strength to the rebels, and they might have made its passage a costly effort for us, but they have been outwitted and outmanœuvred.

At this station we came across an old man named Wells, who was the most original character I ever met. He was depot-master in the days when there was a railroad here. He is a shrewd old man, and seemed to understand the merits of the case perfectly. He said :

66

They say you are retreating, but it is the strangest sort of a retreat I ever saw. Why, dog bite them, the newspapers have been lying in this way all along. They allers are whipping the Federal armies, and they allers fall back after the battle. It was that ar idee that first opened my eyes. Our army was allers whipping the Feds., and we allers fell back. I allers told 'em it was a d-d humbug, and now, by I know it, for here you are, right on old John Wells's place; hogs, potatoes, corn and fences all gone. I don't find any fault; I expected it all.

"Jeff. Davis and the rest," he continued, "talk about splitting the Union. Why, if South Carolina had gone out by herself, she would have been split in four pieces by this time. Splitting the Union! Why, d-n it, the State of Georgia is being split right through from end to end. It is these rich fellows who are making this war, and keeping their bodies out of harm's way. There's John Franklin went through here the other day, running away from your army. I could have played dominoes on his coat-tails. There's my poor brother, sick with smallpox at Macon, working for 'leven dollars a month, and hasn't got a cent of the d-n stuff for a year. "Leven dollars a month and 'leven thousand bullets a minute! I don't believe in it, sir.

"My wife came from Canada, and I kind o' thought I would sometime go there to live, but was allers afraid of the ice and cold; but I can tell you this country is getting too cussed hot for me. Look at my fence rails a-burning there; I think I can stand the cold better.

"I heard as how they cut down the trees across your road upcountry and burn the bridges. Why, (dog bite their hides) one o' you Yankees can take up a trec and carry it off, tops and all; and there's that bridge you put across the river in less than two hoursthey might as well try to stop the Ogeechee as you Yankees.

"The blasted rascals who burnt this yer bridge thought they did a big thing. A nat'ral born fool cut in two had more sense in either end than any of them.

"To bring back the good old times," he said, "it'll take the help o' Divine Providence, a heap o' rain, and a deal o' elbow grease, to fix things up again."

A significant feature of this campaign, which has not before been mentioned in this diary, received a marked illustration yesterday.

Except in a few instances, private residences have not been destroyed. Yesterday we passed the plantation of Mr. Stubbs. The house, cotton-gin, press, corn ricks, stables, every thing that could burn, was in flames, and in the door-yard lay the bodies of several bloodhounds, that had been used to track and pull down negroes and our escaped prisoners. And wherever our army has passed, every thing in the shape of a dog has been killed. The soldiers and officers are determined that no more flying fugitives, white men or negroes, shall be followed by track-hounds that come within reach of their powder and baЛ.

DECEMBER 13th, at Fort McAlister. To-day I have been a spectator of one of those glorious sights where the actors passing through the most fearful ordeal of fire which befalls the soldier, come out successful, and are, always after, heroes.

The Second division of the 15th Corps have marched to-day fifteen miles; and, without the assistance of artillery, have crossed an open space of six hundred yards, under a fire of twenty-one heavy guns, crawling through a thick abattis, crossed a ditch of great depth, at whose bottom were driven thick palisades, torn them away, surmounted the crest and palisades, shot and bayoneted the gunners who refused to surrender at their posts, and planted the Stars and Stripes upon the work in triumph. The assault was made with a single line, which approached the fort from all sides but that of the river at the same instant, never for an instant wavering, no man lurking shelter, but facing the fire manfully.

The explosion of torpedoes at this point did not deter them. General Sherman's old division and corps had been told that he had said, "Carry the place by assault to-night, if possible," they resolved to fulfill their old commander's wish, and they did it. Perhaps in the history of this war there has not been a more striking example of the evidence of quick, determined action. Had we waited, put up entrenchments, shelled the place, and made the usual approaches, we should have lost many more lives, and time that was invaluable. As it is, our entire loss is not more than ninety men killed and wounded, and we have gained a necessity, a base of supplies. Our whole army are eager to emulate such a glorious example, and their esprit du corps has been raised to the grandest height

With the fall of Fort McAlister Savannah was won. Communicating with the fleet at once, upon his arrival. Sherman arranged for the investment of the city, and, so rapidly was the work carried forward that Hardee had only time enough to escape from his strong works, which he did,

by passing over the river, into South Carolina, during the darkness of the night of December 19th. On the day following Sherman had arranged to carry the city by assault. The escape of Hardee spared the city an effusion of blood and terrible destruction of property. Sherman occupied the place on the 22d-the gallant Geary s division marching in as custodians of the prize, while the expedition commander dispatched the following unique announcement of his success to the President:

His Excellency President LINCOLN:

SAVANNAH, Ga., Dec. 22, 1864.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.

The ultimate object of the Grand March was accomplished, and the rebellion had received a blow which shook the Southern fabric to its foundation walls.

XLI.

THE HORRORS OF SOUTHERN PRISONS.

NOTWITHSTANDING all the evidence produced at the trial of Captain Wirz, in Washington, during the fall of 1865, the story of the sufferings of Union prisoners in Southern prisons is only half told Having seen hundreds of those who had experienced the horrors of those awful open pens—having viewed their wasted frames and heard their piteous tale, we know that the civilized world never before witnessed such barbarous treatment of prisoners of war. Twenty-two thousand men finally released from the keeping of the monster in human shape, Captain Wirz, almost uniformly attest the

recitals of individual statements already laid before the public; and no testimony has been offered which merits a moment's consideration that seeks to set aside or even to qualify the uniform evidence which the sufferers have given; while the graves of twelve thousand starved and murdered men send up their mute protest against the defense offered for the wretched author of so much suffering and wrong; namely that he but enforced the orders of his superiors. His immediate superior, General Huger, was cruel and brutal, as the evidence proved; and the fact was also divulged on the Wirz trial that the War Department at Richmond, was fully cognizant of the treatment meted out to the Union prisoners at Andersonville, Saulsbury, Libby prison, etc., but that Wirz exceeded all orders in the practice of his cruelty at Andersonville, is to be regarded as established. That the Confederate Government through General Huger and General Howell Cobb permitted such a monster to remain in charge of the pen, is to their own eternal disgrace, and by the verdict of a common judgment they stand convicted as particeps criminis in the keeper's guilt. "May their memory forever be accursed!" was the anathema upon every sufferer's lips, and the verdict of posterity will not erase the infamy now ascribed to the authors of the Southern Prison Pens' barbarity.

A correspondent of the N. Y. Times, who was present on the Savannah river, at Venus Point, where the exchanges were made, late in November, 1864-by which many of the prisoners from Andersonville, Millen, etc., were restored to their liberty at that time gave to the world such damning proof of the atrocious treatment of our prisoners, at the hands of the enemy as shocked the entire loyal community. His account was not circumstantial but documentary, while, as he wrote, the victims of Andersonville stood before or lay around him on the receiving decks. He said: "Aside from the indignation which every man can not help feeling at the visible effects of the cruelties that have been practiced-an indignation almost forbidding a calm recital of the facts

the task invests itself with another difficulty, as words are found incapable of expressing the revolting experiences and incredible hardships of the men who have been languishing without hope, month after month, shelterless, naked and half starved, crowded—to the number of from twenty-five to thirty thousand-like sheep in a foul pen, dying at an average of one hundred in every twenty-four hours. Happily, however, in addition to the daily reports, covering a period of more than a month of the rebel physicians at Andersonville, a perusal of which requires no flight of imagination to conceive of the horrors of the prison, I have before me the diaries of two of our dead soldiers, brought down to a very recent date, from which I purpose to make some extracts, which, more forcibly and eloquently than any words of mine, will come like voices from the grave, telling a truthful tale of cruel wrongs, and appealing to the people and the Government in behalf of the thousands still in captivity for prompt release."

We since have had ample testimony that his worst conjectures-his most shocking statements, were but too true; and may, therefore, cull from the documents submitted at that time, and, from the writer's own observations, such facts as will give the reader an idea of the inhumanity studiously practiced upon the Union prisoners of war held in the prisons of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. After detailing the arrival of the rebel transports from above Augusta, loaded with the Andersonville prisoners, and their transfer to the Federal steamers in waiting, under a flag of truce, at Venus Point, just above Savannah, the writer refers to the exceeding joy manifested by the men at their release. It was very affecting to witness their expressions of relief, but what a cight did they present! This is the picture presented :

"These the sons, brothers, husbands and fathers of the North! Men reduced to living skeletons; men almost naked; shoeless men, shirtless men, hatless men; men with no other garment than an overcoat; men whose skins are blackened by dirt, and hang on their protruding bones loosely as