to attack Yicksburg from another direction. We 
 marched in mud and wind and rain till nearly 
 Christmas, the enemy constantly retreating before 
 us. We made a tremendous supply station at Holly 
 Springs and left it in charge of a garrison. There 
 were supplies there for a hundred thousand men, be- 
 sides a million dollars' worth of captured cotton. 
 
 Just as we were confident of overtaking and de- 
 stroying the enemy, we were stunned by the tidings 
 that a great column of Rebel cavalry had dashed in 
 
 40 
 
WITH FIKE AND SWOKD 41 
 
 behind our army. With torches and firebrands thej 
 had burned Holly Springs to the ground, and had 
 destroyed all the army stores. There was not a 
 potato or cracker or a pound of bacon left. How I 
 remember that dark night when Van Dorn's cavalry 
 got behind us in the country lanes of Mississippi! 
 I had been started back to a hospital in Holly 
 Springs, for my eyes had been inflamed for days. 
 Just as my little freight train reached the suburb of 
 what had been the town, the rear guard of the enemy 
 rode out at the other side. The morning that I 
 arrived there was nothing there but smoke, and ashes, 
 and ruins, and a smell of coal oil over all. A million 
 dollars' worth of our army supplies had been burned 
 up in a night. The pretty town, too, was in ashes, 
 and Van Horn's bold cavalry swung their sabers in 
 the air and rode away laughing. General Grant's 
 father and mother, in the town at the time on their 
 way to visit their illustrious son with the advance 
 of the army, were captured, but politely paroled and 
 left among the ruins. 
 
 The loss of the town was a disgrace to the ^North. 
 There was a fort there, solidly built of cotton bales 
 and occupied by a colonel and a thousand troops. 
 The colonel forgot what our ancestors did with cotton 
 bales at ISTevv Orleans, and promptly threw up the 
 sponge. But then Colonel Murphy was not General 
 
42 WITH FIEE AND SWOED 
 
 Jackson. Witli the loss of Holly Springs and the 
 destruction of our base of supplies there was nothing 
 for that whole army of Grant's to do hut to trudge its 
 weary way back to Corinth and Memphis, through 
 the mud and the wind and the rain. 
 
 The tragical part of that campaign was taking 
 place at the same moment down by the Yazoo River, 
 right under the guns of Vicksburg. Grant, when he 
 marched out of Memphis, had sent Sherman and 
 thirty thousand men down the river in steamboats 
 to attack Vicksburg from one side while he should 
 hurry along with another thirty thousand men and 
 pound it from the other side. Sherman and his 
 heroes made the awful assaults at Chickasaw bayou 
 we read of, never dreaming of the fiasco that had be- 
 fallen the main army at Holly Springs. 'Not one 
 w^ord of the news ever reached him — and then in 
 swamps and bayous his soldiers waded in water half- 
 way to their necks and assaulted impregnable hills 
 and breastworks. Two thousand men were killed 
 or mangled to no purpose. Some of the heroic fight- 
 ing of the war was done in that Yazoo slaughter pen, 
 and then Sherman and his crippled army withdrew in 
 utter failure. 
 
 Vicksburg was safe for awhile. 
 
 My own duty in that unlucky campaign with 
 Grant had been to search the country in the neigh- 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWOED 43 
 
 borhood of our camps and bivouacs for additional 
 supplies. Many a time, with a dozen or twenty men 
 for guards, and a couple of six-mule teams, we would 
 venture miles from camp to confiscate bacon, flour, 
 poultry, or whatever else a soldier could eat. On 
 my return to the regiment with a wagon full of good 
 things, the companies would set up a cheer for tho 
 quartermaster sergeant. The colonel always allowed 
 me to choose the guards who should accompany me. 
 Many a time our little squad got back to camp by 
 the skin of their teeth, chased by gaierrillas or some 
 wandering band of Rebel cavalry. Our habit was, 
 when we found a plantation with something to spare 
 on it, to post sentinels in the lanes in every direction, 
 while a few of us w^ith the aid of the negroes loaded the 
 wagons. If all went well, the procession, followed by 
 the slaves we freed and took with us, went back to 
 camp in state. Sometimes there was indecorous haste 
 in getting home, owing to our sentinel firing his 
 gun in warning of near danger. More than one of 
 the boys of those venturous excursions, to this day, 
 have not yet come back to camp. 
 
 On one of these excursions one day we were sur- 
 prised by a little party of rangers, but we took their 
 leader captive, and with him a fine Kentucky 
 charger and a splendid rifle. The brigade colonel pre- 
 sented to me the rifle I mvself had captured, for my 
 
44 WITH FIKE AND SWOED 
 
 '^bravery," Ii3 said, but the cplendid thoroughbred he 
 took for himself. Alas ! this rifle, the testimonial of 
 my adventure, was burned up when the Rebel cavalry 
 took Holly Springs. I had left it there to send [N'orth 
 some day. 
 
 These excursions after food that I have described 
 must have been the forerunners of Sherman's great 
 forage parties later, on his "march to the sea." It 
 was easy enough to feed an army that way, if men 
 could be found to take the risk. Sherman's later 
 forage parties were so strong that the risk was re- 
 duced to fun. 
 
 I copy from my diary here (1862) : 
 
 "Kow the enemy is in front of us. He is on our 
 flank and all around us. It is dangerous to venture 
 a mile from camp alone. In fact, orders are strict 
 for every man and every oflScer to stay close to hia 
 regiment day or night. 
 
 "On all the plantations along our way in this cam- 
 paign there are signs of war. The cotton gins, the 
 fences, the barns, are all gone, — ^burned by raiders 
 of both armies, who have scouted through this same 
 country time and again. The weather is often 
 gloomy; the fenceless fields are brown and naked; 
 the big houses left standing on the plantations look 
 lone and desolate. There is no song of birds. The 
 army wagons, in long trains, and the soldiers in 
 
WITH riHE AND SWORD 45 
 
 great strung-out coluiQiis of blue, go over the soft 
 ground across the fields, along what once was lanes 
 and country roads, almost in silence. Here and 
 there a skirmish of musketry at some creek crossing 
 or at some wood is the only noise heard. This state 
 of Mississippi, like the whole South, sees the desola- 
 tion of war. But the big, white, lone houses on tho 
 deserted lawns, with their low verandas about them, 
 are not wholly unoccupied. Though the aiTQS-bearing 
 men of the country are every one in the army fight- 
 ing US, the women and the children and the slaves 
 are still at home. These slaves desert their mis- 
 tresses and ccme into the Union camps at night by 
 hundreds, bearing their bundles on their heads and 
 their pickaninnies under their arms. 
 
 "As Rebel cavalry bands are rioting all around us, 
 the strictest orders are given about leaving camp. 
 But those who slipped away without leave the often- 
 est were themselves officers. Numbers of these went 
 off almost nightly, to pay their devoirs to ladies 
 whom they happened to admire at neighboring plan- 
 tations. These women, glad enough of the compli- 
 ments of the Federal officers, let it be very clearly 
 understood that they were nevertheless true-blue 
 Rebels. Things as to the war were simply glossed 
 over in conversation, and both the lady and the of- 
 ficer sometimes had a delightful evening, even if 
 
46 WITH FIRE A:^D SWOED 
 
 the delight on the officer^s part was in violation of 
 duty. Sometimes these visits led to ridiculous ter- 
 minations. War is not all tragedy." 
 
 Again I copy from the journal of that December: 
 "The other night three of the officers of our bri- 
 gade, Captain H and Lieutenants D-^^ and 
 
 got themselves into a pretty mess by leaving 
 
 camp to visit at a plantation. The laughable facts 
 are these: We had stopped two or three days, to 
 mend bridges over the Yocona River. General Grant 
 had asked our brigade commander to report the 
 names of three officers for promotion. Captain 
 
 H and two lieutenants were selected. Among 
 
 the private soldiers these men were not regarded as 
 deserving honor. On the contrary, they were looked 
 upon as common braggarts. Some politician at 
 home, probably, had moved the wires for their pro- 
 motion. As it happened, these three officers were 
 the worst offenders of all, as to leaving camp with- 
 out orders for the purpose of visiting Rebel ladies 
 at neighboring plantations. Some of the staff heard 
 of this and determined to unmask them. Some Rebel 
 uniforms were secured from prisoners in our hands, 
 and one dark night when the captain and his friends 
 
 were away from camp at the home of a Mrs. S^ , 
 
 visiting, a dozen of us in disguise were sent to sur- 
 round the house. Instantly there was a cry among 
 
WITH FIEE AND SWOED 47 
 
 the women of "guerrillas!" "Confederates!" "Con- 
 federates !" "Friends !" and a bonny blue Rebel flag 
 was waved in the doorway. We were indeed a des- 
 perate-looking lot, but the women met the supposed 
 Rebel guerrillas almost with embraces. The captain 
 and his two lieutenants we pulled from under the 
 bed by their heels, and threatened them with instant 
 death. The women begged us only not to kill them 
 in the house. The officers, on their knees, pleaded 
 for their lives. It was agreed that they should sim- 
 ply give up their swords, be paroled, and allowed 
 to return to camp. At headquarters the next morn- 
 ing, in explanation of the loss of their swords, they 
 told a wonderful and Falstaffian tale of being over- 
 whelmed by Van Dorn's guerrillas the night before, 
 and of their miraculous escape to camp. That mo- 
 ment they were confronted with their surrendered 
 swords and their signatures to their paroles. There 
 was a fine collapse at headquarters that morning. 
 The names of the three gentlemen were sent to Gen- 
 eral Grant the same day, I understand. But not for 
 promotion." 
 
 I had a little taste of life in the hospital that 
 December. My eyes got worse. For a little time I 
 was in a fine private home in Holly Springs, for 
 the town, after its burning by Van Dorn, had been 
 retaken by us. Every room in the house had its 
 
48 WITH FIEE AND SWORD 
 
 floors filled with the sick and the dying of both 
 armies. Long years after that, while on shipboard 
 returning from Europe, I made by chance the ac- 
 quaintance of Mrs. Kate Sherwood Bonner, the 
 authoress, who as a girl had lived in Holly Springs. 
 We talked of the war times, and it transpired that 
 the mansion where I had witnessed such distressful 
 scenes among the dead and dying was her father's 
 home. 
 
 I saw General Grant's father and mother there 
 in Holly Springs daily. At the capture of the town 
 they had been taken as stated, and released, the 
 father on parole. 
 
 I was now sent to Memphis, as I was still in hospi- 
 tal. The hospital here was in the old Overton Hotel, 
 which was crowded with hundreds of wounded. The 
 room used as a dead house was filled every night. It 
 was across the court and below my own room. I 
 could see the corpses distinctly, as the window was 
 left open. It was my habit, a strange one, when I 
 awoke in the morning, to look over and count the 
 corpses of men who had been carried in there while I 
 had been sleeping. It seems now a ghastly business 
 enough. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The laughable campaign of the war — Au army floating 
 among the tree tops of the Yazoo Pass. 
 
 In a little time, February, 1863, Grant's army 
 was again off to try for Vicksburg. This time it was 
 to go on that campaign, so laughable now, but ro- 
 mantic always, called the ^^Yazoo Pass expedition." 
 We were to go down the Mississippi River in big 
 steamers to Helena, and there transfer ourselves on 
 to a fleet of little steamers, cut the levee into the 
 overflooded country, and try floating a w^hole army a 
 hundred miles across the plantations and swamps of 
 Mississippi. 
 
 My eyes were well again, and I was happy to join 
 our regiment and be one of the aquatic throng. Just 
 as we were getting on to the boat at Memphis two of 
 my company managed to get shot by the provost 
 guard. They had been full of liquor, and refused 
 to go to the steamer. They had been heroes at luka. 
 How unlucky now to get crippled for life in a 
 drunken brawl ! 
 
 49 
 
50 WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 
 
 On the 22 d of March, near Helena, my regiment 
 went aboard the pretty little schooner called the 
 Armada. Shortly, dozen of these small boats, crowded 
 with regiments, accompanied by gunboats, were float- 
 ing about, awaiting the order to sail through a big cut 
 that our engineers had made in the river levee and 
 get down the pass into Moon Lake. The Mississippi 
 was high and raging. All the low-lying country for 
 half a hundred miles was flooded till it looked like 
 a vast sea, with forests of trees standing in its midst. 
 Here and there, too, a plantation, higher than the 
 surrounding country, was noticeable. The first pass 
 into Moon Lake was but a mile long. But through 
 that pass swirled and roared the waters of the Mis- 
 sissippi, so suddenly let loose by the break in the 
 levee. 
 
 At just four in the evening our little steamer got 
 the order to turn out of the river and into the rush- 
 ing waters of the pass. We would not have been 
 more excited at being told to start over Niagara Falls. 
 Our engines are working backward and we enter the 
 crevasse slowly, but in five minutes the fearful, eddy- 
 ing current seized us, and our boat was whirled 
 round and round like a toy skiff in a washtub. We 
 all held our breath as the steamer was hurled among 
 floating logs and against overhanging trees. In ten 
 minutes the rushing torrent had carried us, back- 
 
WITH FIEE AND SWORD 51 
 
 ward, down into the little lake. I^ot a soul of the 
 five hundred on board the boat in this crazy ride was 
 lost. Once in the lake we stopped, and with amaze- 
 ment watched other boats, crowded with soldiers, also 
 drift into the whirl and be swept down the pass. It 
 was luck, not management, that half the little army 
 was not droAvned. 
 
 'No\Y for days and days our little fleet coursed its 
 way toward Vicksburg among the plantations, 
 swamps, woods, bayous, cane-brakes, creeks, and 
 rivers of that inland sea. Wherever the water 
 seemed deepest that was our course, but almost every 
 hour projecting stumps and trees had to be sawn 
 off under the water to allow our craft to get through. 
 Sometimes we advanced only four or ^ve miles a day. 
 At night the boat would be tied to some tall syca- 
 more. Here and there we landed at some plantation 
 that seemed like an island in the flood. The negroes 
 on the plantation, amazed at our coming, wondered 
 if it was the day of Jubilee or if it was another 
 N^oah's flood and that these iron gunboats arks of 
 safety. 
 
 We soldiers, if not on duty pushing the boat away 
 from trees, had nothing to do but sleep and eat and 
 read. Most of the soldiers slept on the decks, on 
 the guards, and on the cabin floors. Four of us had 
 a little stateroom. I had with me a copy of Shake- 
 
52 WITH FIKE AND SWOED 
 
 speare, cribbed bj one of the boys somewhere, and 
 the Bard of Avon was never studied under stranger 
 circumstances. 
 
 The Yazoo Pass, though not so crazy as the cre- 
 vasse we had come through, v/as nevertheless bad and 
 dangerous. Two of our craft sank to the bottom, 
 but the soldiers w^ere saved by getting into trees. 
 All the boats were torn half to pieces. One day as 
 we pushed our way along the crooked streams amid 
 the vine-covered forests we ran onto a Eebel fort 
 built on a bit of dry land. In front of it were great 
 rafts that completely obstructed our way. An ocean 
 steamer was also sunk in the channel in front of us. 
 To our amazement we learned that it was the Star 
 of the West, the ship that received the first shot fired 
 in the war of the Eebellion. That was when it was 
 trying to take supplies to Fort Sumter. Our gun- 
 boats shelled this ^Tort Greenwood" in vain, and 
 now Eebels were gathering around and behind us and 
 guerrillas were beginning to fire on the boats. The 
 waters, too, might soon subside, and our fleet and 
 army be unable to get back into the Mississippi. We 
 could not go ahead. Suddenly the orders came to 
 turn about and steam as fast as possible to a place of 
 safety. 
 
 By April 8 we had made the journey through 
 the woods and cane-brake back to the pass. The pic- 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 63 
 
 turesque farce was ended. We could now hunt some 
 other road to Vicksburg. We know nothing of what 
 the generals thought of this fiasco, but we private 
 soldiers had great fun, and the long stay on the boats 
 had been a rest from hard campaigning. We had not 
 lost a man. A whole campaign and not a soldier 
 lost! 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Grant's new plan at Vicksburg — Running the Vicksburg 
 batteries — An hour and a half of horror — The batteries 
 are passed — The most important event in the war. 
 
 The attempt on Vicksburg was not to be given up'. 
 In the spring of 1863 the whole armj moved down 
 the Mississippi to begin one of the most noted cam- 
 paigns of history. 
 
 A real sane notion had gotten hold of Grant, and 
 of scarcely anyone else. That notion was, if possible, 
 to get across the Mississippi below the town (Sher- 
 man had failed trying it above) and throw the whole 
 army on to the fortifications at the rear. If the 
 town's defenders should be bold and come out and 
 fight us, so much the better. We wanted that. 
 
 Soon General Grant built long stretches of wagon 
 roads and corduroy bridges that ran snakelike for 
 forty miles among the black swamps, cane-brakes, 
 and lagoons on the west bank of the Mississippi 
 River. He then marched half his army down these 
 roads to a point below Vicksburg, below Grand Gulf, 
 and bivouacked them on the shore of the river. The 
 other half, of which my regiment was a part, re- 
 
 54 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 55 
 
 mained near the river above the city. Possibly we 
 were twenty-five thousand men there. 
 
 One night these twenty-five thousand bivouacked 
 along the levees of the great river were all in great 
 excitement. "Coming events were casting their 
 shadows before." 
 
 It must have been some great event was about 
 to happen that April night of 1863, for the Assis- 
 tant Secretary of War was there, and General Grant 
 and General Sherman were there, waiting and watch- 
 ing in the greatest suspense. What was going to 
 happen ? Some one hundred and fifty private soldiers 
 were going to perform a deed that should help make 
 American history. The success of a whole array 
 and the capture of the best fortified city on the Ameri- 
 can continent depended on the heroism of this hand- 
 ful of private soldiers on this April night, l^o 
 wonder the government at Washington sat by the 
 telegraph and anxiously awaited every scrap of news 
 sent from Grant's army before Vicksburg. He was 
 to open the Mississippi River. That very day, al- 
 most, the government at Washington sent a letter 
 urging General Grant to hurry. "In my opinion," 
 telegraphed General Halleck for the President, 'HMs 
 is the most important operation of the war. To 
 open the Mississippi River would he better than the 
 capture of forty Richmonds." 
 
56 WITH EIRE AND SWORD 
 
 General Grant realized the mighty things he had at 
 stake. 
 
 But what availed it to collect his soldiers there ? 
 In front of him, in high flood, swept the mightiest 
 river on the continent; he had not a boat to cross 
 with, and the enemy laughed and dared him from 
 the other side. His fleet of steamboats was forty 
 miles and more up the river, and between him and 
 that fleet were four miles of hostile batteries strong 
 enough to blow a fleet to pieces. In fact, every hill, 
 hollow, and secret place above and below the city hid 
 a dozen cannon. All the way from Vicksburg down 
 to Warrentown was a fort. 
 
 What could be done? Without some steamers on 
 which to cross, the game was blocked, and Vicksburg, 
 strong as Sebastopol itself, might stand there forever 
 and the Mississippi River be blockaded to the end of 
 the war. Two or three of Grant^s ironclad gimboats 
 had run past these awful batteries one night, their 
 sides banged to pieces and their iron mail scooped 
 up as if it had been made of putty. One of them 
 was sunk. But these iron tubs could not serve as 
 ferryboats for forty thousand men. Then, the scheme 
 was proposed to cover some of the wooden steamboats 
 with cotton bales and on a dark night try and rush 
 them past the batteries. The boat captains, however, 
 would not risk it with their own crews, even had they 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWOED 57 
 
 as a rule been willing, and so the commands of the 
 army asked for volunteers from the private soldiers. 
 Desperate as the undertaking seemed, one hundred 
 and fifty Union soldiers stepped forward and offered 
 to run these steamboats past the guns. The writer 
 was one of these volunteers. But too many had of- 
 fered to take the risk. The required number w^as 
 selected by lot, and the most I could do that historic 
 night was to stand on the river levee in the dark 
 and watch my comrades perform one of the most 
 heroic acts of any war. It was hardly a secret. The 
 whole army was excited over the desperate proposal. 
 The enemy must have heard of it, and been doubly 
 prepared to destroy us. "If Grant's attempt prove 
 successful he can destroy the whole Confederate army, 
 take Vicksburg, and open the Mississippi Eiver.'^ 
 ^o wonder the Washington officials sat by the tele- 
 graph day and night just then awaiting great news. 
 
 The moon was down by ten o'clock of the night of 
 April 16. Under the starlight one hardly saw the 
 dark river or the cane-brakes, swamps, and lagoons 
 along its border. The whole Northern fleet lay an- 
 chored in silence. Grant's army too, down below, 
 was silent and waiting. A few miles below us lay 
 Vicksburg, dark, sullen, and sleeping. Not a gun 
 was being fired. A few lonesome Confederate river 
 guards floated above the town in rowboats watching 
 
58 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 to give the alarm at the approach of any foe on the 
 water. 
 
 Three mysterious looking I^orthern steamboats, 
 with crews of volunteer soldiers on board, lay out 
 in the middle of the Mississippi Eiver in front of 
 Milliken's Bend, a dozen miles above Vicksburg. 
 Down in the dark hold of each vessel stand a dozen 
 determined men. They have boards, and pressed 
 cotton, and piles of gunny sacks beside them there, to 
 stop up holes that shall be made pretty soon by the 
 cannon of the enemy. They have none of war's 
 noise and excitement to keep them up — only its sus- 
 pense. They are helpless. If anything happens 
 they will go to the bottom of the river without a 
 word. Above the decks the pilot-houses are taken off 
 and the pliot wheels are down by the bows, and the 
 pilot will stand there wholly exposed. Lashed to 
 the sides of each of the three little steamers are barged 
 piled up with bales of hay and cotton. They look 
 like floating breastworks. Anchored still a little fur- 
 ther down the stream seven gunboats also wait in 
 silence. They will lead these steamboats and try the 
 batteries first. The boats must all move two hun- 
 dred yards apart. That is the order. 
 
 All is suspense. For a little while the night grows 
 darker and more silent ; the moon now is do"wn. The 
 thousands of soldiers standing on the levee waiting. 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 59 
 
 and watcliing to see them start, almost bold their 
 breath. At the boats there is no noise save the 
 gurgling of the water as it grinds past the hulls of 
 the anchored vessels. That is all the noise the men 
 waiting down in the dimly lighted hulls can hear. 
 On a little tug, near by, General Grant, the com- 
 mander of the Western armies, waits and listens. 
 The Assistant Secretary of War is at his side. In 
 a yawl, farther down the stream. General Sherman 
 ventures far out on the dark river to watch events. 
 All is ready, all is suspense. Just then a lantern on 
 the levee is moved slowly up and down. It is the 
 signal to start. Down in Yicksburg the unexpectant 
 enemy sleeps. Their guards out on the river, too, al- 
 most sleep ; all is so safe. Quietly we lift anchors 
 and float off with the current. Our wheels are not 
 moving. There is a great bend in the river, and as 
 we round it the river guard wakened, sends up a 
 rocket, other rockets too go up all along the eastern 
 or Yicksburg shore. That instant, too, a gun is fired 
 from a neighboring bluff. We are discovered. "Put 
 on all steam," calls the captain, and our boats move 
 swiftly into the maelstrom of sulphur and iron, for 
 the enemy opens fire vigorously. The enemy sets 
 houses on fire all along the levee to illuminate the 
 river, bonfires are lighted everywhere, and suddenly 
 the whole night seems but one terrific roar of cannon. 
 
60 WITH FIEE A^B SWOKD 
 
 The burning houses make the river almost as light 
 as day. We see the people in the streets of the town 
 running and gesticulating as if all were mad; their 
 men at the batteries load and fire and yell as if every 
 shot sunk a steamboat. On the west side of the river 
 the lagoons and cane-brakes look weird and danger- 
 ous. The sky above is black, lighted only by sparks 
 from the burning houses. Down on the river it is a 
 sheet of flame. One of the steamers and a few of 
 the barges have caught fire and are burning up, the 
 men escaping in life-boats and by swimming to the 
 western shore. The excitement of the moment is 
 maddening, the heavy fire appalling, while the 
 musketry on the shore barks and bites at the unpro- 
 tected pilots on the boats. Ten-inch cannon and 
 great columbiads hurl their shot and shell into the 
 cotton breastworks of the barges or through the 
 rigging of the steamers. The gunboats tremble from 
 the impact of shot against their sides, and at times 
 the little steamers are caught in the powerful eddies 
 of the river and are whirled three times around right 
 in front of the hot firing batteries. 
 
 Five "hundred and twenty-five shells and cannon- 
 halls are hurled at the hurrying -fleet. The flash of 
 the guns, the lisrht of the blazing houses, m_ake the 
 night seem n horrible tempest of lightning and 
 thunder. Sherman, sitting out there alone in his 
 
WITH FIKE AND SWORD 61 
 
 jawl on the dark river, has witnessed awful spec- 
 tacles, but this is the sight of a lifetime. ^'It was," 
 he exclaimed, ''a picture of the terrible not often 
 seen." And amid all this roar and thunder and 
 lightning and crash of cannonballs above, the men 
 down in the holds of the boats — they are the real 
 heroes — stand in the dim candle-light waiting, help- 
 less, ignorant of events, and in terrible suspense, 
 while sounds like the crash of worlds go on above 
 their heads. Once some of them climb up to the 
 hatchways and look out into the night. One look is 
 enough! What a sight! The whole Mississippi 
 River seems on fire, the roar of the gunboats an- 
 swering the howling cannon on the shore, the terrific 
 lightnings from the batteries, the screeching shells 
 above the decks. It was as if hell itself were loose that 
 night on the Mississippi River. For one hour and 
 thirty minutes the brave men stood speechless in the 
 holds of the boats while hell's hurricane went on 
 above. They lived an age in that hour and a half, 
 and yet a thousand of us in Grant's army tried to 
 volunteer that v/e, too, might have this awful experi- 
 ence. 
 
 Daylight saw the little fleet safe below Yicksburg, 
 where thousands of soldiers welcomed it with cheers. 
 No such deed had ever been done in the world be- 
 fore. Only one boat and some barges were lost, and 
 
62 WITH FIRE AN^D SWORD 
 
 only a few of the soldiers were hurt. The cotton 
 bales had proved a miracle of defense. In a week 
 still other steamers, though with greater loss, passed 
 the batteries. 
 
 We know the rest. On these same boats Grant's 
 army would ferry across the Mississippi, and there 
 on the other side fight five battles and win them all. 
 Vicksburg will be surrounded and assaulted and 
 pounded and its soldiers starved, till, on the nation's 
 birthday, thirty thousand of its brave defenders will 
 lay down their arms forever. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Crossing the Mississippi on gunboats and steamers — 
 Battle of Port Gibson — How General Grant looked to 
 a private soldier — A boy from Mississippi — Fights at 
 Raymond — Battle of Jackson in a thunderstorm — 
 Digging his brothers' grave — Grant in battle — Sav- 
 ing a flag — How men feel in battle — An awful spectacle 
 — The critical moment of General Grant's life — A battle- 
 field letter from him to Sherman. 
 
 Now that the boats were below the city, we were 
 to begin the Vicksburg campaign in earnest. All the 
 troops that had been left camped on the river levee 
 above at Milliken's Bend hurried by roundabout 
 roads through cane-brakes and swamps to the point 
 where our little boats had anchored after running 
 past the batteries that night. Here we joined the 
 rest of the army, and the ferrying of thousands of 
 soldiers across the great river day and night at once 
 commenced. 
 
 My own regiment was put on to one of the iron 
 gunboats and ferried over the Mississippi at a point 
 close to Grand Gulf. Here our river navy had si- 
 lenced the Rebel forts. It was the first gunboat I had 
 
 63 
 
64 WITH FIHE AND SWOKD 
 
 ever seen. Its sides bore great scars, indentations 
 made by the enemy's batteries on the preceding day. 
 We hurried on and became a part of the reserve at 
 the hot battle of Port Gibson, as we ourselves did 
 no fighting. In a plantation yard, close by my regi- 
 ment, lay our wounded as they were carried back from 
 the front. It was a terrible sight. Many had been 
 torn by shrapnel and lay there on the grass in great 
 agony. Some seemed with their own hands to be 
 trying to tear their mangled limbs from their bodies. 
 The possession of all Vicksburg did not seem worth 
 the pain and the agony I saw there that afternoon. 
 That was war ; and it was ^'hell," sure enough. 
 
 The next day, when the battle was over, I was at 
 a negro cabin getting a loaf of corn bread. I sud- 
 denly heard a little cheering down by the river, 
 where some men were putting down pontoons in place 
 of the bridge burned by the enemy. I went down at 
 once, and as I stood by the river bank I noticed an 
 officer on horseback in full general's uniform. Sud- 
 denly he dismounted and came over to the very spot 
 where I was standing. I did not know his face, but 
 something told me it was Grant, — Ulysses Grant, — 
 at that moment the hero of the Western army. Solid 
 he stood, erect, about ^ve feet eight in height, with 
 square features, thin, closed lips, brown hair, brown 
 beard, both cut short, and neat. "He must weigh 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 65 
 
 one hundred and forty or fifty pounds. Looks just 
 like the soldier he is. I think he is larger than 
 l!^apoleon, but not much ; he is not so dumpy, his legs 
 are not so short, and his neck is not so short and 
 thick. He looks like a man in earnest, and the Rebels 
 think he is one." 
 
 This was the first time I saw Grant. I think T 
 still possess some of the feeling that came over me at 
 that moment as I stood so near to one who held our 
 lives, and possibly his country's life, in his hands. 
 How little I dreamed that some day I ^vould have the 
 great honor of sitting beside him at my own table. 
 Yet this occurred. 
 
 Now he spoke, "Men, push right along: clope up 
 fast, and hurry over." Two or three men on mules 
 attempted to wedge past the soldiers on the bridge. 
 Grant noticed it, and quietly said, "Lieutenant, ar- 
 rest those men and send them to tlie rear." Every 
 soldier passing turned to gaze on him. But there 
 was no further recognition. There was no Mc- 
 Clellan begging the boys to allow him to light his 
 cifi^ar by theirs ; no inquiring to what regiment that 
 exceedingly fine marching company belonged; there 
 was no Pope bullying the men for not marching 
 faster, reprovins: officers for neglecting trivial details 
 remembered only by martinets; there was no Bona- 
 parte posturing for effect; no pointing to the pyra- 
 
66 WITH FIRE A:N^D SWOED 
 
 mids, no calling the centuries to witness. There was 
 no nonsense, no sentiment. Only a plain business 
 man of the republic there for the one single purpose 
 of getting that army across the river in the shortest 
 time possible. In short, it was just plain General 
 Grant, as he appeared on his way to Yicksburg. On 
 a horse near by, and among the still mounted staff, 
 sat the General's son, a bright-looking lad of perhaps 
 eleven years. Fastened to his little waist by i\ broad 
 yellow belt was his father's sword — ^that sword on 
 whose clear steel was yet to be engraved "Vicksburg," 
 ''Spotsylvania," "The Wilderness," "Appomattox." 
 The boy talked and jested with the bronzed soldiers 
 near him, who laughingly inquired where we should 
 camp that night ; to which the young field marshal 
 replied, "Oh, over the river." 
 
 "Over the river!" Ah, that night we slept with 
 our guns in our hands, and another night, and an- 
 other, saw more than one of our division, and of my 
 own regiment, camped over the river — in that last 
 tenting ground — ^where the reveille was heard no 
 more forever. 
 
 My own command crossed the bridge that night 
 by torchlight. It was a strange weird scene. Many 
 of the Eebel dead — ^l^illed beyond the stream by our 
 cannon before our approach — still lay at the roadside 
 or in fields unburied. At one turn in the road my 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 67 
 
 regiment marclied close by a Rebel battery that had 
 been completely destroyed. Men, horses, and all 
 lay there dead in indiscriminate heaps. The face 
 of one boy lying there among the horses I shall never 
 forget. It was daylight now, the bright sun was just 
 rising, when I left the ranks a moment to step aside 
 to see that boy. He was lying on his back. His 
 face was young and fair, his beautiful brown hair 
 curled almost in ringlets, and his eyes, brown and 
 beautiful, were wide open; his hands were across 
 his breast. A cannonball had in an instant cut away 
 the top of his head in as straight a line as if it had 
 been done with a surgeon's saw. There had been no 
 time for agony or pain. The boy's lips were almost 
 in a smile. It was a Mississippi battery that had 
 been torn to pieces there, and it may be that in a 
 home near by a mother stood that morning praying 
 for her boy. The South had such war costs as well 
 as the North. 
 
 My regiment now entered on all those rapid 
 marches and battles in the rear of Vicksburg — Ray- 
 mond, Jackson, Champion Hills, and the assaults on 
 the breastworks about the city. For days we scarcely 
 slept at all; it was hurry here and quickstep there, 
 day or night. None of us soldiers or subordinates 
 could tell the direction we were marching. We had 
 few rations, little water, and almost no rest. We 
 
68 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 had left our base at the river, and in a large sense 
 we were cut olf and surrounded all the time. The 
 capture of a Rebel scout at once changed everything. 
 Through him Grant learned how hurrying divisions 
 of the enemy were about to unite. A quick move 
 could checkmate everything. Indeed, it was noth- 
 ing but a great game of chess that was being played, 
 only we, the moving pieces, had blood and life. At 
 one time Grant's army was as likely to be captured 
 as to capture. My regiment, like all the others, hur- 
 ried along the country roads through dust that came 
 to the shoe top. The atmosphere was yellow with it. 
 The moving of a column far away could be traced by 
 it. We followed it in the way that Joshua's army fol- 
 lowed the mighty cloud. As we passed farms where 
 there was something to eat the captains would call out 
 to a dozen men of the line to hurry in, carry off all 
 they could, and pass it over to the companies still 
 marching. It was a singular looking army. So 
 whole regiments tramped along with sides of bacon 
 or sheaves of oats on the points of their bayonets. We 
 dared not halt. When we bivouacked, long after 
 dark, often it was the dust of the roadside. We 
 always lay upon our arms. Sometimes there was a 
 little fire, oftener there was none. The fat bacon 
 was eaten raw. 
 
 My regiment was in advance at the engagement 
 
WITH FIRE AJSTD SWORD 69 
 
 at Raymond ; also at Jackson. At Jackson it rained 
 and thundered fearfully during the battle. A Rebel 
 battery was on a green slope right in front of us, 
 pouring a terrible shelling into- us as we approached 
 it from the Raymond road. The shocks of thunder 
 so intermingled with the shocks from the guns that 
 we could not tell the one from the other, and many 
 times a sudden crash of thunder caused us all to 
 drop to the ground, fearing a cannonball would cut 
 its swath through the regiment. We were marching 
 in columns of fours. Shortly, we formed line of 
 battle, and in rushing to the left through a great 
 canebrake, while we were advancing in battle line 
 under a fire of musketry, the order was given to lie 
 down. 
 
 We obeyed quickly. How closely, too, we hugged 
 the ground and the depression made by a little brook ! 
 While I lay there it happened that my major (Mar- 
 shall) was close behind me on horseback. He had 
 no orders to dismount. I could glance back and see 
 his face as the bullets zipped over our heads or past 
 him. He sat on his horse as quiet as a statue, save 
 that with his right hand he constantly twisted his 
 mustache. He looked straight into the cane-brake. 
 He was a brave man. Could the enemy behind the 
 forests of cane have seen where they were firing he 
 would not have lived a minute. Shortly there was 
 
70 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 roaring of cannon and quick charges at the other 
 side of the town. Jackson was won. 
 
 At daylight the next morning we hurried in the 
 direction of Champion Hills. At our left, as we 
 went down the road, the battlefield of the day be- 
 fore was strewn with corpses of our own men. In 
 a few minutes the brave Seventeenth Regiment of 
 Iowa had lost 80 men at this spot, out of 360 en- 
 gaged in an assault. My friend Captain Walden 
 received honorable mention, among others, for gal- 
 lantry in this Jackson charge. A few hundred 
 yards off I noticed a man in a field quite alone, dig- 
 ging in the ground. Out of curiosity I went to 
 him and asked what he was doing alone when the 
 regiments were all hurrying away. A brown 
 blanket covered something near by. He pointed to 
 it and said that two of his brothers lay dead under 
 that blanket. He was digging a grave for them. 
 He went on with his work and I hurried to over- 
 take my command. This was the 15th of May, 
 1863. I did not know it then, but shortly I was to 
 see General Grant in the midst of battle. I was 
 to see several other things, and feel some of them 
 also. 
 
 My situation as to the Fifth Regiment was 
 a peculiar one; being the quartermaster sergeant, 
 I belonged to no company in particular. The good 
 
WITH riEE AND SWOUD 71 
 
 colonel, however, knowing my love for adventure, 
 and that I was never lacking in duty, allowed- me 
 to attach myself to any company I liked, provided 
 only, that there was a reliable substitute perform- 
 ing my duties with the train at the rear. I had no 
 trouble in securing such a substitute, usually found 
 among the slightly wounded soldiers. 
 
 Since we crossed the Mississippi I had marched 
 and carried my rifle all the way, — ^had been in 
 every skirmish and engagement. Sometimes I 
 tramped along with my old Company B of ^Newton, 
 sometimes I went with the extreme left of the regi- 
 ment. I was no more heroic than all the others in 
 the command, but I was fond of the risk and the 
 excitement of battle. I would have resigned my 
 warrant as quartermaster sergeant in a moment 
 rather than miss a hard march or an engagement, 
 let the chance be what it might. I think my love 
 of adventure, and my seeking it so often away 
 from my proper post of duty at the rear, was often 
 the occasion of amused comment. Once when 
 marching at the left I heard our surgeon. Carpen- 
 ter, cry out to another officer riding beside him: 
 "There's a fight to-day. Look out. The sign's 
 sure. The quartermaster sergeant has got his gun." 
 
 I^one of us private soldiers now really knew in 
 what direction we were marching. We heard only 
 
72 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 that the enemy was concentrating at Edwards Ferry 
 Station, between us and Big Black River. General 
 Crocker of my State was now leading our divi- 
 sion, and the magnificent General McPherson com- 
 manded the army corps. The night of May 15 
 the division bivouacked in the woods by the side of 
 a road that leads from Bolton toward Vicksburg. 
 We marched hard and late that day. The morning 
 of the 16th my regiment was up and getting 
 breakfast long before daylight. The breakfast con- 
 sisted of some w^et dough cooked on the ends of ram- 
 rods; nothing more. 
 
 Troops were hurrying past our bivouac by day- 
 light. Once I went out to the roadside to look 
 about a bit. It was scarcely more than early day- 
 light, yet cannon could occasionally be heard in the 
 far distance, something like low thunder. As I 
 stood there watching some batteries hurrying along 
 I noticed a general and his staff gallop through the 
 woods, parallel with the road. They were leaping 
 logs, brush, or whatever came in their way. It was 
 General Grant, hurrying to the front. Shortly 
 came the orders, "Fall in !" and we too were hurry- 
 ing along that road toward Champion Hills. By 
 ten o'clock the sound of the cannon fell thundering 
 on our ears, and we hurried all we could, as riders 
 came back saying the battle had already begun. As 
 
WITH riRE AND SWORD 73 
 
 we approached the field the sound of great salvos 
 of musketry told us the hour had surely come. The 
 sound wa€ indeed terrible. 
 
 At the left of the road we passed a pond of dirty 
 water. All who could broke ranks and filled can- 
 teens, knowing that in the heat of the fight we 
 would need the water terribly. I not only filled my 
 canteen, I filled my stomach with the yellow fluid, 
 in order to save that in the canteen for a critical 
 moment. Just then there was in front of us a ter- 
 rific crashing, not like musketry, but more like the 
 falling down of a thousand trees at once. Our 
 brigade, a small one, was hurried into line of battle 
 at the edge of an open field that sloped dow^n a 
 little in front of us and then up to a wood-covered 
 ridge. That w^ood was full of the Rebel army. 
 Fighting was going on to the right and left of us, 
 and bullets fleAV into our own line, wounding some 
 of us as w^e stood there waiting. There was an old 
 well and curb at the immediate right of my regi- 
 ment, and many of our boys were climbing over 
 each other to get a drop of water. Soon the bullets 
 came faster, zipping, zipping among us, thicker 
 and thicker. We must have been in full view of the 
 enemy as w^e stood there, not firing a shot. Our 
 line stood still in terrible suspense, not knowing 
 why we w^ere put under fire without directions to 
 
74 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 shoot. Zip ! zip ! zip ! came the Rebel bullets, and 
 now and then a boy in blue would groan, strike his 
 hand to a wounded limb or arm, drop his gun and 
 fall to the rear; or perhaps he fell in his tracks 
 dead, without uttering a word. We too, who saw 
 it, uttered no word, but watched steadily, anxiously 
 at the front. 
 
 Then General Grant himself rode up behind us^ 
 and so close to the spot where I stood, that I could 
 have heard his voice. He leaned against his little 
 bay horse, had the inevitable cigar in his mouth, 
 and was calm as a statue. Possibly smoking so 
 much tranquillized his nerves a little and aided in 
 producing calmness. Still, Grant was calm every- 
 where; but he also smoked everywhere. Be that a;? 
 it may, it required very solid courage to stand there 
 quietly behind that line at that moment. For my 
 own part, I was in no agreeable state of mind. Iil 
 short, I might be killed there at any moment, I 
 thought, and I confess to having been nervous and 
 alarmed. Every man in the line near me was look- 
 ing serious, though determined. We had no reck- 
 less fools near us, whooping for blood. Once a 
 badly wounded man was carried by the litter-bear 
 ers — the drummers of my regiment — close to the 
 spot w^here the General stood. He gave a pitying 
 glance at the man, I thought, — I was not twenty 
 
WITH FIKE AND SWORD 75 
 
 feet away, — but he neither spoke nor stirred. Then 
 I heard an officer say, ''We are going to charge.'* 
 It seems that our troops in front of us in the woods 
 had been sadly repulsed, and now our division was 
 to rush in and fight in their stead, and the com- 
 mander-in-chief was there to witness our assault. 
 Two or three of us, near each other, exp^-essed dis- 
 satisfaction that the commander of an army in battle 
 should expose himself, as General Grant was do- 
 ing at that moment. When staff officers came up to 
 him, he gave orders in low tones, and they would 
 ride away. One of them, listening to him, glanced 
 over our heads toward the Rebels awhile, looked 
 very grave, and gave some mysterious nods. The 
 colonel who was about to lead us also came to the 
 General's side a moment. He, too, listened, looked, 
 and gave some mysterious nods. Something was 
 about to happen. 
 
 "My time has probably come now," I said to my- 
 self, and with a little bit of disgust I thought of 
 the utter uselessness of being killed there without 
 even firing a shot in self-defense. The suspense, 
 the anxiety, was indeed becoming fearfully intense. 
 Soon General Grant quietly climbed upon his horse, 
 looked at us once, and as quietly rode away. Then 
 the colonel came along the line with a word to each 
 officer. As he came near me he called me from the 
 
76 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 ranks and said: "I want you to act as sergeant- 
 major of the regiment in this battle." I was sur- 
 prised, but indeed very proud of this mark of con- 
 fidence in me. "Hurry to the left," he continued. 
 "Order the men to fix bayonets — quick!" I ran 
 as told, shouting at the top of my voice, "Fix bayo- 
 nets ! fix bayonets !" I was not quite to the left, 
 when I heard other voices yelling, "Forward ! quick ! 
 double quick! forward!" and the line was already 
 on the run toward the Rebels. I kept up ray shout- 
 ing, "Fix bayonets!" for by some blunder the order 
 had not been given in time, and now the men 
 were trying to get their bayonets in place while 
 running. We were met in a minute by a storm of 
 bullets from the wood, but the lines in blue kept 
 steadily on, as would a storm of wind and cloud 
 moving among the tree-tops. 'Now we met almost 
 whole companies of wounded, defeated men from the 
 other division, hurrying by us, and they held up 
 their bleeding and mangled hands to show us they 
 had not been cowards. They had lost twelve hun- 
 dred men on the spot we were about to occupy. Some 
 of them were laughing even, and yelling at us: 
 ^Wade in and give them hell." We were wading 
 in faster than I am telling the story. 
 
 On the edge of a low ridsre we saw a solid wall 
 of men in siray, their muske-s at their shoulders 
 
WITH PIEE AND SWORD 77 
 
 blazing into our faces and their batteries of artil- 
 lery roaring as if it were the end of the world. 
 Bravely they stood there. They seemed little over 
 a hundred yards away. There was no charging 
 further by our line. We halted, the two lines stood 
 still, and for over an hour we loaded our guns and 
 killed each other as fast as we could. The firinic 
 and the noise were simply appalling. Now, I was 
 not scared. The first shot I fired seemed to take 
 all my fear away and gave me courage enough to 
 calmly load my musket at the muzzle and fire it 
 forty times. Others, with more cartridges, fired 
 possibly oftener still. Some of the regiments in 
 that bloody line were resupplied with cartridges 
 from the boxes of the dead. In a moment I saw 
 Captain Lindsey throw up his arms, spring upward 
 and fall dead in his tracks. Corporal McCully was 
 struck in the face by a shell. The blood covered 
 him all over, but he kept on firing. Lieutenant 
 Darling dropped dead, and other ofiicers near me 
 fell wounded. 
 
 I could not see far to left or right, the smoke of 
 battle was covering everything. I saw bodies of 
 our men lying near me without knowing who they 
 were, though some of them were my messmates in 
 the morning. The Eebels in front we could not see 
 at all. We simply fired at their lines by guess, and 
 
78 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 occasionally the blaze of their guns showed exactly 
 where they stood. They kept their line like a wall 
 of fire. When I fired my first shot I had resolved 
 to aim at somebody or something as long as I could 
 see, and a dozen times I tried to bring down an of- 
 ficer I dimly saw on a gray horse before me. Pretty 
 soon a musket ball struck me fair in the breast. ^'I 
 am dead, now/' I said, almost aloud. It felt as if 
 someone had struck me with a club. I stepped 
 back a few paces and sat down on a log to finish up 
 with the world. Other wounded men were there, 
 covered with blood, and some were lying by me 
 dead. I spoke to no one. It would have been use- 
 less ; thunder could scarcely have been heard at that 
 moment. My emotions I have almost forgotten. I 
 remember only that something said to me, ''It is 
 honorable to die so." I had not a thought of friends, 
 or of home, or of religion. The stupendous things 
 going on around me filled my mind. On getting my 
 breath a little I found I was not hurt at all, — simply 
 stunned ; the obliquely-fired bullet had struck the 
 heavy leather of my cartridge belt and glanced away. 
 I picked up my gun, stepped back into the line of 
 battle, and in a moment was shot through the hand. 
 The wound did not hurt ; I was toO' excited for that. 
 The awful roar of battle now grew more terrific, 
 if Dossible. I wonder that a man on either side was 
 
WITH FIRE A:N"D SWORD Y9 
 
 left alive. Biting the ends off my cartridges, my 
 moutli was filled with gunpowder; the thirst was 
 intolerable. Every soldier's face was black as a 
 negro's, and, with some, blood from wounds trickled 
 down over the blackness, giving them a horrible 
 look. Once a boy from another part of the line to 
 our left ran up to me crying out : '^My regiment is 
 gone ! what shall I do ?" 
 
 There was now a little moment's lull in the 
 howling noise; something was going on. "Blaze 
 away right here," I said to the boy, and he com- 
 menced firing like a veteran. Then I heard one of 
 our own line cry, ''My God, they're flanking us !'* 
 I looked to where the boy had come from. His 
 regiment had indeed given way. The Rebels had 
 poured through the gap and were already firing into 
 our rear and yelling to us to surrender. In a mo- 
 ment we would be surrounded. It was surrender 
 or try to get back past them. I ran like a race- 
 horse, — so did the left of the regiment, amid a 
 storm of bullets and yells and curses. I saved my 
 musket, anyway. I think all did that, — but that 
 half-mile race through a hot Mississippi sun, witli 
 bullets and cannonballs plowing the fields behind 
 us, will never be forgotten. My lungs seemed to 
 be burning up. Once I saw our regimental flag 
 lying by a log, the oolor-bearer wounded or dead. 
 
80 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 I cried to a comrade flying near me, ^'Duncan Teter, 
 it is a shame — the Fifth Iowa nmning." 
 
 Only the day before Teter had been reduced to 
 the ranks for some offense or another. He picked 
 np the flag and with a great oath dared me to stop 
 and defend it. For a moment we two tried to rally 
 to the flag the men who were running by. We 
 might as well have yelled to a Kansas cyclone. Then 
 Captain John Tait, rushing by, saw us, stopped, 
 and, recognizing the brave deed of Corporal Teter, 
 promoted him on the spot. But the oncoming 
 storm was irresistible, and, carrying the flag, we 
 all again hurried rearward. We had scarcely passed 
 the spot where I had seen Grant mount his horse 
 before the charge when a whole line of Union can- 
 non, loaded to the muzzle with grape-shot and can- 
 nister, opened on the howling mob that was pursu- 
 ing us. The Rebels instantly halted, and now again 
 it seemed our turn. A few minutes rest for breath 
 and our re-formed lines once more dashed into the 
 woods. In half an hour the battle of Champion 
 Hills was won, and the victorious Union army was 
 shortly in a position to compel the surrender of the 
 key to the Mississippi River. Grant's crown of im- 
 mortality was won, and the jewel that shone most 
 brightly in it w^as set there by the blood of the men 
 of Champion Hills. Had that important battle 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 81 
 
 failed, Grant's army, not Pemberton's, would have 
 become prisoners of war. Where then would have 
 been Vicksbiirg, Spotsylvania, Richmond, Appo- 
 mattox ? 
 
 Six thousand blue- and gray-coated men were ly- 
 ing there in the woods, dead or wounded, when the 
 last gun of Champion Hills was fired. Some of the 
 trees on the battlefield were tall magnolias, and 
 many of their limbs were shot away. The trees 
 were in full bloom, their beautiful blossoms contrast- 
 ing with the horrible scene of battle. Besides kill- 
 ing and wounding three thousand of the enemy, we 
 had also captured thirty cannon and three thousand 
 prisoners. 
 
 Wrien the troops went ofi into the road to start in 
 pursuit of the fiying enemy, I searched over the 
 battlefield for my best friend, poor Captain Poag, 
 with whom I had talked of our Northern homes only 
 the night before. He lay dead among the leaves, a 
 "bullet hole in his forehead. Somebody buried him, 
 but I never saw his grave. iVnother friend I found 
 dying. He begged me only to place him against o 
 tree, and with leaves to shut the burning sun away 
 from his face. While I w\^s doing this I heard the 
 groaning of a Rebel officer, who lay helpless in a 
 little ditch. He called to me to lift him out, as he 
 was shot through both thighs, and suffering terri- 
 
82 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 bly. "Yes/' I said, "as soon as I get my friend 
 here arranged a little comfortably." His reply was 
 pathetic. "Yes, that's right ; help your own first." 
 I had not meant it so. I instantly got to him and, 
 with the aid of a comrade, pulled him out of the 
 ditch. He thanked me and told me he was a lieu- 
 tenant colonel, and had been shot while riding in 
 front of the spot where he lay. I eased his posi- 
 tion as best I could, but all that night, with many 
 another wounded soldier, blue and gray, he was 
 left on the desolate battlefield. 
 
 Now I realized how terrible the fire had been 
 about us, — for some comrades counted two hundred 
 bullet marks on a single oak tree within a few feet 
 of where the left of the regiment had stood loading 
 and firing that awful hour and a half. Most of the 
 bullets had been fired too high, else we had all been 
 killed. Near by lay the remains of a Eebel battery. 
 Every horse and most of the cannoneers lay dead in 
 a heap, the caissons and the gun carriages torn to 
 pieces by our artillery. Never in any battle had I 
 seen such a picture of complete annihilation of men, 
 animals, and material as was the wreck of this bat- 
 tery, once the pride of some Southern town — its 
 young men, the loved ones of Southern homes, lying 
 there dead among their horses. That was war! 
 
 Some weeks after this battle, and after Yicks- 
 
WITH EIRE AND SWORD 83 
 
 burg had been won, my regiment was marched in 
 pursuit of Joe Johnston, and we recrossed this 
 same battlefield. We reached it in the night and 
 bivouacked on the very spot where we had fought. 
 It was a strange happening. Our sensations were 
 very unusual, for we realized that all about us 
 there in the woods were the graves of our buried 
 comrades and the still unburied bones of many of 
 our foes. Save an occasional hooting owl the woods 
 were sad and silent. Before we lay down in the 
 leaves to sleep the glee club of Company B sang 
 that plaintive song, ''We're Tenting To-night on 
 the Old Camp Ground." ^ever was a song sung 
 under sadder circumstances. All the night a terri- 
 ble odor filled the bivouac. When daylight came 
 one of the boys came to our company and said, ''Go 
 over to that hollow, and you will see hell.'' Some 
 of us went. We looked but once. Dante himself 
 never conjured anything so horrible as the reality 
 before us. After the battle the Rebels in their haste 
 had tossed hundreds of their dead into this little 
 ravine and slightly covered them over with earth, 
 but the rains had come, and the earth was washed 
 away, and there stood or lay hundreds of half -de- 
 cayed corpses. Some were grinning skeletons, some 
 were headless, some armless, some had their clothes 
 torn away, and some were mangled by dogs and 
 
84 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 wolves. The horror of that spectacle followed us 
 for weeks. That, too, was war ! 
 
 I have written this random but true sketch of 
 personal recollections of a severe battle because it 
 may help young men who are anxious for adven- 
 ture and w^ar, as I was, to first realize what war 
 really is. My experiences probably were the same 
 as hundreds of others in that same battle. I only 
 tell of what was nearest me. A third of my com- 
 rades who entered this fight were lost. Other Iowa 
 and other Western regiments suffered equally or 
 more. General Hovey^s division had a third of its 
 number slain. I have been in what history pro- 
 nounces greater battles than Champion Hills, but 
 only once did I ever see two lines of blue and gray 
 stand close together and fire into each other's faces 
 for an hour and a half. I think the courage of the 
 private soldiers, standing in that line of fire for that 
 awful hour and a half, gave us Vicksburg, made 
 Grant immortal as a soldier, and helped to save this 
 country. 
 
 But I must return to that afternoon of the battle. 
 All that could be assembled of our men 
 gathered in line in a road near the field. It was 
 nearly dark. Sergeant Campbell walked about, 
 making a list of the dead and wounded of Com- 
 pany B. As I was not now on the company rolls. 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 85 
 
 being quartermaster sergeant, my name was not put 
 down as one of the wounded. Nor, seeing how 
 many were sadly torn to pieces, did I think my 
 wound worth reporting. Shortly General Grant 
 passed us in the road. Knowing well how the regi- 
 ment had fought in the battle, he rode to where our 
 colors hung over a stack of muskets and saluted 
 them. We all jumped to our feet and cheered. He 
 spoke a few words to the colonel and rode on into the 
 darkness. That night we marched ahead, and in the 
 morning bivouacked in the woods as a reserve for 
 troops fighting at the Black River bridge. There 
 it was that Grant reached the crisis of his career. 
 While sitting on his horse waiting to witness a 
 charge by Lawler's brigade, a staff officer overtook 
 him, bringing a peremptory order from Washing- 
 ton to abandon the campaign and take his army to 
 Port Hudson to help General Banks. That mo- 
 ment Grant glanced to the right of his lines and 
 saw a dashing officer in his shirt sleeves suddenly 
 come out of a cluster of woods, leading his brigade 
 to the assault. It was General Lawler, and in five 
 minutes the Rebel breastworks were carried, the 
 enemy in flight or drowning in the rapid river. 
 Then Grant turned to the staff officer and simply 
 said, ''See that charge/ I ihinTc it is too late to 
 abandon this campaign/' The movements that were 
 
86 WITH FIEE AND SWOED 
 
 to make him immortal went on. Had that order of 
 Halleck's, written of course without knowledge of 
 the recent victories, been followed, Banks, and not 
 Grant, would have been first commander in the 
 West. Had Lawler's charge failed just then and 
 the battle been lost. Grant could have had no ex- 
 cuse for not obeying the order that staff officer held 
 in his hand, directing him to abandon what turned 
 out to be one of the great campaigns of history. 
 While sitting there in his saddle at the close of that 
 charge, General Grant wrote a little note in pencil, 
 the original of which is among my treasured souve- 
 nirs of the war : 
 
 "Dear General: Lawler's brigade stormed the enemy's 
 works a few minutes since; carried them, capturing from 
 two thousand to three thousand prisoners, ten guns, so far 
 as heard from, and probably more will be found. The 
 enemy have fired both bridges. A. J. Smith captured ten 
 guns this morning, with teams, men, and ammunition. I 
 send you a note from Colonel Wright. 
 "Yours, 
 
 "U. S. Grant, M. G. 
 
 "To Major General Sherman." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Assaults on the walls of Vicksburg — Logan in battle — An 
 army mule — A promotion under the guns of Vicks- 
 burg — A storm of iron hail at Vicksburg — The Vicks- 
 burg clock — The town surrenders — The glad news — 
 Reading my first order to the regiment — My regiment 
 put on guard in the captured city — Eight days' furlough 
 in four years of war. 
 
 The next morning (the 18th) my regiment 
 crossed the pontoon bridge over the Big Black and 
 marched eight miles further toward Vicksburg. 
 I^ow we knew we were getting close to the Rich- 
 mond of the West. As we crossed the Black River 
 we gazed with curiosity at the half-burned bridge 
 from which so many unfortunates had been hurled 
 into the water by our artillery the day before. 
 After Lawler's charge thousands had tried to get 
 over the stream by the trestle-work and bridge, or 
 by swimming. General Osterhaus, seeing the fugi- 
 tives from a high point where he stood, cried out to 
 his batteries: ^'^ow, men, is the time to give them 
 hell." Twenty cannon instantly hurled their iron 
 missiles at the bridge, and the flying soldiers fell to 
 
 87 
 
88 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 the ground or into the foaming river, almost by 
 hundreds. "Lost at Black River/' was the only 
 message that ever reached the home of many a 
 Southern soldier of that day. 
 
 On the 19th, at two o'clock, a terrible assault 
 was made by the army on the walls of Vicksburg. 
 My own regiment, still in McPherson's corps, lay 
 close to the Jackson wagon road and under a tre- 
 mendous thundering of the enemy's artillery. We 
 suffered little, however. Once I was ordered to 
 help some men build sheds of brush for the 
 wounded. This was in a ravine behind us. In an 
 hour the work was done, and as I crept up the 
 slope to get forward to my regiment again I heard 
 the loud voice of some officer on horseback. It was 
 General John A. Logan. The enemy's artillery was 
 sweeping the field at this point, but I could still 
 hear Logan's voice above the battle, cheering a 
 number of soldiers that were near. "We have taken 
 this fort and we have taken that," he cried in tones 
 that were simply stentorian. "We are giving them 
 hell everywhere." He was in full uniform, his 
 long black hair swept his shoulders, his eyes 
 flashed fire, he seemed the incarnation of the reck- 
 less, fearless soldier. He must have thought can- 
 nonballs would not hurt him. For five minutes, 
 perhaps, I stood in a little dip in the ground, com- 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 89 
 
 paratively protected, while he rode up and down 
 under a storm of connonballs, calling at the top of 
 his warrior's voice. I expected every moment to 
 see him drop from his horse, but nothing happened, 
 and I went on to the line where all our men were 
 closely hugging the ground. Soon I, too, was 
 stretched on the ground, making myself as thin as 
 I could. 
 
 On the 20th we advanced still closer to the frown- 
 ing works. It was only a thousand yards to the 
 forts of Vicksburg. We moved up in the darkness 
 that night. I think no one knew how close we were 
 being taken to the enemy. We lay down in line of 
 battle and in the night our line was moved a little. 
 When daylight came my regiment was no little 
 astonished to find that we were on an open place in 
 full view of the enemy. A comrade and I rose 
 from the ground and commenced our toilet, by pour- 
 ing water into each other's hands from our canteens. 
 Almost at that moment the Rebels had caught sight 
 of our men lying there in long lines so close to 
 them, and instantly commenced throwing shells at 
 us. My friend and I left our morning toilet un- 
 completed and, seizing our rifles, we all stood in 
 line waiting. We could see the flags of the enemy 
 above the forts distinctly. With a glass the gun- 
 ners could be seen at their guns, hurling shot and 
 
90 WITH riKE AND SWOKD 
 
 shell at us. We were in a perilous and helpless po- 
 sition. We were also very tired and hungry, for 
 we had had nothing whatever to eat. But here we 
 stayed, and by the next morning our skirmishers 
 had advanced so close to the Vicksburg forts that 
 the Rebel gunners could reach us but little. Our 
 gunboats too, dow^n in the river now commenced 
 hurling mighty bombs and balls into the city. 
 
 On the morning of the 2 2d of May all the bat- 
 teries of the army and the big guns of the river 
 fleet bombarded the city for an hour, and under the 
 fog and the smoke of the battle the infantry ad- 
 vanced to assault the works. It was a perilous un- 
 dertaking. The day was fearfully hot; the forts, 
 ten feet high, were many and powerful ; the ditches 
 in front of them were seven feet deep. That made 
 seventeen feet to climb in the face of musketry. 
 In battle line, my regiment ran down into the 
 ravines in front and then up the opposite slope to 
 the smoking breastwork. 
 
 The colonel had ordered me to fasten two ammu- 
 nition boxes across a mule and follow the regiment 
 into the assault. I was to lead my mule. A soldier 
 with a bush was to beat him from behind, so as to 
 hurry him over an exposed bit of ground at our 
 front. The moment my mule appeared in full sight 
 of the enemy the bullets commenced whizzing past 
 
WITH FIRE AISTD SWORD 91 
 
 us. The mule, true to his ancestral instinct, com- 
 menced pulling backward. Yelling and pounding 
 and pulling helped none at all. Two or three bul- 
 lets struck the boxes on his back, and before we had 
 pulled him half across he braced himself, held his 
 ears back, and stood stock still. That moment the 
 bridle came off. My assistant dodged back to our 
 rifle pit and I hurried down to the ravine in front. 
 The mule, too, as luck would have it, also ran now, 
 — ran down into the ravine beside me, right where 
 he was wanted. I tied him to a little bush and, awful 
 as the situation about me was, I almost laughed to 
 see the antics of that animal's ears as the bullets 
 whizzed past him. 
 
 My regiment was all lying against the hill close 
 up to the fort. In front of them was the ditch 
 seven feet deep, beyond them an armed fort ten 
 feet high, emitting a constant blaze of cannon and 
 musketry. The sun was broiling hot. I crept along 
 the line of the regiment and gave ammunition to 
 every company; then I crept back a little to where 
 my mule was still alive and his ears still at their 
 antics. Lying there in the line beside the boys, 
 roasting in the sun and suffering from the musketry 
 in front, was our brave Colonel Boomer, leading 
 the briorade. He asked me once what I was doing, 
 and, when I told him, he gave me some compli- 
 
92 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 ments in a kind, but sad, low tone. Now I saw a 
 company of men creep by me, dragging little lad- 
 ders in their hands. They were to make a rush 
 and throw these ladders across the ditch of the 
 forts for the assaulters to cross on. They were all 
 volunteers for a work that seemed sure death. 1 
 looked in each hero's face as he passed me, knowing 
 almost that he Avould be dead in a few minutes. 
 Scarcely a dozen of them returned alive. My regi- 
 ment, with the rest of the assaulters, was simply 
 being shot to pieces without a hope of getting into 
 the forts. We fell back under the smoke of tho 
 battle as best w^e could, only to be led into an as- 
 sault at another point. McClemand had sent 
 Grant word that he had taken a fort on our left. 
 He wanted help to hold it. 
 
 Our division, now led by Quimby, was double 
 quicked to the next place of assault. I saved my 
 mule. Again I strapped two ammunition boxes 
 over his back and followed the regiment. This 
 time I did not risk my mule so close in the battle, 
 but took all the cartridges I could carry in my arms 
 and went to the left of the regiment. Once I saw a 
 body lying on the grass by me, with a handkerchief 
 over the face. I went up and looked. It was our 
 own Colonel Boomer, who had spoken so kindly to 
 me in the morning. A useless charge had already 
 
WITH FIHE AND SWOKD 93 
 
 been made by the brigade and he, with many brave 
 men, was dead. Some of my own company lay dead 
 there too. One of them had come from Iowa and 
 joined his brother in the company that very morn- 
 ing. All the assaulting of the 22d of May and all 
 the sacrifice of life had been for nothing. Vicks- 
 biirg was not taken. 
 
 Now commenced the regular siege of the city. 
 We hid ourselves behind ridges, in hollows, and in 
 holes in the ground, as best we could. Communi- 
 cation with our gunboats on the Yazoo was opened, 
 and we had plenty to eat and ammunition enough 
 to bombard a dozen cities. Then the bombardment 
 commenced indeed, and lasted to the end, forty-four 
 days. We often threw three hundred cannonballs 
 and shells a day into the city. The whole Eebel 
 army was also hidden in holes and hollows. All 
 the people of Vicksburg lived in caves at the sides 
 of the hills or along the bluffs of the river. Their 
 homes now were like swallows' nests, with small 
 entrances in the face of hills and bluffs and big, 
 dug-out chambers inside. It was a strange life. 
 With the eternal hail of cannon over them day and 
 night, and starvation a familiar figure to them, it 
 must have been a horrible one. 
 
 Now we advanced our rifle pits and trenches and 
 mines close up to the Rebel forts, though our main 
 
94 WITH FIRE ANB SWORD 
 
 lines lay in the ravines and on the ridge a few hun- 
 dred feet farther back. As for me, when not looking 
 after the ammunition, a trifling duty now, I was in 
 the trenches with the others. 
 
 One morning when out there at the front among 
 our riflemen, who were forever blazing day and 
 night at every Rebel fort and rifle pit, I noticed 
 our good Colonel Matthies creeping along the 
 trench to where I was. He had a package of brown 
 paper in his hand. Imagine my surprise and pride 
 to have him come to me and say: "Sergeant, this 
 officer's sash is yours." Then he announced my 
 appointment as adjutant of the regiment. He had 
 been made a general now, and would soon leave for 
 his new command. This sash was one that he had 
 worn and honored on many a battlefield. Is it any 
 wonder that now, after the long and perilous years, 
 it is preserved by me as a souvenir of honor ? 
 Soon after, I w^ent to a sutler's store on the Yazoo 
 River to buy a sword and uniform. In those days 
 swords were not given to officers by committees in 
 dress coats, until they had been earned. This little 
 trip to get my sword almost cost me ray life. 
 My path to the river, six miles away, lay partly 
 along a ridge and partly close to an empty Rebel 
 fort. This fort showed scarcely any signs of hav- 
 ing ever been used. I stayed all night with the 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 95 
 
 sutler, whom I knew very well, and at noon on a 
 hot day started, on my big yellow government 
 horse, to go back to my regiment. My sword was 
 buckled on me and my new uniform was tied in a 
 bundle on my saddle-bow. It was too hot to ride 
 fast, and my horse almost slept as he slowly carried 
 me close by the seemingly abandoned fort. Sud- 
 denly there was a crash and a whole volley of mus- 
 ketry rattled about my ears. My poor horse fell 
 dead. It was a quick awakening, but I managed 
 to pull my bundle from the saddle-bow and to es- 
 cape into a ravine where our own troops lay. 
 There I learned that the fort had been occupied by 
 the Rebels in the night, while I was with the sutler. 
 It was a close call for me. One of the boys de- 
 clared he could save my saddle and bridle. '^Take 
 them as a present," I said, "if you can get them." 
 He crept up to where my dead horse lay, and as 
 he rose to his feet to undo the saddle another volley 
 from the fort hastened him to the ravine. I laughed. 
 ''If your saddle and bridle were made of gold and 
 silver,'' he shouted at me as he ran back, "I wouldn't 
 try it again." 
 
 Slowly and without perceptible advance the siege 
 went on. The little battery that my regiment had 
 saved at luka was still with us and behind some 
 breastworks at our immediate right. It was no un- 
 
96 WITH EIRE AND SWORD 
 
 common thing to see even Grant himself come along 
 and stop and watch Captain Sears' gnns knock the 
 dirt up from some fort in front of ns. One day 
 this battery wounded a man who was running be- 
 tween two Rebel breastworks. The enemy tried to 
 secure his body, but every soul that showed himself 
 for an instant was shot by our riflemen. Eor half 
 an hour this shooting over one poor man's body was 
 kept lip, until it seemed that a battle was taking 
 place. 
 
 Now our lines were so close together that our 
 pickets often had a cup of coffee or a chew of tobacco 
 with the Rebel pickets at night. Drummer Bain, 
 of my company, had a brother among the soldiers 
 inside Vicksburg. One night he met him at the 
 picket line, and together they walked all through 
 the beleagured town. But such things were danger- 
 ous business and had to be kept very quiet. The 
 weather was now very warm and fine, some of the 
 nights clear moonlight, and when the guns had 
 stopped their roaring many a time in the quiet 
 night we heard the bell clock on the Vicksburg 
 Court House measuring out the hours. It is said 
 that this clock never stopped for an instant in all 
 the siege, nor under the hundred cannon that rained 
 iron hail into the town. At night, too, the big 
 mortars from our fleet some miles from us tossed 
 
WITH FIRE A^T> SWORD 97 
 
 mighty bombs into the air, that sailed like blazing 
 comets and fell at last among the people hidden in 
 their caves. 
 
 One day Governor Kirk^^ood of Iowa visited 
 our regiment and made a speech to ns in a hollow 
 back of our line. We cheered, and the Rebels, hear- 
 ing us and knowing we must be assembled in masses, 
 hurled a hundred cannonballs and shells over our 
 heads, yet I think few were hurt. This was the 
 3d of June. Every night that we lay there on the 
 line we went to sleep fearing to be waked by an 
 attack from the army of Rebels under Johnston, 
 now assembled at our rear. This was the force we 
 most feared, not the army we had penned up in 
 Vicksburg. ^Nevertheless, the batteries in front of 
 us gave us enough to do to prevent any ennui on 
 our part. On the 15 th of June the enemy got one 
 big gun in a position to rake from our left the 
 ravine in which my regiment was lying. We all 
 stuck close to our little caves on the ridge side, and 
 few got hurt.. In the meantime we were working 
 day and night putting more breastworks in front 
 of us, though we were now but four hundred yards 
 away from the Rebel lines. Here, as many times 
 elsewhere, I copy from my diary. "Last night, the 
 16th, the major of our rerfment, Marshall, took two 
 hundred men and worked all night digging new 
 
98 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 ditclies and building breastworks. It. was rainy 
 and muddy. The Rebels beard us at tbe work and 
 in the darkness slipped up and captured a few men. 
 Some of the enemy, however, also got taken in. 
 This is the kind of work that is going on every 
 night until daybreak, and then we fire bullets all 
 the day into the enemy's lines, to prevent their re- 
 pairing their forts. The cannonading and the riflo 
 shooting never cease. The roar is simply incessant, 
 and yet when oif duty we sleep like newborn babes. 
 
 "All the region we are in is hills and ravines, 
 brush and cane-brake, with here and there a littlo 
 cotton field. Nature defends Vicksburg more than 
 a dozen armies could. She has built scores of po- 
 sitions around the town strong as anything at 
 Sevastapol." 
 
 The rumors kept coming of a purposed attack on 
 our rear. On the 20th of June, at four o'clock in 
 the morning, all the cannon on Grant's lines and all 
 the cannon on the gunboats opened fire on the town 
 and thundered at it for six mortal hours. They 
 must have been awful hours for the people inside. 
 No such cannonading ever took place on the conti- 
 nent before or since. We private soldiers did not 
 know the exact object of this fearful bombardment. 
 The Rebels probably lay in battle line, expecting 
 an assault, and must have suffered greatly. 
 
WITH FIKE AND SWORD 99 
 
 In the night of the 2 2d of June, at midnight, 
 rumors again came of a great Rebel army marching 
 on our rear. It was a beautiful moonlight night, 
 and my regiment, together with whole divisions of 
 the army, received orders to hurry back toward 
 Black River, where cavalry skirmishing had taken 
 place. 'No battle came on, but for two days we lay 
 in line of battle, or else built breastworks for de- 
 fense. 
 
 On the 3d of July, as we were bivouacked in a 
 little wood, news came that the whole Rebel army 
 in Vicksburg had prepared to surrender the next 
 day, the Nation's jubilee day. Instantly the regi- 
 ment was ordered to fall in. I had no little 
 pride in reading to the men the dispatch from Gen- 
 eral Grant announcing the great news. It was the 
 first order I had ever read to the regiment as its 
 adjutant, and its great importance gratified me 
 much. The whole command acted as if they were 
 drunken or had suddenly lost their minds. Privates 
 and ofiicers shook hands and laughed and wept, while 
 majors and colonels turned somersaults on the 
 grass. It was indeed a great moment to us all. 
 Twenty-seven thousand men, with twenty-four gen- 
 erals and one hundred and eighty cannon, was a 
 great capture. We all knew we had made history 
 on that day. 
 
100 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 IN'ow the whole Rebel army passed out along the 
 roads where we lay. I sat on a rail fence near our 
 bivouac and watched the host go by. The officers 
 all looked depressed, but the soldiers seemed glad 
 the suspense and danger were over and that now 
 they could have enough to eat. Our regiment freely 
 divided with them all we had. 
 
 "After a few days pursuit of Johnston^s army 
 at our rear (now suddenly our front), my regi- 
 ment is ordered into Vicksburg. We pass in over 
 the breastworks that had been so terrible to us a 
 few days before. Looking at them, I wonder at 
 our hardihood in assaulting them. It would be hard 
 to climb through these ditches and into these forts 
 even were no cannon and no deadly muskets behind 
 them. 
 
 My regiment is put on duty as a city guard. 
 It now seems strange enough to be guarding the 
 very town and the very forts we had so recently 
 been assaulting. There are other troops here, but 
 the Fifth Iowa is the guard proper. We find the 
 town badly battered up, with terrible signs of war 
 everywhere. There, too, were the graves of the 
 dead and brave defenders. If wrong, they still had 
 been brave men." Years afterward, a shaft was 
 put up to their memory, and on it I read these 
 words : 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 101 
 
 "We care not whence they came, 
 
 Dear in their lifeless clay, 
 Whether unknown, or known to fame, 
 Their cause and country's still the same. 
 They died, and they wore the gray." 
 
 The weatlier continued hot while we were there 
 guarding the town, and the place was very sickly; 
 many citizens and very many colored soldiers died. It 
 was pitiable to see how little people cared, even our 
 own soldiers, whether these poor negro soldiers died or 
 lived. Our own regiment suffered little, yet on July 
 28 seventy were in the hospital. We camped at 
 Randolph and Locust streets, and spite of the mer- 
 cury's being 100 degrees in the shade, had pleasant 
 soldier times. I mounted the guard every morning 
 and then spent most of the day reading to the colonel, 
 who was sick. 
 
 In September I secured a leave of absence to go 
 North. For the only time during the four years' 
 war I visited my home. I was there but eight days, 
 half of my time having been lost by the steamer I 
 was on sticking on sandbars. 
 
 I saw ' strange sights in the North in those few- 
 days — ^^vomen and children and old men reaping 
 the fields; home guards training at every village; 
 cripples and hospitals ever}^where. Yet in spite of 
 war prosperity was blessing the North. 
 
CHAPTEK IX 
 
 Sherman's army floats across the Tennessee River at mid- 
 night — Washington at the Delaware nothing compared 
 to this — We assault Missionary Ridge — An awful battle 
 — My capture. 
 
 On mj return from mj home to my regiment T 
 found it had heen transported to Memphis, where, as 
 a part of General Sherman's army corps, we were 
 now to make a forced march to relieve Rosecrans' 
 army at Chattanooga. Chickamauga had been lost. 
 The Union army lying under Lookout Mountain 
 was starving and its destruction almost certain. We 
 made now the march of four hundred miles from 
 the Tennessee River, at Florence, in twenty days, 
 without incident. On the 22d of l^ovember, 1863, 
 we beheld the heights of Lookout Mountain and Mis- 
 sionary Ridge. 
 
 ISTovember 23, 1863, and the great battle of Chat- 
 tanooga was about to begin. The victorious Rebel 
 army, seventy-five thousand strong, lay intrenched 
 along the heights of Missionary Ridge and on top 
 of Lookout Mountain. My regiment was in Sher- 
 man's corps that had just hurried across from Mem- 
 
 102 
 
WITH FIKE A'NJ) SWOKD 103 
 
 phis. We had marclied twenty miles a day. ISTow 
 this corps was to form the left of Grant's forces, 
 cross a deep river in the darkness, and assault the 
 nearly inaccessible position of Bragg's army. That 
 night we lay in bivouac in the woods close by the 
 Tennessee River. We very well knew that 116 rude 
 pontoon boats had been built for us and were lying 
 hidden in a creek near by. We had almost no ra- 
 tions for the army. As for the horses and mules, 
 they had already starved to death by the thousands, 
 and were lying around everywhere. Tlotoecran\s 
 army had been virtually besieged, and was about to 
 starve or surrender when Grant came on to the 
 ground and took command. When Sherman'^, corps 
 got up it was decided to stake all on a greiit battle. 
 If defeated, we should probably all be lost. All the 
 men in Shernian's corps who were to make the first 
 great assault realized that, and they realized also 
 the danger we were now to encounter by attempting 
 to cross that rapid river in the night. 
 
 Midnight came and all were clill awake, though 
 quiet in the bivouac. At two c^clcck we heard some 
 quiet splashing in the water. It was the sound of 
 muffled oars. The boats had come for us. Every 
 man seized his rifle, for we knew what was i^ommg 
 next. '^Quietly, boys, fall in quietly," said the 
 captains. Spades were handed to many of vs. We 
 
104 WITH riEE AND SWOED 
 
 did not ask for what, as we knew loo well. Quietly, 
 two by two, we slipped down to the water's edge and 
 stepped into the rude flatboats that waited there. 
 "Be prompt as you can, boys ; there'c-i room for thirty 
 in a boat," said a tall man in a long waterproof coat 
 who stood on the bank near us in the darkness. Few 
 of us had ever before heard the voice of <nir beloved 
 commander. Sherman's kind wor is gave us all 
 cheer, and his personal presence, his sharing the 
 danger we were about to undertake, gave us confi- 
 dence. 
 
 In a quarter of an hour a thousand of us were 
 out in the middle of the river ailoar^ in the daikness. 
 Silent we sat there, our rifles and our spades across 
 our knees. There was no sound but the swashing 
 of the water against the boats. We had strange 
 feelings, the chief of which was probably the 
 thotight: Would the enemy on the opposite bank 
 fire into us and drown us all? Every mom.ent we 
 expected a flash of musketry or a roar of cannon. 
 We did not know that a ruse had been played on the 
 pickets on the other side; that a boatload of our 
 soldiers had crossed farther up and in the darkness 
 caught every one of them without firing a shot. One 
 only got away. Who knew how soon all of Braggs' 
 army might be alarmed and upon us ? 
 
 In half an hour we were out on the opposite bank 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWOED 105 
 
 and creeping along tlirough the thicket, a spade in 
 one hand a rifle in the other. What might happen 
 any moment we knew not. Where was that escaped 
 picket ? And where was Braggs' army ? Instantly 
 we formed in line of battle and commenced digging 
 holes for ourselves. We worked like beavers, turn 
 about ; no spade was idle for one moment. Daylight 
 found us there, two thousand strong, with rifle pits 
 a mile in length. Other brigades got over the river, 
 pontoons soon were down; still other troops, whole 
 divisions, were across, and forty cannon were massed 
 close to the crossing to protect us. What a sight 
 was that for General Bragg, when he woke up that 
 morning at his headquarters' perch, on top of Mis- 
 sionary Ridge! All that day we maneuvered under 
 heavy cannonading and drove the enemy from hill 
 to hill at our front. Some of the troops did heavy 
 fighting, but the Rebels only fell back to their great 
 position on the Ridge. 
 
 That night my regiment stood picket at the front. 
 The ground was cold and wet, none of us slept a wink, 
 and we were almost freezing and starving. We had 
 not slept, indeed, for a hundred hours. It had been 
 one vast strain, and now a battle was coming on. 
 All that night we who were on the picket line could 
 hear the Rebel field batteries taking position on Mis- 
 sionary Ridge, to fight us on the morrow. The morn- 
 
106 WITH riEE AND SWOKD 
 
 ing of the 25t]i dawned clear and beautiful. Instantly 
 whole divisions of troops commenced slaughtering 
 each other for the possession of single hills and spurs. 
 At times the battle in front of Sherman was a hand 
 to hand encounter. Mj own brigade was so close 
 that the Kebels even threw stones down upon us. Over 
 to the far right Hooker's men were in possession of 
 Lookout Mountain, and were breaking in on the 
 enemy's left flank. 
 
 It was two o'clock when our division, my own regi- 
 ment with it, received orders from Sherman to fix 
 bayonets and join in the assault on Missionary Ridge. 
 General J. E. Smith led the division, and General 
 Matthies, our former colonel, led the brigade. We 
 had to charge over the open, and by this time all the 
 cannon in the Rebel army were brought to bear on 
 the field we had to cross. We emerged from a little 
 wood, and at that moment the storm of shot and shell 
 became terrific. In front of us was a rail fence, 
 and, being in direct line of fire, its splinters and frag- 
 ments flew in every direction. "Jump the fence, 
 men ! tear it down !" cried the colonel. Never did 
 men get over a fence more quickly. Our distance 
 was nearly half a mile to the Rebel position. 
 
 We started on a charge, running across the open 
 fields. I had heard the roaring of heavy battle be- 
 fore, but never such a shrieking of cannonballs and 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 107 
 
 bursting of shell as met us on that charge. We could 
 see the enemy working their guns, while in plain view 
 other batteries galloped up, unlimbered, and let loose 
 at us. Behind us our own batteries (forty cannon) 
 were firing at the enemy over our heads, till the 
 storm and roar became horrible. It sounded as if the 
 end of the world had come. Halfway over we had 
 to leap a ditch, perhaps six feet wide and nearly 
 as many deep. Some of our regiment fell into this 
 ditch and could not get out, a few tumbled in inten- 
 tionally and stayed there. I saw this, and ran back 
 and ordered them to get out, called them cowards, 
 threatened them with my revolver; they did not 
 move. Again I hurried on with the line. All of the 
 officers were screaming at the top of their voices ; I, 
 too, screamed, trying to make the men hear. "Steady ! 
 steady ! bear to the right ! keep in line ! Don't fire ! 
 don't fire !" was yelled till we all were hoarse and 
 till the awful thunder of the cannon made all com- 
 mands unheard and useless. 
 
 In ten minutes, possibly, we were across the field 
 and at the begining of the ascent of the Ridge. In- 
 stantly the blaze of Rebel musketry was in our faces, 
 and we began firing in return. It helped little, the 
 foe was so hidden behind logs and stones and little 
 breastworks. Still we charged, and climbed a fence 
 in front of us and fired and charged again. Then 
 
108 WITH FIEE Al^B SWOED 
 
 the order was given to lie down and continue firing. 
 That moment someone cried, "Look to the tunnel! 
 They're coming through the tunnel." Sure enough, 
 through a railway tunnel in the mountain the gray- 
 coats were coming by hundreds. They were flank- 
 ing us completely. 
 
 "Stop them!" cried our colonel to (huse of us at 
 the right. "Push them back." It was but the work 
 of a few moments for four companies to rise to their 
 feet and run to the tunnel's mouth, firing as they ran. 
 Too late ! an enfilading fire was soon cutting them to 
 pieces. "Shall I nm over there too ?" I said to the 
 colonel. We were both kneeling on the ground close 
 to the regimental flag. He assented. When I rose to 
 my feet and started it seemed as if even the blades 
 of grass were being struck by bullets. As I ran over 
 I passed many of my comrades stretched out in death, 
 and some were screaming in agony. For a few min- 
 utes the whole bris^ade faltered and gave way. 
 
 Colonel Matthies, our bri^rade coram an (i^^r, was 
 sitting against a tree, shot in the head. Instantly it 
 seemed as if a whole Kebel army was con centra ted on 
 that single spot. For a few moments I lay down on 
 the grass, hopins^ the storm would pass over and leave 
 me. Lieutenant Miller, at my side, was sereamino^ in 
 agony. He was shot through the hips. I begged him 
 to trv to be still ; he could not. IN'ow, as a >;econd linf 
 
/ 
 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 109 
 
 of the enemy was upon us, and the first one was re- 
 turning, shooting men as they found them, I rose 
 to my feet and surrendered. ^^Come out of that 
 sword," shrieked a hig Georgian, with a terrible oath. 
 Another grabbed at my revolver and bellowed at me 
 "to get up the hill quicker than helL" It was time, 
 for our own batteries were pouring a fearful fire on 
 the very spot where we stood. I took a blanket from 
 a dead comrade near me, and at the point of the 
 bayonet I was hurried up the mountain. We passed 
 lines of infantry in rifle pits and batteries that were 
 pouring a hail of shells into our exposed columns. 
 Once I glanced back, and — glorious sight! — I saw 
 lines of bluecoats at our right and center, storming up 
 the ridge. 
 
 In a few minutes' time I was taken to where other 
 prisoners from my regiment and brigade were al- 
 ready collected together in a hollow. We were 
 quickly robbed of nearly everything we possessed and 
 rapidly started down the railroad tracks toward 
 Atlanta. While we were there in that little hollow 
 General Breckenridge, the ex- Vice President of the 
 United States, came in among us prisoners to buy 
 a pair of Yankee gauntlets. I sold him mine for fif- 
 teen dollars (Confederate money). 
 
 General Grant's victorious army w^as already over 
 the Ridge and in rapid pursuit. Taking the Ridge 
 
110 WITH FIRE A:N^D SWOED 
 
 and Lookout Mountain cost tlie Union army well on 
 to six thousand dead and wounded. The Eebels lost 
 as many, or more, so that twelve thousand human 
 beings were lying dead, or in agony, that night among 
 the hills of Chattanooga. Not long before, thirty 
 thousand had been killed and wounded, on both sides, 
 close to this same Ridge. Forty-two thousand men 
 shot for the possession of a single position. That was 
 war. 
 
 That night as the guards marched us down the 
 railroad we saw train after train whiz by loaded with 
 the wounded of the Rebel army. The next day when 
 they halted us, to bivouac in the woods, we were 
 amazed to see quite a line of Union men from East 
 Tennessee marching along in handcuffs. Many of 
 them were old men, farmers, whose only crime was 
 that they were true to the Union. They were hated 
 ten times worse than the soldiers from the North. 
 These poor men now were allowed no fire in the 
 bivouac, and had almost nothing to eat. '^They will 
 everyone be shot or hanged,'' declared the officer of 
 our guard to me. I do not know what happened to 
 these poor Tennesseeans. Shortly after, we North- 
 ern prisoners were put aboard cattle cars and started 
 off for Libby Prison at Richmond, most of us never 
 to see the North or our homes again. 
 
CHAPTEE X 
 
 In Libby Prison — Life there — "Belle Isle" — All prisons bad 
 — The great escape — "Maryland, My Maryland." 
 
 The story of Libby Prison at Richmond has been 
 told so often I shall not dwell on details about it 
 here. Besides, the experiences of one man there were 
 not materially different from the experiences of an- 
 other. I was to stay there some seven months, always 
 in the same room, and oftenest denied the poor privi- 
 lege of looking out of the window. Onr lives were to 
 be very wretched there. That is now a thread-worn 
 tale. At their very best, war prisons in every coun- 
 try are wretched places. One's friends do not stand 
 guard there; it is our enemies. They are not penal 
 establishments; they are simply places for keeping 
 captives who, until in our so-called civilized days, 
 would have been put to death on the battlefield. 
 
 Our little company of captives from Chattanooga 
 reached Libby Prison just after daylight of Decem- 
 ber 8, 1863. As we crossed the big bridge over the 
 James River we looked down into the stream and 
 saw "Belle Isle." It was a cold wet sandbar, and 
 
 111 
 
112 WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 
 
 there, shivering in the wind, we saw five thousand 
 ragged and emaciated human beings. They were 
 prisoners of war. Some of them were from my own 
 regiment. Most of them were never to see their 
 homes again. The tales of their experiences would 
 stagger human belief. These were all private sol- 
 diers ; the commissioned officers were to be locked up 
 in Libby Prison. 
 
 The old tobacco warehouse of Libby & Son had 
 been transformed into a monster guardhouse for of- 
 ficers captured from the Federal army. Little the 
 two old tobacco merchants must have dreamed with 
 what infamy their names would go down to history, 
 through no fault of their own. 
 
 The big brick building stood close to the James 
 River. It had no glass in its windows, and the cold 
 wind from the bay swept through its vast rooms day 
 and night. Six hundred other prisoners were already 
 there on our arrival, picked up from many battle- 
 fields. 
 
 Libby Prison was three stories high and its floors 
 were divided into several rooms each. The prisoners 
 slept on the floor, with only old army blankets around 
 them. When thus lying down, the floor was entirely 
 covered with shivering human beings. Each group 
 of half a dozen men had extemporized tables, made 
 from old boxes. A few seats were made by cutting 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 113 
 
 barrels in two. At night the seats, and whatever else 
 might be there, were piled on top of the tables, while 
 the prisoners stretched themselves on the floor to try 
 to sleep. In my diary of the time I read: "The 
 food doled out to us is miserable and scanty in the 
 extreme. A species of corn bread, ground up cobs 
 and all, and a little rice form the principal part of 
 the ration. The fact that this bread is burned black 
 outside and is raw inside renders it more detestable. 
 Occasionally letters from the ISTorth reach us by a 
 flag of truce, and at very rare intervals a prisoner is 
 allowed to receive a little box of coffee, sugar, and 
 salt, sent to him by his friends in the [N'orth." 
 
 As the time went on this privilege was denied us. 
 The high price of everything South in the war times 
 was the flimsy excuse for giving the captured ones so 
 little. 
 
 Prices of provisions were indeed terrible in Rich- 
 mond. This list I copied from a Richmond paper, 
 December 20, 1863 : Bacon, $3 per pound ; potatoes, 
 $18 per bushel; turkeys, $25 each; sugar, $3 per 
 pound; beef, $1 per ponnd; butter, $5 per pound; 
 shad, $84 per pair ; whisky, $75 a gallon. This was 
 in the discounted money of the Confederates. 
 
 The beginning of the new year 1864 came in cold 
 and gloomy. We could keep warm only by running 
 and jumping and pushing each other about the 
 
114 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 prison. I was in the upper east room, and had for 
 messmates Captains Page and Bascom and Lieuten- 
 ants Austin and Hoffman, all of my oa\ti regiment. 
 In the little box of provisions sent me by my mother 
 in the North was a copy of a Latin grammar, put 
 there by good old Professor Drake, my former school- 
 teacher. Evidently he thought the mind needed feed- 
 ing as well as the body. I took the hint and studied 
 the book faithfully. I recited to Major Marshall, 
 and eight times I went through this Latin grammar. 
 I had nothing else to do, but Latin is no go on an 
 empty stomach. When, later, I got out of prison 
 Latin was as strange to me as if I had never seen 
 a grammar in my life. My memory had been well- 
 nigh ruined by my confinement. One day, fearing 
 our escape, the authorities put iron bars on all our 
 windows. They did not think to put glass in them 
 to keep the cold air out. 
 
 On the night of February 10 occurred the famous 
 escape of one hundred and nine prisoners. For 
 many weeks certain officers had been missing. They 
 were in the earth under the prison, digging a tunnel 
 to liberty. The length of this secret tunnel, dug 
 under the prison, under stone walls, under the street 
 and under the very feet of the guards, was eighty-six 
 feet. 
 
 Forty-six nights were consumed in digging it. 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 115 
 
 Only certain of the prisoners knew anything about it. 
 On the night of the escape I was told of it. I stood 
 in the dark at an upper window and watched the 
 prisoners as they came out at the farther end of the 
 tunnel and slipped away. I did not try to enter the 
 tunnel when I heard of it; there was already five 
 times as many men in the cellar as could possible get 
 away by daylight. As it was, a third of those escap- 
 ing were captured and brought back again to the 
 prison. 
 
 On the 20th of March some exchanged Confed- 
 erates were sent into Richmond under flag of truce. 
 The President, Jefferson Davis, and all the digni- 
 taries welcomed them. The President also came into 
 Libby Prison one day, possibly to see with his own 
 eyes and hear with his own ears if all the terrible 
 tales of hardship and cruelties occurring there were 
 true. Whatever conclusion he may have reached, 
 the hard lines of our life in the prison were not visi- 
 bly altered. They have been told of a hundred of 
 times. 
 
 All the nights now it was very cold. I had but one 
 blanket. I, like all the others, slept on the floor, 
 and in my clothes, with my boots under my head for 
 a pillow. One night, — it was at the close of Feb- 
 ruary, 1864, — we in the prison were greatly excited 
 over a report that Union cavalry under Generals Kil- 
 
116 WITH FIKE AND SWOED 
 
 patrick and Dahlgren were making a raid on tlie city 
 for the purpose of releasing us. It was raining out- 
 side, and very dark, but we were sure we hebird the 
 Union cannon close at hand. We thought the hour 
 of our deliverance had come. Instantly, but secretly, 
 we organized ourselves into bands to break cut and 
 help. 
 
 Soon Major Turner, the prison commander, 
 came into the prison, making mysterious threats of 
 something awful that would happen should we lift 
 a single hand. Some negro help about the prison 
 whispered to us all that, under Turner's direction, 
 they had been compelled to carry thirty kegs of gun- 
 powder into the cellar of the prison. Rumor said 
 that it was Turner's intention, if our troops should 
 get into Richmond, to blow up the prison and destroy 
 us. A horrible plan, if true. Sadly for us, the 
 great raid proved a failure. Dahlgren was killed, 
 and his body was mutilated and exposed to an en- 
 raged public at one of the railroad depots in the city. 
 These things were not done by honorable Confederate 
 soldiers, but by irresponsible home guards and undis- 
 ciplined rowdies. 
 
 Now we saw no hopes of ever getting away. We 
 would at last all die here, we thought. The nights 
 seemed colder than ever; perhaps our blood was 
 getting thinner. Some of us played chess ; numbers 
 
WITH FIRE AISTD SWORD 117 
 
 sat with cards in their hands from early morning till 
 bedtime. A few, experts with the knife, made bone 
 rings and the like to sell, and so increased their 
 rations a little. Generally now the rations were get- 
 ting poorer, if such a thing were possible. Many 
 prisoners were breaking down and were carried out 
 to die. My own health — and I was young and strong 
 — was beginning to give way. Once I fell on the 
 floor in an utter swoon from weakness and hunger. 
 From Andersonville, where the private soldiers were, 
 came the horrible reports that "all were dying." 
 
 One day a lot of Marylanders, most of whom had 
 run through the Union lines from Baltimore, were 
 organized into a battalion called "The Maryland 
 Line." They were led by Marshall Wilder. They 
 were marched past the prison, singing "Maryland, 
 My Maryland." It was the first time I ever heard 
 the song sung by Southerners. The music seemed 
 to stir the whole city.* 
 
 Great battles were being fought in Virginia, and 
 sometimes Grant's soldiers approached close to Rich- 
 mond. Before daylight of May 7 our captors, fear- 
 ing mutiny and escape, placed all the prisoners in 
 cattle cars and hurried us across the Confederacy 
 
 ♦Years afterwards I wrote a song to this music myself 
 ("The Song of Iowa"). To this day it is well known, and 
 has become the official State song. 
 
118 WITH FIKE Al^D SWOED 
 
 to Macon, Ga. For seven long, dreary, awful months 
 I had been in one room in Libby Prison, with little 
 to eat or wear. It all seems a horrible dream as I 
 write of it now. 
 
 ]^ow there were rumors that we were to be taken 
 to a prison farther South. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Escaping from Macon — An adventure in Atlanta — In the 
 disguise of a Confederate soldier — My wanderings 
 inside the Confederate army and what I experienced 
 there — I am captured as a spy — How I got out of it 
 all. 
 
 I have related how suddenly we prisoners were 
 hurried from Libby Prison in Richmond to the 
 town of Macon in Georgia. 
 
 It was now the hot summer of 1864, that summer 
 when Sherman, only a hundred and fifty miles from 
 our prison, was having a battle every day. He was 
 marching and fighting his way to Atlanta. Seven 
 hundred of us, all Federal officers, were now penned 
 up in a hot stockade. I copy a page from my diary : 
 
 "The walls here at Macon prison are twelve feet 
 high. Sentries are posted near the top of them on 
 a platform running around the outside. Their orders 
 are to shoot any prisoners seen approaching the dead 
 line. This dead line is simply marked off by an am 
 occasional stake, and is twelve feet inside the sur- 
 rounding wall. It is fearfully hot here inside this 
 stockade. The ground is pure sand, reflecting the 
 
 119 
 
120 WITH FIEE AND SWORD 
 
 sun's rays powerfully. We had no cover of any kind' 
 at first, save the blankets stretched over pine sticks. 
 It is as hot here at Macon as it was cold at Libby 
 Prison." 
 
 We tried digging a tunnel by which to escape. It 
 was four feet under ground and seventy-five feet 
 long. It was barely ready when some spy revealed it, 
 and our chance was lost. For my own part, I was 
 determined to get away. The food was now again 
 horrible, and all kinds of indignities and insults 
 were heaped upon the prisoners. One night during 
 a hard rain I attempted to escape through a washout 
 under the stockade. I remained by the spot till 
 nearly midnight, not knowing that I was being 
 watched every moment. As I was about to give up 
 the attempt and go away Captain Gesner, of a !N'ew 
 York regiment, came to the little brook for a cup 
 of water. The guard who had been watching me then 
 fired, and Gesner dropped dead. They came in with 
 lanterns to see who had been killed, and the guard 
 who had fired related how he had watched the man 
 for nearly two hours trying to escape. I did not dare 
 say that it was I, not poor Gesner, who had been 
 trying to get away. 
 
 "Now I contemplated, too, a different means of 
 escape. It was to get a Rebel uniform, escape from 
 the stockade by some means, and enter th? Rebel 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 121 
 
 army in disguise, trusting my chance to get away 
 during the first battle. 
 
 There was but one gate or door to the stockade, 
 and this door was kept constantly closed. It was 
 guarded by a sentinel who stood, gun in hand, im- 
 mediately above it while a corporal stood watch be- 
 low. Once a day a few guards and officers entered 
 this door, closed it behind them, and formed us into 
 lines for counting. I had studied a small map of 
 the country for days, and by dint of trading tobacco, 
 etc., with an occasional guard who was dying for 
 the weed I acquired, piece by piece, a pretty decent 
 Rebel uniform. This I kept buried in the sand 
 where I slept. July 15, 1864, came around. My 
 term of enlistment expired that day. I had been in 
 the Union army three years ; was it not a good time 
 to give the Rebels a trial? There were a few old 
 sheds not far from the gate, and in one of these one 
 morning about nine o'clock I waited with a friend, 
 and saw the sergeants and the guards come in, when 
 the bell rang, to count the prisoners. I had resur- 
 rected my Rebel uniform and had quietly slipped it 
 on. It fitted amazingly. My friend was lingering 
 there, simply to see what would become of me. He 
 has often declared since then that he expected me 
 to be shot the moment I should approach the dead- 
 line. 
 
122 WITH FIKE AND SWOKD 
 
 The prisoners were some wav off, in rows, being 
 counted. I stepped from under cover and quickly 
 walked up to and over the dead-line by the gate. The 
 guard walking above brought his gun from his shoul- 
 der, halted, and looked at me. I paid no attention, 
 but knocked, when the door opened, and the corporal 
 stepped in the opening and asked what I wanted. 
 '^The lieutenant misses a roll-list, and I must run 
 out and bring it from headquarters," I answered, 
 pushing by him hurriedly. There was no time for 
 questions, and the corporal, before getting over his 
 surprise, had passed me out as a Rebel sergeant. I 
 quickly turned the corner, passed a number of 
 "Johnnies" sitting on the grass drinking coffee and 
 went straight up to the commandent's tent, near the 
 edge of the wood, but did not go in. I had not looked 
 behind me once, but expected every moment to hear 
 a bullet whizzing after me. I passed behind the 
 tent, walked slowly into the wood, and then ran my 
 best for an hour. 
 
 I was outside of prison. How free, how green, 
 how beautiful all things seemed ! It was the joy of 
 years in a few minutes. Of course I was instantly 
 missed at the roll-call, and bloodhounds were soon 
 upon my track. I avoided them, however, by different 
 maneuvers. I changed my course, shortly repassed 
 the prison pen on the opposite side, and went back 
 
WITH FIEE AND SWOED 123 
 
 and up into the city of Macon. After wandering 
 through its streets for an hour I again took to the 
 woods. That night I slept in a swamp of the Ocmul- 
 gee Eiver. What hedfellows I had ! — frogs, lizards, 
 bats, and alligators. But it was better than the inside 
 of a war prison. All the next day I lay in a black- 
 berry patch, fearing to move, but feasting on the lus- 
 cious, ripe berries. What a contrast it was to my 
 previous starving ! Never in this world shall I enjoy 
 food so again. 
 
 Near to me was a watering-station for the railway 
 to Atlanta. As I lay in the bushes I heard trains 
 halting all the day. With night came a glorious 
 moon. Such a flood of heaven's own light I had 
 never seen before. By ten at night a long, empty 
 train halted, and in two minutes I had sprung from 
 the bushes and was inside of an empty freight car. 
 In ten minutes more I stood in the door of the car 
 watching the fair farms and the hamlets of Georgia 
 sleeping under the glorious moonlight, while I was 
 being hurled along heaven knew where. 
 
 That was the strangest ride of my life. The con- 
 ductor came along when we were near Atlanta, swing- 
 ing his lantern into the cars, and found a strange 
 passenger. He threatened all sorts of things if my 
 fare were not paid, of course I had no money, but 
 I put myself on my dignity, told him I was a con- 
 
124 WITH FIEE AISTD SWOED 
 
 valescent soldier coming back from a furlough, and 
 dared him or anj other civilian to put me off the 
 train. That ended the colloquy, and just before day- 
 light the whistle screamed for Atlanta, and I was 
 inside the lines of Hood's army. 
 
 I left the train and in a few moments was tucked 
 away in the haymow of a barn near the station. So 
 far, good ; but daylight brought a squad of Rebel 
 cavalry into the barn, who, to my dismay, soon com- 
 menced climbing up to the mow for hay for their 
 horses. My presence of mind was about leaving me 
 utterly when I happened to notice an empty sugar 
 hogshead in the corner of the mow. Before the 
 Eebels were up I was in it, and there I sat and per- 
 spired for six mortal hours. Those hours were days, 
 every one of them. All of this time Sherman's army, 
 then besieging Atlanta, was throwing shells into our 
 neighborhood. At last, at last ! the Eebels saddled 
 their horses and rode out of the barnyard. 
 
 I was not long in changing my headquarters. For 
 days and days I walked up and down Atlanta among 
 the troops, to the troops, away^from the troops, al- 
 ways moving, always just going to the regiment, 
 to which I had attached myself as ordnance ser- 
 geant. I was very careful, however, to keep far 
 away from that particular regiment. I knew its 
 position, its chief officers, knew, in fact, the position 
 
WITH FIRE AIv[D SWOED 125 
 
 of every brigade in Hood's army. It was to my inter- 
 est, under the circumstances, to know tliem well, for 
 I was continually halted with such exclamations as, 
 ''Hallo! which way? Where's your regiment? 
 What you doing away over her© ?" A hundred times 
 I was on the point of being arrested and carried to 
 my alleged command. For every man I met I had 
 a different tale, to suit the circumstances. At night 
 I slept where I could — under a tree, behind a dry- 
 goods box; it made little difference, as my lying 
 down on the ground, hungry, pillowless, and blanket- 
 less, and fearing every moment to be arrested, could 
 not be called sleeping. This life was growing monot- 
 onous at last; the more so as, aside from an occa- 
 sional apple, I had nothing at all to eat. 
 
 About the fifth day I overheard an old Irishman, 
 hoeing among his potatoes, bitterly reviling the war 
 to his wife. I made his acquaintance and discov- 
 ered our sentiments as to the rebellion to be very 
 nesrly identical. Under the most tremendous of 
 oaths as to secrecy, I told who I was and that I was 
 absolutely starving. If he would help me, I knew 
 how to save his property when Sherman's army 
 should enter. That it would ent^r, and that Atlanta 
 would be razed to the ground, and every human 
 being's throat cut, he had not a doubt. Still, if 
 detected in secreting or feeding me, he would be 
 
126 WITH FIKE AND SWORD 
 
 hanged from his own door-post. There was no doubt- 
 ing that, either. 
 
 However, that night I slept in his cellar and was 
 fed with more than the crumbs from his table. It 
 was arranged that I should wander about the armj 
 day-times, and come to his cellar — unknown to him, 
 of course — about ten every night, when his family 
 were likely to be in bed. The outside door was to be 
 left unlocked for me. Prisoners did not carry time- 
 pieces in the South. Mine disappeared with my 
 'pistols on the battlefield of Chattanooga, and as an 
 unfortunate result I went to my den in the cellar an 
 hour too early one evening. ]^one of my protector's 
 family seemed to have been aware of the guest in the 
 cellar. 
 
 I was sitting quietly in a corner of the dark, damp 
 place when the trap-door opened above and a young 
 lady, bearing a lamp, descended and seemed to be 
 searching for something. It was a romantic situa- 
 tion — destined to be more so. Groping about the 
 cellar, the young lady approached me. I moved 
 along the wall to avoid her. She unluckily fol- 
 lowed. I moved farther again. She followed, cor- 
 nered me, screamed at the top of her voice, dropped 
 the lamp, and fainted. In half a minute three sol- 
 diers who had happened to be lunching upstairs, 
 the old lady, and my friend, her husband, i-ushed 
 
WITH EIKE AND SWOED 127 
 
 down the steps, armed with lights. The old gentle- 
 man recognized me and was in despair. I think I 
 too was in despair, but, rightfully or wrongfully, I 
 took to mj heels and escaped through the door which 
 I had entered, leaving the fainting girl, the despair- 
 ing father, and the astonished soldiers to arrange 
 matters as they might. The girl recovered, I learned 
 years afterward, and her father's house was one of 
 the few that escaped the flames when Sherman started 
 to the sea. 
 
 From that night on I slept again at the roadsides, 
 and as for rations, I might say I did not have any. 
 The weather i^vas terribly hot, but I spent my days 
 wandering from regiment to regiment and from fort 
 to fort, inspecting the positions and the works. I 
 knew if I did get through, all this would be equal 
 to any army corps for Sherman. 
 
 Once I crept into a little deserted frame house 
 and, happening to find an old white palmetto hat 
 there, I changed it for my own, on account of the 
 heat. I then laid my Rebel jacket and cap under 
 the boards and, fastening my pantaloons up with a 
 piece of broad red calico that happened to be with 
 the hat, sallied out, seeing what I could see. I very 
 soon saw more than I had calculated on. I had wan- 
 dered well off to the right of the army and was 
 quietly looking about when a squad of cavalry dashed 
 
128 WITH EIKE AND SWOKD 
 
 in, shouting, ''The Yankees are on us V' There was 
 a regiment of infantry close bj, which sprang to its 
 feet, and every man in sight was ordered to seize a 
 gun and hurry to the front. I, too, was picked up, 
 and before I had time to explain that I was just 
 going over to my division a gun was in my hands and 
 I was pushed into the line. The whole force ran for 
 a quarter of an hour into the woods, firing as they 
 ran, and shouting. Suddenly, as a few shots were 
 fired into us, we stopped and formed line of battle. 
 
 The skirmish was soon over. Some cavalry had 
 flanked the Yanks and brought them in, and while 
 their pockets were being gone through with by my 
 fellow-soldiers I slipped to the rear, and was glad to 
 get back into my own cap and jacket. 
 
 I lay in the little empty house that night. Sher- 
 man's army had been banging at the city fearfully, 
 and setting houses on fire all night. It was a little 
 revenge, I presume, for the losses in the skirmish in 
 which I had taken so pictruesque a part. These 
 shelled houses had emptied their occupants into the 
 street, and a little after daylight I noticed a family, 
 with its worldly baggage piled on a one-mule wagon, 
 stop in front of my residence. ''Here's a house out 
 of range of bullets. Why not move in V 1 heard a 
 manly voice call to the women and children, following 
 with the traps. "Move in," I thought to myself. 
 
WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 129 
 
 'Well, they can stand it, if I can." The house con- 
 sisted of hut one large room, nnceiled, and reaching 
 to the rafters, with the exception of a small compart- 
 ment, finished off and ceiled, in one corner. On top 
 of this little compartment were my headquarters. 
 
 In they moved, hag and haggage, and the women 
 folks soon commenced preparing a meal outside, under 
 the shadows of the front door. This half-finished 
 room had heen used as a hutcher shop in the past, 
 it seemed, and the meat hooks in the corner had 
 served me as a ladder to mount to my perch on the 
 ceiling. "N'ow, Johnny," chirped the wife, "do run 
 uptown and huy some red and white muslin. We will 
 make a Union flag, and when Sherman gits in, as 
 he's hound to, we're jest as good Union folks as he 
 is. You know I'm dyin' for real coffee. I'm tired 
 of chicory and Injun bread, and I don't keer if Sher- 
 man's folks is in to-morrow. We'll draw govern- 
 ment rations, and be Union." 
 
 These good people were probably "poor trash" of 
 the South, not caring much which way the war went 
 provided they could get rations. Their general talk, 
 however, was of the real Rebel character, and it was 
 an unsafe place for me to stop in. In an hour the 
 banquet before the front door was prepared, and all 
 hands went out to partake. Soon they were joined 
 by a Rebel soldier, who seemed to be on a half -hour's 
 
130 WITH FIRE ANB SWOED 
 
 furlough to visit the young lady of the party, whom I 
 took to be his sweetheart. Sherman's army, I was 
 sorry to learn from this soldier, was being simply 
 "mowed out of existence." "All the woods about 
 Atlanta were as a reeking corpse." Sherman himself 
 was in flight northward." 
 
 By looking more closely through a chink in the 
 weather-boarding of my hiding-place I discovered 
 that he w^as reading all this dreadful information 
 from a Copperhead newspaper from Chicago, and 
 then I felt easier. 
 
 Again, there was the talk about money purses 
 made of Yankee's scalps and finger rings from 
 Yankee bones ; and during the dinner I was no little 
 astonished to see this valiant Southerner exhibit to 
 his eager listeners a veritable ring, rough and yellow, 
 made, as he said, from the bones of one of Sherman's 
 cavalrymen. This was probably brag. 
 
 The banquet of cucumbers, chicory, and Injun 
 bread was about terminating. My soldier with the 
 ring had used up his furlough and was gone. The 
 house was still empty, and it was now, or never, if I 
 proposed getting down from my perch witHout alarm. 
 My plan was silently to climb down the meat hooks 
 which I had ascended and to slip out at the still open 
 back door of the house. On peeping over the edge 
 of the ceiling, however, what was my amazement 
 
WITH FIKE A^B SWOKD 131 
 
 to see a bull-dog of immense proportions tied to one 
 of mj hooks ! 
 
 Here was a ^'situation" ! He was sound asleep, but 
 had an amiable countenance. I dropped a bit of 
 plaster on his nose. He looked up amazed, and 
 smiled. Then I smiled, and then he smiled again ; 
 and then I carefully crept down, patted him on the 
 head, said good-bj in a whisper, and in a twinkling 
 was out at the back door. My gratitude to this dog 
 is boundless. 
 
 I had found it unsafe to be about houses, and again 
 I took my lodgings in the field. Again I was busy, 
 just going to my division, but never getting there. 
 Once, near the sacred quarters of a brigadier, the 
 guard arrested me. I protested, and our loud talk 
 brought the brigadier to the rescue. I explained how 
 I was '^just going to my regiment,'^ and how my 
 pass had been lost, and the necessity of my going on 
 at once. The brigadier took in the situation at a 
 glance, and with a pencil wrote me a pass, good 
 for that day. 
 
 Fighting was going on about Atlanta constantly, 
 but with so many apparent reverses to our arms that 
 I feared I should never get away. 
 
 The memorable 2 2d of July came, and with it the 
 most terrific fighting on Hood's right, and in fact all 
 round the semi-circle about the city. A divi- 
 
132 WITH EIKE AND SWOED 
 
 sion, with my Alabama regiment, entered the battle 
 on Hood's right wing, and I followed, at a safe dis- 
 tance, as an ordnance sergeant. Everybody was too 
 busy and excited to ask me questions, and in the hope 
 that Hood would be defeated and an opportunity for 
 getting through the lines be at last presented, I was 
 feeling good. Hundreds, thousand possibly, of 
 wounded men fell back by me, but all shouting, 
 ^^The Yankees are beaten, and McPherson is killed." 
 
 It was too true ! McPherson had fallen and, if re- 
 ports were correct, Sherman's army had met with an 
 awful disaster. Eor me, there was nothing left but 
 to get back to the rear and try another direction. I 
 knew that Sherman's advance was at the ford, at 
 Sandtown, on the Chattahoochie Eiver, at our left. 
 Could I only get there, I might still be saved. I had 
 now been seen among the Eebel forts and troops so 
 much that there was the greatest danger of my being 
 recaptured, and shot as a spy. On the night of the 
 2 2d I took refuge under a hedge, near to a field 
 hospital. 
 
 'No food and no sleep for dsijs was killing me. 
 Still there was no rest, for all the night long I heard 
 the groans of the poor fellows whose arms and legs 
 were being chopped off by the surgeons. The whole 
 night was simply horrible. I might have died there 
 myself; I wonder that I did not. Only the hope of 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWOED 133 
 
 escape was keeping me alive. I had not eaten a pound 
 of food in days. 
 
 Daylight of the 23d came. It was my birthday. 
 Auspicious day, I thought, and again my hopes gave 
 me strength and courage to work my way past lines 
 of infantry and cavalry. 
 
 All day, till nearly sunset, I had crept around 
 in the woods, avoiding sentinels, and now I was al- 
 most in sight of the longed-for goal. It was not a 
 mile to the ford. When darkness set in I should 
 swim the river and be a free man. More, I had news 
 that would help Sherman's army to capture Atlanta. 
 A thousand pictures of home, of freedom, peace, were 
 painting themselves in my mind. One hour more, 
 and all would be well. 
 
 Hark ! a shot, and then a call to halt and hold up 
 my arms. I was surrounded in a moment by fifty 
 cavalrymen who had been secreted in the bushes — 
 how or where I know not. We were in sight of the 
 river, and the Union flag was just beyond. It was 
 no use here to talk about being a Confederate. I was 
 arrested as a spy^ and in great danger of being shot 
 then and there, without a hearing. I was partly 
 stripped, searched thoroughly, and then marched be- 
 tween two cavalrymen to General Ross, of Texas, 
 who, with his staff, was also at a hidden point in 
 the woods. General Ross treated me kindly and gave 
 
134 WITH FIKE AIsTD SWOED 
 
 me lunch and a blanket to rest on. It was his duty, 
 however, to send me to the division headquarters, to 
 be tried. I was again marched till nine at night, 
 
 when I was turned over to General H . He was 
 
 sitting bj a fire in the woods roasting potatoes and 
 reviling the Yankees. As I was arrested as a spy, 
 and to be tried, I deemed it best to say nothing. 
 ^'Try to escape from me to-night," shouted General 
 
 H , as if he were commanding an army corps, 
 
 "and I'll put you where there is no more 'scaping." 
 Through the whole night a soldier sat at my head 
 with a cocked pistol, but for the first time in days 
 I slept soundly. Why not? The worst had hap- 
 pened. By daylight a guard marched me up to the 
 city, where Hood had army headquarters in the yard 
 of a private residence. 
 
 On the way there my guard, a mere boy, was com- 
 municative, and I persuaded him to show me the 
 paper that was being sent around with me, from one 
 headquarters to another. I read it. Sure enough, 
 I was considered a spy, and was being forwarded for 
 trial. The paper gave the hour and place of my 
 capture, with the statement that one of those c<iptur- 
 ing me had seen me inspecting a fort on the previous 
 Sunday. 
 
 When we reached Hood's tents, in the dooryard of 
 the Atlanta mansion, T was turned over to a new 
 
 I 
 
WITH EIKE AKD SWOED 136 
 
 guard, and the document brought with me wa€ care- 
 lessly thrown into an open pigeon-hole of a desk out 
 on the grass by a clerk who seemed too mnch dis- 
 turbed about other matters to ask where the guard 
 came from or what I was accused of. I, at least, 
 noticed where the paper was put. There was the 
 most tremendous excitement at headquarters. Order- 
 lies and officers were dashing everywhere at once, 
 fighting was constantly going on, and an immediate 
 retreat seemed to be determined. I was left that 
 night in a tent with a few other prisoners, among 
 them two deserters, sentenced to be shot. Close by 
 on the lawn was the desk where the clerk had de- 
 posited my paper. Our guard was very accommo- 
 dating, or very negligent, for he allowed different 
 persons to go in and out from our tent at all hours 
 during the night. Daylight brought the provost- 
 marshal general to the tent, to dispose of the pris- 
 oners. The name of each was called, and all but 
 myself were taken out, heard, and sent off. 
 
 "And who are you?" he said, pleasantly enough 
 to me. I stepped forward. The clerk was asked for 
 the paper, but it was gone. "It certainly had been 
 misplaced," said the clerk, in embarrassment. He 
 had put it in that particular pigeon-hole. I testified 
 to that myself, and added, — ^this sudden inspiration 
 coming to me in the emergency, — that "it was of 
 
136 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 little consequence, as it was from an officer, — I didn't 
 know whom, — who had simply picked me up as an 
 escaped prisoner." The provost-marshal took me 
 aside and asked me if I had been about the works or 
 the troops any. I told him my name, that I was 
 really an escaped prisoner, and that I had just walked 
 up from Macon and had hoped to get away. "You 
 have had a hard time of it," he said, "and I almost 
 wish you had got away. I hope you will soon be 
 free," he added, "and that the cruel war is almost 
 over." It was a sudden and great relief to me to 
 know that now^ I was not to be regarded as a spy. 
 What became of the "papers" and the charges against 
 me afterward in the midst of war excitements, I 
 never knew. The next night the provost-marshal sent 
 me under guard back to Macon prison whence I had 
 escaped. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Under fire of our own guns at Charleston — Trying to cap- 
 ture a railway train — The secret band — Betrayed — 
 The desolation of Charleston. 
 
 I was scarcely returned to the Macon prison again 
 when two hundred of us, all officers, were selected to 
 be placed under the fire from our navy then bom- 
 barding Charleston. By some wonderful fiction of 
 military law the ''Confederates," as the Rebels called 
 themselves, pretended to regard the bombardment of 
 Charleston as a crime. I do not remember now how 
 the selection of victims to be sent to Charleston was 
 made one evening about the end of July, 1864. 
 This, however, happened that night, to add adven- 
 ture and excitement to the Charleston trip. The 
 greater number of those selected were members of a 
 "Secret Band" of prisoners who had resolved to 
 mutiny or to do any act in our power that could 
 result in our escape from captivity. I recall how 
 Major Marshall one afternoon secretly administered 
 to me the oath of this desperate band. With my hand 
 on my heart I swore to instantly obey every order 
 
 137 
 
138 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 given to me bj the ^'liead captain." I was to ask no 
 questions, but to strike, whenever told; to kill, no 
 matter whom, even were my own brother to be the 
 victim. I was ready to do anything. I had been 
 mistreated and starved long enough. Death could be 
 little worse than all of us had been undergoing for 
 months. The news coming to us from our prison com- 
 rades at Andersonville was perfectly horrible. His- 
 tory had never related the like of it. We received the 
 Telegraph, a Macon newspaper, into the prison pen 
 every morning. At the head of one of its columns 
 each day the editor reported the awful number of 
 poor starving creatures who had died at Anderson- 
 ville the day before. It was not unlike the reports 
 of the number of dumb beasts killed each day in the 
 Chicago slaughter pens. Pretty soon I learned that 
 the eighty comrades of my regiment captured with 
 me at Missionary Ridge were nearly every one dead. 
 The details of their sufferings were too horrible to 
 dilate upon. We wondered sometimes if god had 
 
 FORSAKEN THE WORLD. 
 
 We who joined the ^'Band,'' and took the awful 
 oath we did, knew what it all meant. Outside our 
 stockade loaded cannon waited but the least alarm 
 to fire upon us. On top of the stockade guards walked 
 day and night with orders to instantly kill any pris- 
 oner who should approach within twelve feet of the 
 
WITH FIRE AI^D SWORD 139 
 
 high wall. We were only eight hundred prisoners all 
 told, and nothing to fight Avith bnt naked hands. Out- 
 side whole regiments armed to the teeth lav with guns 
 in their hands waiting to destroy every onk of us 
 should we offer to escape. What was our chance? 
 Almost nothing ; or if anything, death ! Still we 
 resolved to try. 
 
 Then came that night when we were to get on 
 the cars and start for Charleston. Instantly the 
 word was passed along for every member of the 
 secret "Band" to quietly arm himself with a short 
 club, made from our bunks and sheds, and to keep 
 it hid under his coat or blanket. 'Now we were 
 counted and put into a train of box cattle cars. 
 Twenty-five prisoners were in a car, and in the side 
 door of each car stood a guard with his loaded mus- 
 ket. We who were not leaders of the "Band" won- 
 dered what desperate thing we were about to try. 
 I do not know where the tools came from, but when 
 the train was well in motion, and the noise deadened 
 our movements, a big hole, large enough to permit 
 a man to creep through, was knocked in the end of 
 each car. The darkness, the crowd in the cars and 
 the noise prevented the guards knowing what was 
 going on. This was the first ''vestibule'' railroad 
 train ever made. 
 
 Shortly now one of our leaders came creeping 
 
140 WITH FIKE AISTD SWOED 
 
 along from car to car, and in a low voice lie told us 
 what was about to happen. The train on its way to 
 Charleston would halt close to the sea at a little town 
 called Pocotaligo. We knew that some ships of the 
 Union navy lay out in the water there, scarce a 
 dozen miles away. The design was to seize on our 
 guards as we reached the village, disarm them, kill 
 them, if necessary, ditch the train, destroy the road 
 and the telegraph, and then escape to the ships. I 
 think not a soul of us doubted the likelihood of our 
 success. We would be free men on the morrow if all 
 went well. It would be two or three o'clock in the 
 night when the train would pass the point of action. 
 Every one of us had his club and his pocket knife 
 in his hand ready to strike. At the proper moment 
 
 Colonel , our leader, with three comrades, was 
 
 to spring through the end of the front car where he 
 was, onto the tender, seize the engineer and fireman 
 and wave a lantern violently as a signal for us to 
 suddenly lay hold of every Rebel soldier on the 
 train. Ten miles out from Pocotaligo our hearts 
 beat in terrible excitement. "No one spoke; we only 
 waited. It was silence, all save the rumbling of the 
 car wheels. So far our guards seemed in perfect 
 ignorance of the approaching danger. Five miles 
 out, so sure were we of success, a few began to act 
 without waiting for the signal. In one or two of the 
 
WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 141 
 
 cars the guards had been suddenly seized and their 
 muskets were in our hands. In the car where I was, 
 one of the astonished guards, finding himself with- 
 out a gun, coolly said : ''And what are you 'uns going 
 to do with we 'uns ?" It was a tremendous moment, 
 as the train sped along in the dark. Three miles 
 to Pocotaligo; two miles; one mile. With quick 
 beating heart I leaned from our car door, straining 
 my eyes for the lantern signal. Then the whistle 
 blew loudly, but the train only hastened its speed, 
 and in two minutes, instead of stopping, we shot 
 past the station at lightning speed. 
 
 What had happened ? Were we discovered ? Not 
 a signal had been given to us. In the morning we 
 were all hurried inside the jail yard of Charleston. 
 Now we knew it all. At the crucial moment our 
 leader had lost his nerve and become a coward; or 
 had he betrayed us ? He had not waved the lantern, 
 though he had captured it, and held it in his hand. 
 We were now much alarmed as to what would be 
 done with us for seizing the guards. We might lose 
 
 our lives. Colonel , the false leader, was taken 
 
 to another prison to save him from being torn to 
 pieces by his own comrades. 
 
 The newspapers of Charleston that morning con- 
 tained flaming articles, describing how^ a terrible 
 catastrophe had been averted by the cowardice or 
 
142 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 treason of one man. Where they got the details of 
 the proposed capture of the train, no one will ever 
 know. Was the leader simply a coward, or was he 
 paid for betraying ns ? 
 
 After a while we were transferred to what was 
 called the "Hoper Hospital." It was close to the 
 jail, and the danger of being killed by the shells 
 from our own fleet was still very great, though, in 
 fact, few of us were hurt. The yellow fever was 
 to be a greater scourge than Yankee cannon. 
 
 Our fleet officers had learned the locality where the 
 prisoners were guarded, and fired their shells mostly 
 in other directions. It was a grand spectacle at 
 night— the soaring through the heavens of so many 
 blazing bombshells and their bursting in the city. 
 Parts of Charleston that we could see were perfect 
 pictures of desolation ; whole quarters stood in black 
 ruins and iminhabited. The weather was exceed- 
 ingly hot, and the yellow fever broke out and raged 
 fearfully among both prisoners and guards. It 
 seemed as if we should all die there. At last they 
 transported us away to a little open field in the 
 woods, close to the town of Columbia, the capital of 
 South Carolina. 
 
 The surgeon of the prison camp at Charleston was 
 Dr. Todd, a brother of President Lincoln's wife. A 
 more rabid Secessionist was nowhere to be found. 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWOED 143 
 
 It was a curious situation, that the brother-in-law of 
 the great President should be so attached to the 
 country's opponents. 
 
 On our way to the prison at Columbia Major 
 Marshall of my regiment and two captains escaped 
 from the train and reached the North by tramping 
 at night through the mountains of North Carolina 
 and Tennessee. They had horrible experiences for 
 many weeks. 
 
CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 Living in a grave — An adventure in the woods of South 
 Carolina — Life in the asylum yard at the capital of 
 South Carolina — The song of "Sherman's March to the 
 Sea" — How it came to be written — Final escape — The 
 burning up of South Carolina's capital. 
 
 l^JTow we were near the capital of South Carolina. 
 It is our third prison. We were placed in a cleared 
 field among the pine woods, a few miles from the 
 town. Here we spent a part of a terrihle winter ex- 
 posed to the storm and rain. We had no shelter 
 save such as we made at last of sticks and logs that 
 we were allowed to carry in from the neighboring 
 wood. Our food was wretched, we had almost no 
 clothing, and the weather was very bad nearly all 
 the time. We were surrounded by a line of guards. 
 A battery constantly in readiness to fire on us 
 should an alarm be given stood near by. Our food 
 was still the half -cooked corn and cobs together, with 
 quantities of a poor and sickly sorghum molasses. 
 We heard that the Rebel army was living little bet- 
 ter than we were. In ridicule of the rations the 
 prisoners dubbed this prison pen "Camp Sorghum." 
 
 144 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 145 
 
 Every man among us was sick with diarrhoea. The 
 little grave-yard for the prisoners near by grew 
 rapidly. The details of our life in this miserable 
 camp I shall not relate. They were simply too hor- 
 rible. As for myself, — my only shelter was a hole 
 in the ground, four feet deep, four feet wide and 
 eight feet long. It was covered with boughs and 
 earth. Lieutenant Morris and myself occupied this 
 living grave for months. We had a tiny fire-place 
 of clay built in the end of it, where we burned roots, 
 and the long rainy nights we two sat there alone, 
 reading an old newspaper by our root-light or talk- 
 ing of our far-away homes. One very stormy night 
 our water-soaked roof fell in on us, and then we were 
 compelled to walk about in the rain. I wonder now 
 that any soul survived the miseries of that camp. 
 Valley Forge was paradise compared to it. But all 
 this misery was a part of war. 
 
 Naturally, numbers ran the guard lines at this 
 woeful prison pen and escaped into the woods. Fir- 
 ing by the sentinels on these escaping prisoners was 
 a common occurrence on dark nights. Here and 
 there an officer was killed, and sometimes under cir- 
 cumstances that marked the sentinel a common mur- 
 derer. A battery of loaded cannons stood outside the 
 guard line, with orders to open on the prisoners 
 should five musket shots be heard. With the con- 
 
146 WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 
 
 stant escaping of prisoners at niglit these ^ve fatal 
 shots could occur at any hour. 
 
 For my own part, I resolved to again attempt es- 
 cape, but my efforts failed again, and twice in suc- 
 cession. I recall with a shudder how one night late 
 in November my friend, Lieutenant Ecking of New 
 York, was foully murdered. He had bribed a guard 
 to let two or three of us rim across the line that night 
 at midnight. The bribe was to consist of a silver 
 watch. Some of these men were easily bribed. They 
 were not regular Confederate soldiers, but usually 
 cowardly home guards, who regarded the murdering 
 of a helpless prisoner a heroic act. 
 
 When midnight came three of us were secreted 
 close to the dead line. As soon as the bribe-l senti- 
 nel came to his post and commenced walking up and 
 down his beat Lieutenant Ecking rose and ap- 
 proached him. The night was clear moonlight. 
 The moment Ecking had crossed the dead line, and 
 was holding the watch up to the guard, the coward 
 shot him dead. For this outrage the home i2ruard 
 received a furlough. 
 
 About this time, too. Lieutenant Turbayne was 
 murdered by a guard for mistaking the ringing of a 
 bell. Some of us had been permitted to go out on 
 parole and carry in wood at stated times. Without 
 notice, tbis privilege was suspended, but the bellman. 
 
WITH FIEJE AND SWOKD 14Y 
 
 by mistake, rang as usual. Turbayne started for the 
 dead line. ''Go back, halt!'' shouted a sentinel. 
 Turbayne turned to obey, but was instantly shot in 
 the back and dropped dead. There was a furious 
 commotion among the prisoners. The guards, too, 
 collected about the spot. The Rebel officer in charge 
 left his lunch and walked over also. He held in his 
 hand a great piece of pumpkin pie, and continued 
 eating from it as he stood there by the corpse of the 
 man they had murdered. There was almost a mutiny 
 in the prison camp, and one proper leader at that 
 moment would have put an end to the whole Rebel 
 outfit. In the end it would have been death to the 
 whole of lis. 
 
 Previous to this threatened outbreak I had again 
 tried my own chance at escaping. It was now No- 
 vember 4, 1864, a cold blustering day, and the pris- 
 oners in their rags and almost barefooted stood and 
 shivered in the naked field. At four o'clock a dozen 
 were paroled and allowed to go out to the woods and 
 carry in some fuel. 
 
 Lieutenant Fritchie and myself managed to mix 
 ourselves among this little paroled company, and 
 forgot to return to the enclosure. We helped a little 
 in the fuel getting, and then suddenly disappeared in 
 the pine forests. For some days we crept about in 
 the great pine woods, scarcely knowing our direc- 
 
148 WITH FIKE AND SWOED 
 
 tion or wliere we were going. Our leaving Lad been 
 so sudden that we were planless. Here and there 
 we stumbled onto a darkej, who never hesitated to 
 bring us corn hoe cake or whatever eatables he might 
 happen to have in his cabin. The slaves universally 
 were the prisoners' friends, and they knew a hun- 
 dred times more about the war and its object than 
 their plantation masters ever supposed. Many an es- 
 caping prisoner was fed by them and, with the north 
 star as a guide, conducted to safety. Many an army 
 movement was made possible by loyal negroes. 
 Barring an occasional Union white man, they were 
 the only friends the soldiers had in the South. 
 
 Lieutenant Fritchie and I had some queer adven- 
 tures while we wandered about the woods of South 
 Carolina during this little leave of absence from the 
 Confederates. We did not see a single white man, 
 save one, and he tried to shoot us. One night we 
 lodged in an open-topped corn-crib, not knowing in 
 the darkness that we were quite close to an in- 
 habited farmhouse. When daylight came we peeped 
 over the corn-crib and were much astonished to see 
 a woman at her wash-tub on the back porch of a 
 cabin close by. She must have seen our heads, for 
 that very moment she stopped her washing and en- 
 tered the cabin. Shortly she appeared again, fol- 
 lowed by a man, who took one long steady look at the 
 
WITH FIKE AI^D SWOED 149 
 
 corn-crib; then lie entered the cabin, and we knew 
 it was to get his gun. Very quick resolution and ac- 
 tion on our part became advisable. A little plowed 
 field only separated our corn-crib, at the back, from 
 a thick piece of woods. In a moment the man was 
 out again on the porch, bearing a musket. 
 
 "Drop to the ground behind the crib and run to 
 the woods," said Fritchie. "I'll keep watch on the 
 man. I'll drop down too. When you are across 
 wave your hand if he is not coming, and then I'll 
 run." In a moment's time I was running across the 
 plowed field, keeping the crib between me and the 
 porch of the cabin. The man with the musket never 
 saw me. I waved to Fritchie ; he, too, started on the 
 run, and to this hour I laugh to myself when I picture 
 to my mind Fritchie, a short, stumpy fellow, tum- 
 bling absolutely heels over head in his haste to cover 
 that bit of plowed ground. 
 
 Very shortly we heard bloodhounds bellowing. 
 We knew too well what that meant. I^umbers of es- 
 caping prisoners had been torn to pieces by them. 
 That was the common way of catching runaway 
 slaves and prisoners of war down South. They hunt 
 "niggers" that way to-day down there. 
 
 By hard running, turns and counter-turns, and 
 frequent crossing and recrossing little streams, we 
 threw the dogs off our track, and slept until night 
 
150 WITH FIKE AND SWORD 
 
 in the thicket. The wind blew hard and cold that 
 night, and as we stood secreted under a thorn-tree 
 by the roadside two men passed, so close we could 
 have touched them. Something told us they, too, 
 were escaping prisoners. We tried to attract their 
 attention enough to be sure. One of us spoke, 
 scarcely more than w^hisper. Instantly and in alarm 
 the two men bounded away like scared wolves. Days 
 afterward we found out that they had been not only 
 fleeing prisoners, but were, indeed, two of owv per- 
 sonal friends. 
 
 The next night was fair, and a full round moon 
 lighted up the sandy desert, with its oasis of tall, im- 
 mense pine trees. The white winding road of sand 
 that seemed to have been . abandoned for a hundred 
 years was almost trackless. Here and there, too, 
 we saw an abandoned turpentine camp, the spiles 
 still in the trees and the troughs lying rotting at 
 their feet. 
 
 There was nothing but silence there, and loneli- 
 ness, and moonlight. Here in the quiet night, if 
 any^vhere in the world, two poor escaping prisoners 
 of war would be in no danger of a foe. 
 
 For hours we trudged along, going where we 
 knew not, when suddenly to our amazement two 
 mounted cavalrymen stood right in our way and 
 called to us to surrender. There w^as nothing to do 
 
WITH FIEE AND SWOED 151 
 
 but to obey. Our capture had been an accident. 
 These two officers, a captain and a lieutenant, had 
 been riding the country trying to catch some desert- 
 ers from their army and had blundered on to us. 
 They started with us to Lexington jail, some miles 
 away. The captain rode a dozen yards or so ahead, 
 with a revolver in his hand. I trudged along in the 
 sand at his side, faithfully hanging on to his stirrup 
 strap. The lieutenant and Fritchie followed us in a 
 like manner in the moonlight. It seems to have been 
 a romantic occasion, when I think of it now ; we two 
 Federals and these two Confederates, there alone 
 in the moonlight, and the big pine trees and the 
 white sands about. I could not help reflecting, 
 though, how many a captured prisoner had never 
 been accounted for. Possibly we should never see 
 Lexington jail. It would be an easy thing for these 
 men to leave our bodies there in the sand some- 
 where. There were few words at first as we plodded 
 our slow way in the moonlight. At last my captain 
 and I entered into lively conversation about the 
 South in general, and then both of us hoped the 
 war w^ould soon come to an end. To my surprise 
 the young captain confided to me that he was, at 
 heart, a Union man. "And why in the Confederate 
 army?" I asked, in astonishment. "Because," said 
 the captain, "everybody in my village in South 
 
162 WITH FIKE A:N'D SWOED 
 
 Carolina is. I would have been hooted to death had 
 I remained at home. Mj father is a rich man; he 
 is opposed to the war, but he, too, is in the service 
 at Kichmond." 
 
 "Under the circumstances,'' I said, "I being 
 Union, and you being Union, why not look the other 
 way a moment and let me try the time required to 
 reach yonder clump of trees." "ISTo, not a thought 
 of it," he answered almost hotly. "You are my 
 prisoner, I will do my duty." The subject was 
 dropped, and in half an hour Fritchie and I were 
 inside a stone cell in Lexington jail. "You can lie 
 down on the stone floor and sleep if you want to," 
 the jailer said, crustily. The two young officers said 
 a cheery good-by and went away. 
 
 Before daybreak the door of our cell opened again 
 and the gruff jailer called, "Which of you is Adju- 
 tant Byers." Then he pushed a basket and blanket 
 in to me, and a little note. The basket was full of 
 good warm food and the little note, in a woman's 
 hand, said: "With the compliments of the captain's 
 wife." 
 
 I think tears came to the eyes of both of us 
 there in that cell that night. It was among the few 
 kindnesses I ever experienced in the Confederacy. 
 Of course it was a woman's act. The captain had 
 gone to his home near by and told his wife about 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 153 
 
 his prisoners, and here was the remembrance. The 
 world is not so bad after all, we said to each other, 
 Fritchie and I. 
 
 The next day the jailer paraded us out in the 
 corridor, and I think all the people in the county 
 came to see us, to remark on us, and touch us with 
 their hands. Most of these men, women, and chil- 
 dren had absolutely never seen a Northern man be- 
 fore, and a Yankee soldier was a greater curiosity 
 than a whole menagerie of polar bears. I saw the 
 ignorance of the "poor white trash" of the South 
 that day. Not one in twenty of them knew what the 
 war was about. The negroes had a more intelligent 
 notion of affairs than did the people of the Oaro- 
 linas. 
 
 In a few days Fritchie and I were conducted back 
 to our prison pen near Columbia, South Carolina, 
 
 Shortly they moved us once more. This time to 
 the high-walled yard of the lunatic asylum, inside 
 the city. As they marched us through the streets 
 we could see how beautiful the little capital of 
 South Carolina was. It had handsome shops and 
 residences, and beautiful shade trees everywhere 
 gave it a most attractive appearance. It was almost 
 the best known city of the South and here the fatal 
 heresy of secession had been born. As we went along 
 the streets a mob of people gathered around us, hoot- 
 
154 WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 
 
 ing and hissing their hatred at ns, just as they had 
 done that first time we were taken through the town. 
 A few wanted the guards to give them a chance to 
 hang us. It was a sorry sight — this band of ragged, 
 helpless, hungry loyalists being led like slaves and 
 animals through the hooting, threatening crowd. 
 That mob, thirsting for our blood, did not dream 
 what was about to happen. 
 
 Here now in Columbia we were walled in just 
 as we had been at Macon, and our lives continued 
 in much the same hardship as before. Only here I 
 do not recall that any prisoner was murdered. It is 
 right to say, too, that the outrages so often com- 
 mitted on prisoners here and elsewhere in the South 
 were not by the regular Confederate soldiers, but 
 by home guards usually set over us. It seems now, 
 when I recall it, that life was not quite so bad here. 
 We soon had some boards given us; so we built 
 sheds to live in. As for myself, I, with three or four 
 comrades, lived in a little wedge tent. It was very 
 cold and midwinter now. I scarcely slept at night, 
 but walked about to keep warm. It was on one of 
 these midnight tramps that it occurred to me to 
 write the song, ^'Sherman's March to the Sea." I 
 recur to it here because it gave its name to the great 
 campaign it celebrates. 
 
 The story of how it came to be written cannot 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 155 
 
 perhaps be wholly without interest. During the days 
 that Sherman's army was tramping from Atlanta to- 
 ward Savannah we prisoners were not permitted to 
 have any news from the outside of any kind what- 
 ever. There was a fear that if we knew what was 
 going on a mutiny might follow. We were constantly 
 being told by our guards that Sherman's invading 
 army was being headed off or destroyed. In the be- 
 ginning we feared these stories to be true, but the 
 uneasy actions and sullen looks of our captors soon 
 began to belie their statements. As said, three or 
 four of us prisoners occupied a little wedge tent. 
 A negro had recently been allowed to come into the 
 prison pen mornings to sell bread to those who had 
 any money with which to buy. Our little mess got 
 a small loaf now every morning; not more for the 
 bread, though we needed that badly enough, than for 
 a certain little roll of paper carefully hidden away 
 in the middle of the loaf. It was a Columbia morn- 
 ing newspaper printed on soft thin paper and of ex- 
 tremely small size. Our loyal negro had easily 
 enough been persuaded to hide a copy of this paper 
 in the bread for us as often as he could have the 
 chance unobserved. A knowing wink from him told 
 us when to eat our loaf of bread inside the tent and 
 with one of us watching at the door while another 
 read in a low voice the news from the invading 
 
156 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 army. The paper rolled up was not larger than a 
 walnut. 
 
 It was full of misrepresentations and reports of 
 disasters to Sherman, to mislead the Georgians and 
 lessen their alarm. Yet between the lines we easily 
 enough read that Sherman was surely marching on, 
 and victorious. His columns were coming nearer to 
 us ; and how we longed night and day that he might 
 capture the prison ! At last we saw that there was 
 no hope. He was passing us, — though, but many 
 miles away. 
 
 Then one morning, when we unrolled the little 
 paper in the bread and read it, we knew that lie had 
 reached the sea. Savannah had fallen. The con- 
 sternation of the Southerners was tremendous. But, 
 next, they pretended that they could box Sherman up 
 in Savannah and capture his whole army. 
 
 One December night when I was tramping up and 
 down the prison pen in the dark, trying to keep 
 warm, I reflected on the tremendous importance of 
 what Sherman had done. And I wondered what so 
 curious a campaign would be called. It was not a 
 series of battles — it was a great march. And then 
 the title, and almost the words, of the song came to 
 me. 
 
 The next morning when my tent comrades were 
 out of doors shivering over a little fire I remained 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 157 
 
 in our little heap of straw, and completed the 
 verses. 
 
 I went out to the fire and read them to mj com- 
 rades. A Lieutenant Rockwell happened to be pres- 
 ent and asked permission to make a copy of the 
 verses. He, with many others, slept on the ground 
 under the hospital building. One had to crawl on 
 his hands and knees to enter there. There was a 
 most capable Glee Club among the officers, and they 
 had by some means secured a flute, violins, and bass 
 viol for accompaniments. They kept their instru- 
 ments under the house, too, where they slept. 
 
 Every afternoon this Glee Club was permitted to 
 sing and play on the little elevated porch of the 
 hospital. The only condition was that Southern 
 songs should be sung, not less than Northern songs. 
 There was no trouble about that. The songs of our 
 captors were better than no songs. Besides, these 
 singers made music. All the crowd of prisoners, 
 eight hundred now, often stood in front of the little 
 porch to enjoy the singing. Almost hundreds of the 
 Rebels, too^ together with many ladies of Columbia, 
 climbed up onto the walls, where the guards stood, 
 and applauded the singers as much as any. 
 
 One drizzly afternoon I was standing by a little 
 persimmon tree in the midst of the crowd listening 
 to the songs, when Major Isett, leader of the Glee 
 
168 WITH PIKE AND SWOKD 
 
 Club, said: "Now we will have a song about Sher- 
 man.'' To mj astonishment, it was mj ''Sherman's 
 March to the Sea." 
 
 It was received in a tremendous fashion. Every- 
 body cheered and hurrahed. The news of Sherman's 
 victories was fresh upon them. In five minutes' time 
 the good fortune of mj song was settled. The name 
 of the author was loudly called for; someone saw 
 me by the little tree, and I was quickly hauled to the 
 front and up onto the platform. In a few moments 
 an unknown officer among the many prisoners became 
 a sort of prison hero. 
 
 Everybody wanted the song, everybody sang it; 
 and clever penmen made a good thing making copies 
 at twenty dollars apiece. Confederate money. As a 
 little compliment to me the captain of the prison 
 allowed me to sleep on the floor of the hospital 
 room. To me that was important, as shall appear. 
 Later in this narrative, too, will be seen how an ex- 
 changed prisoner, by the name of Tower, who had 
 an artificial leg, carried the song in this wooden 
 limb through the lines to our soldiers in the North, 
 where it was sung everywhere and with demonstra- 
 tion. In a week it had given its name to the cam- 
 paign, and a million copies of it soon passed into 
 circulation. 
 
 Lieutenant Rockwell, Avho had asked my leave to 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 159 
 
 copy the verses tliat first morning, was a composer, 
 and there in the dust under the old hospital he had, 
 unknown to me, written the first music to which the 
 song was ever sung. Later, it had many other set- 
 tings, but that one, though difficult, remained the 
 best. The song has often since been sung to the air 
 of ^'The Red, White, and Blue." This is the history 
 of the song, which I print here as a part of this nar- 
 rative. 
 
 SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA 
 
 Our camp fires shone bright on the mountains 
 
 That frowned on the river below, 
 While we stood by our guns in the morning 
 
 And eagerly watched for the foe — 
 When a rider came out- from the darkness 
 
 That hung over mountain and tree. 
 And shouted, "Boys, up and be ready. 
 
 For Sherman will march to the sea." 
 
 Then cheer upon cheer for bold Sherman 
 
 Went up from each valley and glen. 
 And the bugles re-echoed the music 
 
 That came from the lips of the men. 
 For we knew that the stars in our banner 
 
 More bright in their splendor would be. 
 And that blessings from Northland would greet us 
 
 When Sherman marched down to the sea. 
 
160 WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 
 
 Then forward, boys, forward to battle. 
 
 We marched on our wearisome way. 
 And we stormed the wild hills of Resaca, — 
 
 God bless those who fell on that day — 
 Then Kenesaw, dark in its glory, 
 
 Frowned down on the flag of the free, 
 But the East and the West bore our standards, 
 
 And Sherman marched on to the sea. 
 
 Still onward we pressed, till our banners 
 
 Swept out from Atlanta's grim walls, 
 And the blood of the patriot dampened 
 
 The soil where the traitor flag falls; 
 But we paused not to weep for the fallen, 
 
 Who slept by each river and tree; 
 Yet we twined them a wreath of the laurel 
 
 As Sherman marched down to the sea. 
 
 O, proud was our army that morning 
 
 That stood where the pine darkly towers, 
 When Sherman said: "Boys, you are weary. 
 
 This day fair Savannah is ours." 
 Then sang we a song for our chieftain 
 
 That echoed over river and lea. 
 And the stars in our banner shown brighter 
 
 When Sherman marched down to the sea. 
 
 [Sherman's March to the Sea. — From Eggleston's 
 Famous War Ballads. — General Sherman, in a recent con- 
 versation with the editor of this collection, declared that it 
 was this poem with its phrase, "march to the sea," that 
 
WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 161 
 
 threw a glamour of romance over the campaign which it 
 celebrates. Said General Sherman: "The thing was noth- 
 ing more or less than a change of hase; an operation per- 
 fectly familiar to every military man, but a poet got hold 
 of it, gave it the captivating label, 'The March to the Sea,' 
 and the unmilitary public made a romance out of it." It 
 may be remarked that the General's modesty overlooks the 
 important fact that the romance lay really in his own deed 
 of derring-do; the poet merely recorded it, or at most inter- 
 preted it to the popular intelligence. The glory of the great 
 campaign was Sherman's and his army's; the joy of cele- 
 brating it was the poet's; the admiring memory of it is the 
 people's. — Editor.] 
 
 As stated, I slept nights now on the floor of the 
 prison hospital. This added comfort, however, did 
 not tempt me to stay in prison, if I conld get away. 
 Once more we heard that the prisoners were to be 
 carted away to some safer place, out of the line of 
 Sherman's army, now turned North and moving 
 rapidly toward us. A night or two before this move 
 of prisoners really commenced Lieutenant Devine of 
 Philadelphia joined me in an effort to get away. 
 The walls of the least used room of the hospital were 
 made of joined boards. By the use of an old case 
 knife, hacked into a saw, or auger, we managed to 
 cut a hole sufficiently large to permit us to pull our- 
 selves through and out into an attic above a little 
 porch. We repaired the boards as best we could and 
 
162 WITH riKE AISTD SWOED 
 
 crept out into tlie dark hole. It was the attic of the 
 same porch on which our Glee Club stood when they 
 sang my song. It was a little cramped up place we 
 were in, where we could neither sit erect nor lie at 
 full length. There were no guards inside the prison 
 hospital; the night was very dark; the sick pris- 
 oners seemed to be sleeping. A dim lamp hung from 
 the ceiling. We were not detected. The next night 
 at midnight, when the prisoners were being marched 
 away, two of them were missing. What a night and 
 day and part of another night that was for us, 
 crooked and cramped as we wTre, in the top of that 
 little porch. 
 
 At the next midnight, when every soul, prisoners, 
 guards and all, seemed to be gone far away and dead 
 silence was upon the place, Devine and I crept down 
 from our hiding place. The big gate was closed and 
 locked. By the aid of a scantling I managed to get 
 up onto the high brick wall. My surprise was im- 
 mense to see guards waiting for us outside, and to 
 know that we were discovered. One of the sriiards 
 rushed up to his post at the top of the wall, but he 
 was too late to shoot; we were already in hiding 
 among the empty board huts and barracks.* 
 
 ♦When springing down from the top of that wall I lost 
 my shoes — I had had them in my hand. T also let fall 
 from my pocket the pages of this diary. I could not think 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 163 
 
 In a moment tlie big gate opened and a hundred 
 men rushed in, looking for the escaping Yankees. 
 They howled, they cursed at us, they set the bar- 
 racks on fire. Then amid the melee and excitement 
 in the dark my comrade and myself pulled our gray 
 blankets about us, picked up a water bucket each, and 
 pushed up to the guard at the gate. We were "go- 
 ing for water,'' we said. "The lieutenant says the 
 fire must be put out." Without waiting a reply we 
 hurried out in the darkness. There were some vain 
 shots after us. 
 
 Shortly we heard the tramp of horses coming to- 
 ward us. A friendly culvert in the road into which 
 we dodged afforded us protection while a whole 
 company of Johnny Rebs rode over our heads. What 
 would they have thought, that night, had they known 
 it as they went skipping along with arms and jin- 
 gling sabers, to confront Sherman's advance guards ? 
 
 We were gone. After a while, in the outskirts of 
 the city, we saw a light in a cabin and a negro walk- 
 ing up and down by the window. Every negro we 
 knew to be a loyal friend. This one we called out 
 among some rose bushes in the dooryard. Instantly, 
 and without fear, we told him who we were and that 
 
 of losing them, and at the risk of my life I slipped over 
 the dead line and from under the guard's very feet, I 
 snatched them up and ran hehind one of the huts. 
 
164 WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 
 
 we were in his power. There is not a question but 
 he would have been well rewarded had he betrayed 
 us to the Confederate soldiers in the city that night. 
 Few words were spoken. That morning two escaped 
 prisoners were secreted under some bean stalks in the 
 garret of the negro's cabin. The negro's sick wife 
 lay in the single room below. Had we been dis- 
 covered now that negro would have been hanged from 
 his own door lintel. And well he knew it. 
 
 Sherman's army was already pounding at the gates 
 of the town. He was crossing the river and his 
 shells reached to the capital. This much we knew 
 from what we could hear in the yard below, for the 
 negro's cabin stood at the edge of a green lawn, 
 where General Chestnut had his headquarters. We 
 broke a little hole through the siding of the house, 
 and now could see what the general and his staff 
 were doing. We also could hear much that was said. 
 Once we thought ourselves discovered, for we ob- 
 served two or three of the general's negro servants 
 standing in a group on the grass looking steadily to- 
 ward the spot where our little improvised window 
 was. What on earth were they looking at? 
 
 It was not much the old negro could give us to 
 eat. A little dried beef and some cold corn bread ; 
 that was all, save that once he brought us a gallon 
 of buttermilk. He had no cow, but he would not 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 165 
 
 tell US where this, to us, heavenly nectar had come 
 from. 
 
 There was much hurrying of officers back and 
 forth at General Chestnut's headquarters, and plainly 
 we could see there was great excitement. Our own 
 negro was kept going back and forth into the town 
 to pick up for us whatever news he could of the 
 fight going on at the river. After awhile the cannon- 
 ading grew louder, and it seemed to us the conflict 
 must be right at the outskirts of the town. Then 
 we saw General Chestnut hurriedly ride on to the 
 headquarter's lawn, and we distinctly heard him say 
 to an officer, "Sherman has got a bridge down. The 
 game's up. We must evacuate." In a few minutes 
 the sound of the guns increased, and then we saw 
 General Chestnut call his slaves to him to bid them 
 farewell. It was a touching scene, amid the dramatic 
 surroundings. He seemed very kind, and some of 
 them in their ignorance wept. "You will be free," 
 he said. "Be good." I thought, he too was affected 
 as he mounted his horse and, followed by his staff, 
 rode away. He was hardly out of sight when our 
 negro protector came running toward the cabin. He 
 was tremendously excited. A tall, old cylinder hat 
 he had picked up on the way was on his head, his 
 eyes bulged out, his hands waved like windmills ; h© 
 was celebrating. In a moment the black face and the 
 
166 WITH FIEE AND SWORD 
 
 cylinder hat shot up the ladder and through the 
 hatch-way to where we were. 
 
 "God Almighty be thanked!" he cried in a loud 
 voice. "Massa, the Stars and Stripes are waving 
 above the capital of South Carolina. Praise to the 
 God Almighty!" 
 
 Sure enough, Union troops, had entered, and a 
 flag from my own State had been run up on the 
 State House. Instantly we bade him hurry and bring 
 some Union soldiers to us. In his absence Devine 
 and I st^od shaking each other's hands and thanking 
 God for our deliverance. I^o slave who had his 
 chains knocked oif that day by the coming of the 
 Union army felt more thankful than we, freed from 
 the wretchedness and horrors of fifteen months of im- 
 prisonment. !N'ow we could see the Confederate 
 cavalry evacuating the town. Whole companies 
 passed, each trooper having a sheaf of oats slung to 
 his saddle bow. Shortly our black friend returned, 
 and with him two Union soldiers. "It is time to 
 drink, boys," they cried out, as they fairly forced us 
 to partake of the whisky in their canteens. When 
 we all went down into the yard I was sure we would 
 be recaptured, for the "Rebel rear-guard was passing 
 close to our cabin. The flying troops, however, had 
 fish of their own to fry, and were in too much haste 
 to be looking after us. l^ow, too, we were sur- 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 167 
 
 rounded by General Chestnut's black servants, who 
 were hopping about, giving thanks for their freedom. 
 I asked one of them what it was they had been look- 
 ing at so attentively the day before, when I had 
 seen them gazing right at our hiding-place. ^'Ha 
 ha ! massa ! we just knowed you was up there all the 
 time. Reckon you didn't like that ar buttermilk 
 what we'uns sent you." Our negro friend then had 
 made confidents of them, and we had been fed, with- 
 out knowing it, on some of the good things from 
 General Chestnut's kitchen. Should the general ever 
 read this little book, I hope he will cease wondering 
 what became of his buttermilk that day at Columbia. 
 
 "Now, our two soldiers escorted us to a street where 
 some of the army had halted and stacked arms. A 
 Union flag hung over a stack of muskets, and no hu- 
 man being will ever know with what thankful heart- 
 beatings and tears we gathered its silken folds into 
 our arms, l^ow we knew that we were free. The ter- 
 rible days were indeed over, and God's rainbow illu- 
 mined our sky. 
 
 In half an hour the victorious veterans of Sher- 
 man's army, their great leader riding before, with 
 bands playins: and banners flying, entered the cap- 
 tured city. My comrade and I stood on a high door- 
 step and saw them pass. Someone pointed us out to 
 Sherman, and for a moment the whole moving army 
 
168 WITH FIEE AND SWORD 
 
 was halted till he greeted the freed prisoners. We 
 two comrades lived a month in that short seventeenth 
 day of February, 1865, in Columbia. I think we 
 shook hands with a thousand soldiers, even with 
 many soldiers we had never seen before. It seemed 
 to us that everybody must be as glad to see us as we 
 were to see them. 
 
 That night Columbia was burned to the ground 
 amid untold horrors. The conflagration had com- 
 menced from bales of cotton that the enemy had fired 
 and left in the street to prevent falling into the 
 Union hands. A big wind rose toward evening and 
 the burning cotton flakes were flying all over the 
 city. It was a terrible spectacle that night. My 
 comrade and I walked about the streets till nearly 
 morning. Whole squares and streets were crumbling 
 to ashes and tall buildings tumbled down everywhere. 
 Here and there, too, there was a terrific explosion. 
 It was Moscow done over on a smaller scale. A di- 
 vision of Union troops, under Hazen, was sent into 
 the town to fight the flames and to arrest every man 
 discovered firing houses or walking around without 
 a pass. So it happened that my comrade and myself, 
 though but innocent spectators, were at midnight ar- 
 rested and taken to provost headquarters. We very 
 soon explained ourselves and were released and sent 
 to comfortable quarters, Avhere we slept till late the 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 169 
 
 next day. It was four nights since we had had any 
 sleep at all. 
 
 Bnt the sights of that awful night will never fade 
 from my memory. Most of the citizens of Columbia 
 had sons or relations in the Rebel army. Half of 
 them were dead, the army itself was flying every- 
 where, and in the blackness of this terrible night 
 their fortunes were all lost, their homes were all 
 burning up. Many wandered about wringing their 
 hands and crying; some sat stolid and speechless in 
 the street watching everything that they had go to 
 destruction. A few wandered around, wholly de- 
 mented. Some of the invading soldiers tried earnestly 
 to extinguish the flames; others broke into houses 
 and added to the conflagration. Numbers of the 
 Federal prisoners, who only a few weeks before had 
 been marched through the streets like felons, had es- 
 caped, and what average human nature led them to 
 do never will be known. There were fearful things 
 going on everywhere. It was reported that an ex- 
 plosion occurred in one house and that twenty-four 
 soldiers, carousing there, were lost in the ruins. 
 Most of the people of Columbia would have been will- 
 ing to have died that night, then and there. What 
 had they left to live for? This, too, was war. 
 
 When the army entered in the afternoon, Lieuten- 
 ant Devine and I, as related, stood on the high steps 
 
170 WITH FIEE AND SWOED 
 
 of a mansion and watclied it pass. Shortly after a 
 
 very charming young woman, a Mrs. C j seeing 
 
 us, came down and invited us into her father's house 
 and gave us food. It was the first real food we had 
 had for many, many months. The lady's father was 
 a rich jeweler, and, though a Southerner, was a Union 
 man. Tier own husband, however, was somewhere 
 in the Southern army. My comrade and I spent an 
 entertaining hour in the mansion, and then went and 
 walked about the city. 
 
 At six o'clock the awful cry, "The to^vn is burn- 
 ing up, the town is burning up!" was heard every- 
 where. Devine and I at once thought of Mrs. C 
 
 and our friends of the afternoon, and hurried to their 
 home to offer help. The flames were already across 
 
 the street from there. Mrs. C' 's father was 
 
 weeping in the drawing-room. Once he took me by 
 the arm and led me to where we could see his own 
 business establishment burning to the ground. "There 
 goes the savings of a life," said he, in bitterness. 
 "There is what the curse of secession has done for us ; 
 there is what Wade Hampton and the other political 
 firebrands have done for South Carolina." My com- 
 rade and I at once began carrying some of the more 
 valuable goods out of the house for them, doing 
 everything possible to help them save some remnant 
 from their beautiful and luxurious home. We ran 
 
WITH FIKE AND SWOED 171 
 
 up and down the mansion stairs nntil we were almost 
 dead with exhaustion. Everything we could save 
 we piled into a phaeton that stood by the yard. Once 
 the lady cried that her child w^as still in the house, 
 burning up. Her shrieks pierced even the noise of 
 that fearful night. Her alarm was without cause, 
 for I soon found the child safe in the arms of a faith- 
 ful slave nurse. She had simply carried it out of 
 danger. 
 
 When the walls of the house seemed about to 
 fall, Devine and I took the loaded bugs^y, he pulling 
 in the shafts, I pushing behind, and, followed by the 
 weeping family on foot, we drew it for a mile or 
 more to the outer ed2:e of the town. Here we left 
 them in safety by a little wood, yet not knowina: if 
 we would ever see them again. Many of our soldiers 
 were burnt up that night. 
 
 The next day Sherman's army left the ruins of 
 the city behind them and marched away. They had, 
 however, left supplies of rations for their unfortu- 
 nate enemies. A train of emr>ty wasrons was also 
 furnished for those fugitives who wished to follow 
 the army and work their way !N'orth. Hundreds, 
 possibly thousands, left the smoking ruins of their 
 homes and traveled along with us in every conceiv- 
 able conveyance that was heard of. Black and white, 
 slave and free, rich and 7")Oor, joined in the proces- 
 
172 WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 sion behind the army. Mrs. C and her father's 
 
 family were among them. 
 
 I now tried to find my regiment. It was gone. 
 Many battles and many marches had so decimated it 
 that the little fragment left had been disbanded and 
 transferred into a regiment of cavalry. 
 
 Colonel Si] shy, of the Tenth Iowa, offered me a 
 place with his mess. I accepted. The Colonel, as 
 it happened, had charge of perhaps a hundred pris- 
 oners, captured on the march, l^aturally, I was in- 
 terested to go among them. I soon saw how much 
 better they fared than I had done when in Southern 
 hands. Two or three of them, as it happened, had 
 been among the guards who had treated us so badly 
 while we were in the prison known as "Camp Sor- 
 ghum," outside of Columbia. They were perfectly 
 terrified when they learned that I had been there 
 under their charge. They seemed to fear instant and 
 awful retaliation; but I thought of nothing of the 
 kind. I was too glad just to be free to be thinking 
 of any vengeance. 
 
 A curious incident now happened. This was the 
 discovery, among these prisoners, of the husband 
 
 of the young Mrs. C who had given us food in 
 
 Columbia and whose belongings I and my comrade 
 had tried to save. He was overjoyed to learn from 
 me that his wife and child were at least alive. I in- 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 173 
 
 stantly went to General Logan, and related to him how 
 this man's family had been kind to me the day that 
 I escaped. I had no trouble in securing his release. 
 It was at Logan's headquarters, too, that I had se- 
 cured money and an order for provisions to give to 
 Edward Edwards, the black man who had been the 
 means of my final rescue. His sick wife had kept 
 him behind, else he would have followed the army. 
 We left him in Columbia. Years later, as a sign 
 of my gratitude toward this slave, I dedicated a 
 little volume to him, in which I had described my 
 prison life. 
 
CHA^TEE XIV 
 
 The army in the Carolinas — General Sherman sends for 
 me — Gives me a place on his staff — Experiences at 
 army headquarters — Shermatfs life on the march — 
 Music at headquarters — Logan's violin — The General's 
 false friend — The army wades, swims, and fights 
 through the Carolinas — I am sent as a despatch bearer 
 to General Grant — A strange ride down the Cape Fear 
 River in the night — General Terry — Learn that my 
 song "The March to the Sea" is sung through the 
 North, and has given the campaign its name — I bring 
 the first news of Sherman's successes to the North — 
 An interview with General Grant. 
 
 It was on this inarch in tlie Carolinas that General 
 Sherman sent for me to come to army headquarters. 
 We were two days away from Columbia. I was 
 ashamed to go in my prison rags, so I waited. The 
 next day the request was repeated, and Major ISTichols 
 of the staff came and said, ^^But you must go, it is 
 an order." And I went. The General was sitting 
 by a little rail fire in front of his tent, reading a 
 newspaper, when we approached his bivouac in the 
 woods. I was introduced. He at once told me how 
 pleased he had been with my song, that I had written 
 in prison about his army. Devine had given him a 
 
 174 
 
WITH riKE AND SWOKD 175 
 
 copy at that time when he halted his column to 
 greet us by the door-step at Columbia. '*Our boys 
 shall all sing this song," he said; "and as for you, 
 I shall give you a position on my staff. To-morrow 
 you will be furnished a horse and all that you need ; 
 and you must mess with me.'' 
 
 It would be very hard to express my feelings at 
 this sudden transition from a prisoner in rags to a 
 post at the headquarters of the great commander. I 
 was almost overcome, but General Sherman's extreme 
 kindness of manner and speech at last put me partly 
 at my ease. Shortly a big colored man, in a green 
 coat, announced dinner. "Come," said the General, 
 pushing me ahead of him into a tent, where a num- 
 ber of handsomely uniformed staff officers stood 
 around a table waiting his approach. I was still in 
 my rags. I could not help noticing the curious 
 glances of the fine gentlemen, who doubtless were 
 wondering what General Sherman had picked up 
 now. 
 
 My embarrassment was extreme. The commander 
 however soon told them who I was, gave me the seat 
 at his right hand, and almost his entire conversation 
 at the table was directed to me. The officers of the 
 staff quickly took the General's cue, and I was soon 
 an object of interest, even to them. 
 
 He directed a hundred questions to me as to the 
 
176 WITH riKE AND SWOED 
 
 general treatment of war prisoners in the South, and 
 he, as well as the staff, interested themselves in all 
 the details of my ©scape. Telling the story very 
 60on relieved me of my embarrassment as to my 
 clothes. The horrible tales of Southern prison pens, 
 however, was nothing new to General Sherman, for 
 he related to me some of the awful things he had 
 heard of Andersonville while his army was at At- 
 lanta. 
 
 "At one time," said he, "I had great hopes of 
 rescuing all of them at one quick blow. I gave 
 General Stoneman a large body of cavalry, with di- 
 rections to raid down about Macon. This raid was 
 to go farther, and, by a quick, secret dash capture 
 Andersonville and release every prisoner there. It 
 was a chance to do the noblest deed of the war, but 
 it all failed miserably. Stoneman had not fully 
 obeyed orders, and, instead of releasing a whole army 
 of suffering captives, he got captured himself, and, 
 with him, a lot of my best cavalry." 
 
 It happened that I saw General Stoneman the 
 very day he was brought to the prison. My narrative 
 of how by desperately bold and violent cursing he 
 denounced and defied his captors, and everything in 
 Eebeldom, greatly amused Sherman and all at the 
 table. 
 
 Stoneman's awful language and flashing eyes 
 
WITH FIKE AND SWOKD 177 
 
 did indeed fairly intimidate the officer in charge. 
 Evidently lie tlionght he had captured a tiger. It was 
 a wonder Stoneman was not killed. 
 
 The conversation ahout the prisoners continued. 
 Twenty-five thousand of them were starving and dy- 
 ing in Andersonville. ''It is one of the awful fates of 
 war," said the General. ''It can't be helped; they 
 would have been better off had all been killed on 
 the battlefield; and one almost wishes they had 
 been." After a pause, he continued. "At times, I 
 am almost satisfied it would be just as well to hill 
 all prisoners/^ The remark, to me, a prisoner just 
 escaped, seemed shocking. I am sure he noticed it, 
 for he soon added: "They would be spared these 
 atrocities. Besides, the more aivful you can make 
 war the sooner it will he oyer/' 
 
 It would, after all, be a mercy. 
 
 ^^War is hell, at the best/' he went on, half in 
 anger, and using an expression common to him. 
 
 For the moment I thought him heartless, but 
 other remarks made to me, and to the staff, soon told 
 us that whatever the cruelties imposed on him as a 
 commander, they were executed with heart-pain and 
 only as plain duty for the salvation of his own 
 army. He even talked of how glad he would be to 
 be out of the whole blood v business, once the Union 
 
178 WITH FIKE AND SWORD 
 
 were restored. But if the rebellion continued all his 
 life, he would stay and fight it out. 
 
 When the dinner was over each looked about him 
 to find some garment to give me. This one had an 
 extra coat, that one a pair of trousers, and anotiier 
 one a hat. In short I w^as quickly attired in a rather 
 respectable uniform. 
 
 This matter was just about ended when a beautiful 
 woman was conducted to Sherman, to ask protection 
 for her home, that was in his line of march. She 
 was "true blue Union," despite her surroundings. 
 In a moment the whole atmosphere about the tent 
 was chansred. The red-handed warrior, who a mo- 
 ment before was ready to kill even prisoners, sud- 
 denlv became the most amiable, the most gallant and 
 kni2:htly looking man I ever saw. Beauty, that can 
 draw a soldier with a single hair, had ensnared the 
 srreat commander. He had becom.e a s'entle knifyht. 
 The whole arm v. if need be, would stand stock still 
 to do her one little favor. T now recall how long 
 after the war T noticed a hundred times this per- 
 fectly kniarhtly gallantry of Sherman toward all 
 women. 
 
 This one particular woman seemed a hundred 
 times more beautiful, more fascinating, there in the 
 srreen wood alone, with an armv of a hundred thou- 
 
WITH EIEE AND SWOKD 179 
 
 sand strangers about her, when, pointing her hand 
 toward a great banner that swung in the wind be- 
 tween two tali pines, she smiled and cried; ''(jreneral 
 Sherman, that is my iti^ag too/' There was a 
 clapping of hands from all of us, and any one of 
 us would have been glad to be sent as the protector 
 of her home. 
 
 The great army was now marching, or rather 
 swimming and wading, in the direction of Eayette- 
 ville, iN. O. There were heavy rains and the coun- 
 try, naturally swampy, was Hooded everywhere. I 
 soon learned from the staff where the army had al- 
 ready been. After the end of the march to the sea 
 and the capture of Savannah, Sherman had started 
 in with sixty thousand men, to treat South Carolina 
 in the manner he had treated Georgia — ^march 
 through it and desolate it. His proposed march 
 northward from Savannah was regarded by the 
 Southern generals as an impossibility. The ob- 
 stacles were so great as to make it a hundred times 
 as difficult as his march from Atlanta to the sea. 
 But he led a great army of picked veterans, accus- 
 tomed to everything, whose flags had almost never 
 known defeat. Their confidence in their general and 
 in themselves w^as simply absolute. So far, in their 
 march from Savannah they had hesitated at nothing. 
 
180 WITH riEE AND SWOKD 
 
 It was midwinter, and yet that army had often 
 waded in swamps with the cold water waist deep, 
 carrying their clothes and their muskets on their 
 heads. Half the roads they followed had to be cor- 
 duroyed, or their horses would all have been lost in 
 the bottomless mire and swamps. Often their artil- 
 lery was for miles pulled along by the men themselves, 
 and that in the face of the enemy, hidden behind 
 every stream, and ready to ambush them at every 
 roadside. Over all these infamous wagon roads, 
 across all these bridgeless rivers and endless swamps, 
 our army now dragged with it a train of sixty-nine 
 cannon, twenty-five hundred six-mule wagons, and six 
 hundred ambulances. The tremendous obstacles they 
 encountered before reaching Columbia they were 
 again to encounter beyond. Not a bridge was left 
 on any creek or river in the Carolinas. Roads were 
 built of poles and logs through swamps ten miles 
 wide. Sherman's army had few rations and no 
 tents. The foragers brought in all the food they 
 could pick up near the line of march. The little 
 rubber blankets the soldiers carried were their sole 
 protection from storm. They were almost shoeless. 
 There were not a dozen full tents in the army. 
 Officers used tent flies sometimes, but oftener simply 
 rolled themselves up in their blankets, as their men 
 did. At army headquarters we had but one large 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 181 
 
 tent, used generally for dining under ; so we usually 
 slept in deserted cabins at the roadside. 
 
 I recall one fearfully stormy night when the 
 General and his staff had all crept into a little 
 church we found in the woods. The General would 
 not accept the bit of carpet one of us had improvised 
 into a bed for him on the pulpit platform. "No/' 
 he said, "keep that for some of you young fellows 
 who are not well." He then stretched himself out 
 on a wooden bench for the night. I think he never 
 removed his uniform during the campaign. Day 
 and night he was alert, and seemed never to be 
 really asleep. We of the staff now had little to do 
 save carrying orders occasionally to other com- 
 manders. 
 
 General Sherman did most of his own writing, 
 and he wrote a rapid, beautiful hand. We had 
 breakfast by the light of the campfire almost every 
 morning, and were immediately in the saddle, 
 floundering along through the mud, always near to, 
 or quite at, the head of the army. At noon we 
 always dismounted and ate a simple lunch at the 
 roadside, sometimes washed down by a little whisky. 
 jSTow and then some one of the army, recognizing the 
 General riding past, would give a cheer that would 
 be taken up by brigades and divisions a mile away. 
 There seemed to be something peculiar about this 
 
182 WITH riEE AND SWOKD 
 
 Sherman cheer, for soldiers far oflf would cry out: 
 ^^Listen to them cheering Billy Sherman." 
 
 On the 3d of March we took Cher aw, and twenty- 
 four cannon, also nearly four thousand barrels of 
 gunpowder. That day General Logan, General 
 Howard, General Kilpatrick, General Hazen, and 
 many other notables came to headquarters. There 
 was a jolly time of rejoicing. 
 
 Here General Logan, who could play the violin, 
 entertained them by singing my song of "Sherman's 
 March to the Sea," accompanying his voice with the 
 instrument. A dozen famous generals joined in the 
 chorus. After the singing, Logan insisted that I 
 should also recite the poem. I did so, meeting with 
 great applause from the very men who had been the 
 leaders in the great "March." Alas ! save one or 
 two, they are now all dead. 
 
 Among the captures that day had been eight 
 wagonloads of fine, old wine. It was now dis- 
 tributed among the different headquarters of the 
 Union army, and as a result some of the said head- 
 quarters were pretty nearly drunk. One of our 
 staff, at dinner the next day, attempted to explain 
 his condition of the day before. "E'ever mind ex- 
 plaininc:," said General Sherman crustily, and with- 
 out looking up, "but only see that the like of that 
 does not happen again ; that is all." That staff 
 
WITH riKE AND SWOKD 183 
 
 officer was a very sober man the rest of the cam- 
 paign. 
 
 While we were lying there in Cheraw we heard 
 an awful explosion; the very earth shook. I sup- 
 posed it to be an earthquake until a messenger 
 brought word that a lot of captured gunpowder had 
 exploded and killed and w^ounded twenty soldiers. 
 
 As we were crossing on our pontoons over the 
 Pedee River at Cheraw I noticed a singular way of 
 punishing army thieves. An offender of this kind 
 stood on the bridge, guarded by two sentinels. He 
 was inside of a barrel that had the ends knocked out. 
 On the barrel in big letters were the words: "I am 
 a thief." The whole army corps passed close by 
 him. An occasional man indulged in some joke at 
 his expense, but the body of soldiers affected not tO' 
 see him. The day we entered Cheraw General 
 Sherman and his staff rode through the country alone 
 for ten miles, going across from one column to an- 
 other. It was a hazardous ride, as the whole 
 country was full of guerrillas. But nothing of note 
 happened to us. 
 
 On the 8th of March the headquarters staff was 
 bivouacked in the woods near Laurel Hill. The 
 nrmy was absolutely cut off from every^vhere. It 
 had no base; it was weeks since Sherman had heard 
 from the !N'orth or since the !N'orth had heard from 
 
184: WITH FIRE AND SWOED 
 
 him. E'ow he resolved to try to get a courier with 
 a message through to Wilmington, at the seaside. 
 An experienced spy by the name of Pike was selected 
 to float down the Cape Fear Eiver to ask the com- 
 mander to try to send a tugboat up, to communicate 
 with the army. I did not know then that the next 
 one to run down Cape Fear Eiver would be myself. 
 
 In four days we had taken Fayetteville and its 
 wonderful arsenal, built years before by the 
 American people, and where now half the war 
 supplies of the Eebel army were made. 
 
 When the General and his staff first rode into 
 Fayetteville headquarters were established in the 
 arsenal. The General, wishing to look about the 
 town for an hour or so, left me in charge. The other 
 officers rode away with him. Very shortly a well- 
 dressed, fine-looking old Southerner came to me and 
 complained that his home was being disturbed by 
 some of our soldiers. He was, he said, an old West 
 Point friend of General Sherman's. While waiting 
 the return of the commander, he regaled me with 
 incidents of their early days together in the !N'orth 
 and with his intimacies with one who would now 
 doubtless be overwhelmed with joy at seeing him. 
 He begged me to observe what would be his re- 
 ception when the General should come. Impressed 
 by his conversation, I at once sent a soldier or two 
 to guard his home. 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 185 
 
 Shortly after General Sherman rode in through 
 the arsenal portal and dismounted. The Southerner 
 advanced with ojoen arms, and for a moment there 
 was a ray of pleasure illuminating Sherman^s face. 
 Then he went and leaned against a column, and, 
 turning to the Southerner, said, "Yes, we were long 
 together, weren't we?'' "Yes," answered the 
 Southerner, delighted. "You shared my friendship, 
 shared my bread, even, didn't you?" continued 
 Sherman. "Indeed, indeed !" the Southerner re- 
 plied, with increasing warmth. The General gave 
 the Southerner a long, steady, almost pathetic look, 
 and answered, "You have betrayed it all; me, your 
 friend, your country that educated you for its de- 
 fense. You are here a traitor, and you ask me to 
 be again your friend, to protect your property, to 
 send you these brave men, some of whose comrades 
 were murdered by your neighbors this very morning 
 ■ — fired on from hidden houses by you and yours as 
 they entered the town. Turn your back to me for- 
 ever. I will not punish you; only go your way. 
 There is room in the world even for traitors." The 
 Southerner turned ashy white and walked away 
 from us in silence. Sherman sat down with the rest 
 of us to our noonday lunch. We sat about the portal 
 on stones, or barrels, or whatever happened to 
 answer for seats. The General could scarcely eat. 
 l^ever had I seen him under such emotion; the 
 
186 WITH FIKE AND SWORD 
 
 corners of his mouth twitched as he continued talk- 
 ing to us of this false friend. The hand that held 
 the hread trembled and for a moment tears were in 
 his eyes. lor a little while we all sat in silence, 
 and we realized as never before what treason to the 
 republic really meant. The General spoke as if he, 
 nor we, might ever live through it all. 
 
 Very soon General Howard rode in to complain 
 anew of the outrages committed on our troops by 
 men firing from windows as they passed along the 
 streets. Two or three soldiers had been killed. 
 *'Who did this outrage?" cried Sherman, in a loud 
 and bitter voice. ''Texans, I think,'' answered 
 General Howard. ^^Then shoot some Texan pris- 
 oners in retaliation,'' said Sherman sternly. ^'We 
 have no Texans," replied Howard, not inclined, 
 apparently, to carry out the serious, but just order. 
 ^'Then take other prisoners, take any prisoners," 
 continued General Sherman. "I will not permit 
 my soldiers to be murdered." He turned on his 
 heel and walked away. Howard mounted and rode 
 into the town. What happened, I do not know. 
 
 On Sunday morning General Sherman asked me 
 to take a walk with him through the immense arsenal 
 of Fayetteville before he should blow it up. We 
 were gone an hour, and I was surprised at his great 
 familiarity with all the machinery and works of the 
 
WITH FIKE AND SWOED 187 
 
 immense establishment. He talked constantly and 
 explained many things to me. l^ever more than at 
 that time was I impressed with the universal 
 knowledge, the extraordinary genius, of the man. 
 There seemed to be nothing there he did not under- 
 stand. On our way back to headquarters I heard 
 him give the order to destroy everything, to bum 
 the arsenal down, blow it up, to leave absolutely 
 nothing, and he added the prayer that the American 
 government miofht never again give ITorth Carolina 
 an arsenal and forts to betray. He was very ansrry 
 now at those who had used the United States 
 property in their desire to destroy the firovernment 
 itself. He had seen nothino* in the war thnt seemed 
 so treasonable, unless it was the base ino^ratitude of 
 those who entered the service of the Eebellion after 
 bavins: been educated at West Point at the Govern- 
 ment's expense. 
 
 Pretty soon he said to me : "If I can get any kind 
 of a boat ur> here, T am going to have you try to 
 7'each Wilmington with dispatcher." Almost at that 
 minute a steam whistle sounded in the woods below 
 us. "There it is," said the General joyfully. "Pike 
 ?ot through." Very soon someone came running to 
 say a commjinication had come from the seashore; a 
 little tug had run the Pebel gaunlet all the way from 
 Wilm inert on. 
 
188 WITH riKE AND SWOKD 
 
 We went in to lunch and tlie General announced 
 to the staff his intention of sending me down the 
 river, and off to General Grant with dispatches. 
 This chance to get word of his movements and his 
 successes to General Grant and the North was of 
 vast importance, and it moved him greatly. He left 
 his lunch half finished and commenced writing 
 letters and reports to the commander-in-chief. That 
 evening at twilight General Sherman walked with 
 me down to the riverside where the little tug lay 
 waiting. "When you reach the North/' he said, 
 putting his arm around me, "don't tell them we 
 have been cutting any great swath in the Carolinas ; 
 simply tell them the plain facts; tell them that the 
 army is not lost, hut is well, and still marching." 
 So careful was I as to his injunctions, that even the 
 newspapers at Washington never knew how the great 
 news from Sherman reached the North. 
 
 I did not know then, startin.^ down the river with 
 my message, that it was to he seven years before I 
 was again to see the face of my beloved commander. 
 
 The Cape Fear River was flooded at this time, 
 a mile wide, in places even more, and though its 
 banks were lined with guerrillas there could not be 
 great danger, if we could stay in the middle of the 
 stream, unless our little boat should get wrecked in 
 the darkness bv flostinfi: trees or bv running into 
 
WITH FIKE AND SWOKD 189 
 
 shallow places. The lights were all put out. The 
 pilot house and the sides of the boat were covered 
 by bales of cotton, to protect us against the Rebel 
 bullets. My dispatches to General Grant were care- 
 fully sewed up inside my shirt, and were weighted, 
 so that I could hastily sink them in the river should 
 we be captured. A half dozen refugees from 
 Columbia joined us. Among them was the Mrs. 
 
 C , whose property Devine and I had tried to 
 
 save the night of the fire. It was a curious and 
 dangerous voyage down that roaring, flooded river 
 for a woman to be undertaking in the darkness, but 
 this woman had now undertaken many dangers. 
 Another of my companions on that strange voyage 
 was Theodore Davis, a corresponding artist of 
 Harper s Weekly. We kept the boat in the channel 
 as far as we could guess it, and, for the rest, simply 
 floated in the darkness. We went through undis- 
 covered ; not a shot fired at us. Before daylight, so 
 swift had been the current, we were in Wilmington. 
 General Terry had just taken Wilmington and 
 was in command of the city. Some of my dis- 
 patches were for him. He was still in bed, in one 
 of the fine residences of the place, but instantly 
 arose and urged me to jump into bed and get some 
 rest while he should arrange to get me immediate 
 transportation to Grant. I slept till nine, and when 
 
190 WITH FIRE AND SWORD 
 
 I came down to the drawing-room, now used as 
 headquarters, General Terry asked if perhaps it 
 were I who wrote the song about Sherman's March 
 from Atlanta seaward. It had been sung at the 
 theater the night before, he said. I was much 
 gratified to have him tell me that the whole army 
 had taken it up. ^^Tens of thousands of men," he 
 said, ^Vere singing it." I knew, as already told, 
 that an exchanged prisoner had brought the song 
 through the Rebel lines in an artificial leg he 
 wore, but it was an agreeable surprise to now learn 
 of its sudden and tremendous success. 
 
 General Terry impressed me as the handsomest 
 soldier I had seen in the army — McPherson, the 
 commander of my own corp, only excepted. He was, 
 too, a refined and perfect gentleman. Looking at 
 hin- T thought of the cavaliers of romance. Here 
 was real knighthood, born and bred in the soil of the 
 republic. The laurels for his heroic capture of Fort 
 Fisher were fresh on his brow. 
 
 Before noon an ocean steamer, the Edward 
 Everett, was ordered to take m© at once to Fortress 
 Monroe. Two of my army friends went along. The 
 captain, leaving on so short notice, had provided his 
 ship with insufficient ballast, and to me, a landsman, 
 the vessel's lurchings were very astonishing. I had 
 never seen the ocean before, and it was not long till 
 
WITH FIEE AND SWOED 191 
 
 I wished I might never see it again. To add to my 
 alarm, a fierce tempest sprang up as we passed 
 around Cape Hatteras, and the danger was no longer 
 imaginary, but very real. The few passengers on 
 the boat might as well have been dead, so far as 
 any self-help was to be thought of in case of disas- 
 ter. Even the captain was very seasick, and, alto- 
 gether, passengers and crew were badly scared. For 
 many hours it was nothing but a fierce blow and a 
 roll about on the mad waters. All things come to 
 an end; so did this storm, and at last we reached 
 Fortress Monroe, where I was hurriedly transferred 
 by some sailors in a yawl over to a boat that had 
 already started up the James toward Richmond. Our 
 captain had signaled that he had a dispatch bearer 
 from the Carolinas. We had not gone far until we 
 passed the top of a ship's mast sticking a few feet 
 above the water. It was the mast of the \. amber- 
 land^ that had gone down in her fight with the 
 Merrimac with as brave a crew as ever manned a 
 war boat. 
 
 The steamer I was now on was crowded with 
 ofiicers in bright uniforms, apparently returning to 
 their regiments. I w^ondered if all the Eastern 
 army had been home on a furlough. I could not 
 help contrasting to myself this ship full of sleek, 
 brightly uniformed officers with the rough-clad 
 
192 WITH FIEE AND SWOED 
 
 soldiers and officers of tlie army of Sherman. Sher- 
 man's foragers and veterans of the March to the 
 Sea might have cut an awkward figure alongside 
 these gay youths just from Washington. 
 
 In the afternoon the ship came to at City Point, 
 and I climbed up the bank of the river bluff for 
 perhaps a hundred feet, and was soon directed to 
 the headquarters of the cammander-in-chief of the 
 United States armies. 
 
 When I reached the open door of Grant's famous 
 little cabin a young officer asked me to come in, and 
 was introducing me to the chief of staff, Rawlins, 
 who stood there with some letters in his hands. 
 That instant General Grant showed his face at the 
 door in the back of the room. I knew who it was 
 at once. He stepped forward to where General 
 Rawlins was speaking with me, listened to the con- 
 versation a moment, and without any formal intro- 
 duction, smiled, took me by the hand and led me 
 into the back room of the cabin shutting the door 
 behind us. He asked me to sit down, but I first 
 proceeded to rip the dispatches out of my clothing, 
 and with intense interest watched his features while 
 he sat on a camp stool by the window, his legs 
 crossed, and read Sherman's letter. I could see the 
 glow of silent satisfaction as he glanced along the 
 lines that told of his great lieutenant's successes in 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 193 
 
 the Soutli. He glanced at another letter I held in 
 my hand. ^^It is for the President," I said. "He 
 will be here jet to-night/' he answered. "His boat 
 must now be coming up the bay." 
 
 Then General Grant questioned me as to all I 
 knew about Sherman's army, the character of the 
 opposition he had met, the condition of his soldiers, 
 their clothing, the roads, the weather. He also asked 
 me how I had reached him with the dispatches, 
 coming all the way from the interior of North 
 Carolina. He seemed to have thought for a mo- 
 ment that I had come across Virginia on foot. He 
 wanted to know of me again about the terrible treat- 
 ment of prisoners in the South. What I told him 
 only "confirmed," he said, what he had heard from 
 a hundred sources. 
 
 Very shortly he heard the voice of General Ord 
 in the outer room. 
 
 "Come in here, Ord," he said, holding the door 
 open. "Come in and hear the news from Sherman. 
 Look at that, listen to this," and again he went 
 through Sherman's letter, reading parts of it aloud. 
 "Good ! Good !" cried Ord, fairly dancing about the 
 cabin, his spurs and saber jingling. "T was really 
 getting afraid." "Not T, not I, not a bit," ex- 
 claimed Grant enthusiastically, as he rose to his 
 feet. ''I Jcnerv my man. I hnew General Sherman," 
 
194 WITH EIKE AND SWOED 
 
 I was astonished now at the simple and perfectly 
 frank manner with which General Grant talked to 
 me about the situation of the anny. I had ventured 
 to ask if there was any outlook for the immediate 
 fall of Richmond or a battle. 
 
 "Yery great," he answered. "I am only afraid 
 Lee may slip out before we can get a great blow at 
 him. Any hour this may happen." Just then there 
 was cannonading. I wondered if a fight were com- 
 mencing somewhere in the line already. General 
 Grant did not change a muscle in his face. "Send 
 out and see what the firing is," he said to an officer 
 quietly, and then as quietly continued talkin.qr, 
 asking me to tell him all T knew of a recent escapade 
 of TCilpatrick and his cavalry. It happened that I 
 knew all about it. Only a couple of weeks before 
 Kilpatrick and his headquarters had been surprised 
 in bed at a bivouac on the flank of Sherman's army, 
 and were surrounded and some were captured. By 
 a heroic struggle the cavalry leader had escaped his 
 captors, had instantly rallied his troops there in the 
 dark woods and given the bold Rebels a little drub- 
 bing. The next day I had been with Sherman at 
 headquarters and listened to Kilpatrick's recital of 
 his adventure. My own narration of the mVht's 
 cavalry fisrht, reciting how the cavalrymen and his 
 aids dashed about with nothing on but their shirts, 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 195 
 
 made General Grant smile very audibly. ''I had 
 expected the whole thing to be about as you say/' 
 he exclaimed, in a grateful way, ^'but the Richmond 
 newspapers which fell into my hands made a big 
 thing of the so-called capture of Sherman's cavalry 
 leader." 
 
 Once, as the General rose and stood directly in 
 front of us, I was astonished to see how small he 
 seemed. I had seen Grant before, but on horseback 
 or in battle, and, somehow, I had always regarded 
 him as a rather large, solidly built man. To-day in 
 the little back room of his cabin, talking with him, 
 I saw how mistaken I had been. General Grant, as 
 I now saw him, was, in fact, a little man. Several 
 times he rose and walked about the room. He was 
 not more than five feet seven or eight inches high, 
 and he could not have weighed more than one hun- 
 dred and forty or fifty pounds. He wore a simple 
 fatigue uniform, and his coat thrown open gave him 
 the appearance of being larger chested than he really 
 was. His brown hair was neither short nor long, 
 and he wore a full beard, well trimmed. Had I not 
 known to whom I was talking, or had I not seen 
 the three stars on his shoulders, I would have sup- 
 posed myself in the presence of some simple army 
 captain. There was nothing whatever about him to 
 announce the presence of genius or extraordinary 
 
196 WITH FIEE AND SWOKD 
 
 ability of any kind. He was in no sense a striking- 
 looking man. His manner and words to me were 
 kind and earnest. There was an agreeable look 
 about his mouth and eyes that made him seem very 
 sincere. Indeed, if any one thing about him im- 
 pressed me more than another, it was his apparent 
 sincerity and earnestness. And he looked to me 
 like a man of great common sense. Of vanity, pre- 
 tence, or power there was not a single sign. He 
 could not have looked very greatly different when 
 he was hewing logs for his house at his father-in- 
 law's farm ten years before, from what he looked 
 just now, quietly directing a million soldiers in the 
 greatest war of modem times. 
 
 Like General Sherman, he repeatedly expressed 
 his interest concerning the terrible experiences I had 
 undergone in Southern prisons. 
 
 ^^I suppose you will want to get home as quickly 
 as possible, won't you ?" he inquired, "or would you 
 rather remain here awhile and look about the army ?" 
 A steamer was to leave for the North in an hour. 
 Privately, I was fearing a sudden break-down of my 
 health, and longed for a home that I had visited 
 but eight days during four long years of war. Then 
 I thought of my letter to Mr. Lincoln. The General 
 seemed to anticipate my thought. "Leave the 
 President's letter with me," he said, "if you choose, 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 197 
 
 and I will give it to him, or stay over and give it 
 to him yourself.'' 
 
 There was no man living I was so anxious to see 
 as Abraham Lincoln. And this was my opportunity. 
 But something like a premonition said, "Go home." 
 When I expressed my feeling General Grant stepped 
 to the door of the office room and directed General 
 Rawlins to see that I be provided with leave of ab- 
 sence and transportation. That little order, signed 
 by Rawlins, I still possess. 
 
 With an earnest handshake and good-by General 
 Grant thanked me for bringing him the dispatches. 
 I was not to see him again for many years.* 
 
 *At the town of Lucerne in Switzerland there is in front 
 of the Schweizerhof a quay lined with castanien trees. It 
 overlooks the beautiful lake. Long years after the war 
 General Grant sat there on a bench one quiet summer 
 night and talked to me of the time I brought the news 
 to him from Sherman in the Carolinas. In a few weeks 
 from that night by the lakeside I had the honor of enter- 
 taining my old commander at my own home, in the city of 
 Zurich, where I was now representing the government as 
 one of his appointees. The order naming me to go to 
 Zurich had, on a certain time, been written by his own 
 hand. 
 
 This night at Zurich proved to be almost the last time 
 I was ever to see the great commander. His presence and 
 words that evening are among the treasured memories of 
 my life. 
 
CHAPTEK XV 
 
 Washington City in the last days of the war — Look, the 
 President! — The last man of the regiment. 
 
 Leaving General Grant's headquarters at Citj 
 Point was for me a final good-bv to the army. The 
 little steamer Martin carried me down the James 
 Hiver, up the Chesapeake Bay, and the Potomac, 
 toward the ^orth. I recall now the strange sensa- 
 tions I had in passing Washington's tomb at Mount 
 Vernon. The green slopes and the oak wood in 
 front of the old mansion were in full view. I could 
 even see the front columns of the house, and some- 
 one on the steamer's deck pointed out to me the spot 
 where stood the simple brick mausoleum where with 
 folded arms slept the Father of his Country. I 
 could not help reflecting that at that moment not a 
 hundred miles away stood nearly all George Wash- 
 ington's State's descendants, with arms in their hands, 
 striving to destroy the government that he had 
 founded. 
 
 How I enjoyed that ship ride! Here there was 
 no sandy prison pen with poor, straving, dying com- 
 
 198 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 199 
 
 rades lying around; no futile efforts at escape; no 
 taunts and jeers that the American flag had gone 
 down in disgrace ; now all was free and beautiful, and 
 mine. The hated rag of the Confederacy that had 
 floated over my head and threatened me every day 
 with death for fifteen long months was gone for- 
 ever. At the mast of our little vessel waved the 
 Stars and Stripes, conscious, it seemed to me, of the 
 free air I was breathing. That was a happy day for 
 me. 
 
 Some time in the following night the wheels of 
 the boat stopped revolving — there was silence; and 
 when I woke at daylight there was the land. The 
 ship was fast in the slip at the wharf, and there, too, 
 was the capital of the republic. I went ashore by 
 myself and wandered into the city, my mind 
 crowded every moment with the thoughts of what 
 had taken place here in the last four years. Sol- 
 diers I saw everywhere, with arms and without arms, 
 l^egroes, now freedmen, by the ten thousand fairly 
 darkened the population. With some friends I 
 found a boarding place on the avenue above the 
 [N'ational Hotel. If I wanted to see great men, 
 notorious men, men making history, all kinds of 
 men, I had only to step into the corridors of the 
 IvTational. 
 
 I had little or no ready money, nor could I 
 
200 WITH FIKE AND SWOKD 
 
 get any until the government settled my accounts. 
 I waited in Washington for a week. General Sher- 
 man had given me papers that would insure my 
 promotion in the regular army. I presented them; 
 they were all-sufficient; I needed only to say the 
 word. But I was sick and tired of war, and would 
 not have exchanged a glimpse of my Western home 
 for the commission of a brigadier. 
 
 But while I stayed in Washington what sights I 
 saw ! Our capital is now possibly the finest in the 
 world. Then it was the most hateful; the most 
 hateful in every way. Militarism, treason, political 
 scoundrelism, and every other bad ism reigned in 
 every hotel, on every street corner, in Congress, out 
 of Congress — everywhere; reigned right at the 
 elbows of loyalty and patriotism such as the world 
 never saw. Society was one grand conglomeration 
 of everything good and bad. 
 
 Washington City itself was a spectacle. It had 
 no streets, save one or two^ — simply dirty unpaved 
 roads. The dirty street cars, pulled by worn-out 
 horses, were crowded inside and outside by a mass 
 of struggling politicians, soldiers, gamblers, adven- 
 turers, and women. The city was also full of 
 hospitals ; everywhere there were lazarettos and 
 graveyards. It looked as if half the Union army 
 had dragged itself into the capital to die. The 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWORD 201 
 
 great Capital building was uncompleted; its dome 
 stood there covered with scaffoldings and windlasses. 
 The plaza at the east end of the structure looked like 
 a vast stone quarry. The Washington Monument 
 had only gotten itself safe above high-water mark; 
 and what there was of it was in danger of falling 
 down. It stood in the middle of the flats, the 
 mud and the malaria — the graveyard, in short, that 
 formed the unsavory prospect from the White House 
 windows. 
 
 Aside from the unfinished govermnent buildings 
 there was not a pretense of architecture in all Wash- 
 ington. There was nothing beautiful there. The 
 very atmosphere seemed sickly; fever, malaria, were 
 everywhere. It was the one city in all creation to 
 get out of as soon as possible. 
 
 Once I tried to get a glimpse of the President. 
 I failed. The White House gates were held by 
 sentries. ^'Why do you Avant to see that old Ape?" 
 said a man to me one day. I was shocked, and 
 would like to have killed him. But he was not alone 
 in his vileness. Thousands in Washington affected 
 to despise Lincoln. I wondered then that it was 
 regarded safe for him to appear in public. One day 
 a carriage rolled rapidly up the avenue in front of 
 the National. I heard some men cry, ^Took, the 
 President !" I glanced quickly. A tall, dark man. 
 
202 WITH FIKE AND SWORD 
 
 wearing a silk hat sat in the carriage; at his side 
 a ladj. 
 
 In a moment they were out of sight. There 
 was not a cheer, not a hat touched, not a hand 
 waved, and yet that was Abraham Lincoln 'passing, 
 soon to be the greatest man in history. A little 
 wrangle and almost a fist-fight between some by- 
 standers on the pavement followed; one party de- 
 nouncing the President for freeing the ^^damned 
 niggers'' ; another thanking God for the President's 
 noble deed. Such scenes were going on everywhere 
 all over the capital, pro and con. Approval and 
 hatred. The best praised, the worst abused mortal 
 in America was just entering on his second term at 
 the White House. I never even had a glimpse of 
 the kindly face again. 
 
 At last my accounts were ready. "But your regi- 
 ment," said the Assistant War Secretary, ''does not 
 exist. What was left of them were all put into a 
 cavalry troop long ago. You are the last man of the 
 regiment." Across the face of my paper he wrote, 
 ^'Discharged as a supernumerary o-fficer/^ That 
 paper lies before me while I write. I was paid off 
 in shining greenbacks for all the time I had been in 
 prison. 
 
 As to the eighty comrades who had been captured 
 with me that 25th of November in the assault on 
 
WITH FIRE AND SWOED 203 
 
 Missionary Ridge, all but sixteen were dead. Nine 
 of my old Company B of the Fifth Regiment were 
 taken prisoners, and only one of them had survived 
 the horrors of Andersonville. Poor Cartwright died 
 not long after, and I alone of the little band was 
 left to tell the storv.