We proceeded, without interruption, through a tolerably fair country; large plantations, with the dead trees yet standing, houses comfortably framed, without much pretensions to beauty or grandeur, burned several fine lots of cotton, and tore up more railroad than the Confederacy will repair this season.

Private residences were protected by provost-guards being removed and others not yet staguards, but all public buildings were burned. tioned, the negroes and soldiers broke into the The inhabitants seemed to expect nothing but stores, and it was interesting to see the manner that we would burn the town; they, however, in which they appropriated the various articles soon became acquainted with us, and invited the of merchandise. True, there was but little to apofficers to their houses to remain during our propriate, but what there was was soon appropristay; gave them the best feather-beds in their ated. In one store there was a lot of cotton houses, and treated them with genuine Southern cloth, and it was interesting to see the darkeys hospitality; we judge, however, it was for self- haul it into their arms, as a sailor takes in a line, protection rather than for any love they felt for until they had an armful, tear it off, and another "Lincoln's vandals." However, it was all the same take hold and haul it in, until he too had an arınto those who enjoyed the luxury of sleeping with ful, and so on, until the stock was exhausted. their pants off, between clean sheets. As for ourselves, we got cheated out of our "soft snap," by one of our boys-a new recruit-shooting himself through the hand, so as to require the amputation of a finger, late in the evening, and it was too late, after we had him cured, for to come in on any of the applications for "officers to spend the night with them." We, however, took breakfast with a very nice family, had a very pleasant hour's chat, so much so, that we really forgot we were among enemies. The breakfast was not any thing extra, except extra bad butter and corn-bread, and a fair article of extra wheat coffee; but they treated us so kindly, and talked so sensibly about the war, and wished so heartily for peace, that we were almost persuaded they were not "secesh;" but if we were to believe all the citizens tell us, we would conclude no person ever desired a separation of the Union, and that they really thought Yankee soldiers were much greater gentlemen, more intelligent, and better men than their own "brave boys," and that there was no use in their trying to cope with so formidable a foe; all of which is, of course, true, but they don't believe a word of it.

A great many negroes joined us here, and many more were desirous of coming, but had no means of taking their families. We were much amused as we entered town, by a lady rushing out of a gate, and accosting an officer riding by, with: "Captain, is there no means by which I can get my boy back? He is going off with your army?" The officer replied: Well, madam, I know of no law nowadays, civil or military, by which you can get him." At this she curled up her lip and contracted her nose, as if there were some very unpleasant odor in the atmosphere, and in a tone of the most utter contempt, she remarked, Yes, yes, Abe Lincoln, Abe Lincoln!" turned upon her heels, and swung her hoopless skirt back through the gate in the highest dudgeon imaginable.

At ten o'clock P.M., we bivouacked in a beautiful pine grove; the pines were perfectly straight, and perhaps one hundred feet to the first limbs. Here we learned that the rebels had formed a line of battle near our place of encampment some time during the day, and attempted to engage our front, but were quickly repulsed. During the engagement, a woman living near by-while gratifying her innate curiosity by watching the fight-was accidentally shot in her own dooryard; her husband was in the rebel army, and she left four children, the eldest only fourteen years of age.

On the morning of the ninth, we started at eight o'clock, proceeded until one o'clock, when we arrived at Morton station, where we encamped to allow General Hurlbut's corps to pass.

Morton is a very small place, and consists of a few indifferent dwellings, railroad buildings, and one or two stores; while lying here, we burned the railroad building and a drug store, and destroyed the track for quite a distance.

But here come orders to march to-morrow morning; so I will stop for the present, and mail this at Vicksburgh, where we expect to arrive in four days, and finish my story when we get settled once more in camp. F. McC.

NEW-YORK TRIBUNE ACCOUNTS.

VICKSBURGH, MISS., Feb. 28, 1964. Considerable commotion exists in this obnoxious town to-day, occasioned by the sudden and unexpected appearance of the veteran hero, Major-General W. T. Sherman. The daring Yankee expedition into the interior of this rebel domain, Mississippi, has returned in triumph, accomplishThe boys having "reenforced" their stock of ing its important objects with but little loss of tobacco, the quartermasters having filled their life. The entrée of General Sherman at an early wagons with corn-meal, bacon, etc., and added hour this forenoon, covered with dust, and acvery materially to their stock of horses and companied by three or four staff-officers and two mules, the medical department having got a small mounted orderlies, created a great sensation assortment of drugs, all at the expense of the among the secesh, with whom it had been curSouthern Confederacy, and the military author-rently reported that a rebel bullet had laid him ities having destroyed all public property, and last, but not least, having driven the rebels from here, on the morning of the eighth, we again moved forward. As we were passing out of town, our

low.

On the morning of February third, General Sherman, with a force of twenty-five thousand men, marched from Big Black River. General

Sherman and General Hurlbut's division crossed From Brandon the expedition moved on to Morat Messenger's Ferry, five miles above the line ton, a small village dépôt on the Southern Railof the Southern Railroad, and General McPher-road, where the dépôt and outbuildings were son's division at the railroad-crossing. After the speedily consumed by fire. Only a few buildings entire army had crossed safely, orders were at were burned at Brandon by the troops, the soonce given to push on to Bolton, a small station called confederate government not occupying at the Raymond Junction, on the Southern Rail- many. There was, however, every evidence that road, some fifteen miles from the Big Black River. Brandon was shortly to be a supply-dépôt of At this point our advance had a lively skirmish considerable importance, large quantities of stores with the enemy, resulting in the killing of twelve having been removed at the news of our approach. men, and the wounding of thirty-five. The rebel General Loring, with his demoralized army, loss was much larger, a number of their dead crossed Pearl River on the fifth of February, at being left on the field. General McPherson's in- Madison Crossing, and formed a junction with fantry forces marched up rapidly, and dispersed General French; the two forces amounting to Lee's cavalry, estimated at six thousand men, one thousand five hundred men. General Sherwithout any serious encounter. With his usual man felt quite confident the enemy would make energy, General McPherson continued to press a stand at this strong position, but our scouts them closely, and so hotly were the retreating soon brought the amusing intelligence that the rebels pursued, that, four miles east of Bolton, rebels were in full retreat on the Hillsboro road. Acting Brigadier-General Winslow, formerly a The cause of this change of base, we learned from Colonel of the Fourth Iowa cavalry, succeeded a deserter who entered our lines, was the suppoin flanking them with a force of one thousand sition that General Sherman was endeavoring to four hundred cavalry. The capture of the whole flank them via the line of the Southern Railroad. force seemed inevitable at this juncture, but the Colonel Winslow, commanding a brigade of cavmain body escaped, and only a few prisoners alry, consisting of the Fourth Iowa, Sixth Wiswere taken. consin, Tenth Missouri, and Eleventh Illinois, chased the enemy to Meridian, capturing and killing quite a number. Our cavalry occupied the town on February fourteenth, and remained there seven days, destroying the State arsenal, which was filled with damaged fire-arms and immense quantities of ammunition of all kinds, together with a large supply of copper and lead.

Without much opposition, the entire army marched rapidly toward Jackson, Lee's rebel cavalry fleeing in the greatest disorder in the direction of Canton, a flourishing little town twenty miles north of Jackson. Here Acting BrigadierGeneral Winslow's cavalry closed in upon the rebel columns, capturing a large number of prisoners and one piece of artillery, a ten-pounder The Ragsdale and Burton Hotels were destroyParrott gun, together with a caisson stocked with ed, after the furniture had been removed, it beammunition, which was subsequently used with ing the intention of General Sherman to destroy good effect upon the enemy's lines. The prison- nothing except that which might be used by the ers taken belonged to Mississippi and Georgia rebel government. The State arsenal was stockcavalry regiments, with a few mounted infantry-ed with valuable machinery for the manufacture men. Jackson was reached on the evening of and repair of small-arms, and all sorts of ordnance February fifth, and General McPherson at once stores, the destruction of which will prove a seordered the gallant Tenth Missouri cavalry re-rious blow to the enemy. Twelve extensive govgiment to secure the rebel pontoon-bridge across ernment sheds, a large building called the SolPearl River. General French, the rebel officer, dier's Home, and a number of hospitals and warehad crossed this bridge but a few moments in houses, filled with miscellaneous military stores, advance of our cavalry, and a large gang of rebels | were set on fire and totally destroyed. Two large were busily engaged in destroying it, when the grist-mills were likewise burned, after our army sudden appearance of the brave and determined had ground a sufficient supply of corn-meal. Missourians caused them to beat a precipitate Twenty thousand bushels of corn fell into our retreat. A number of their men embraced this hands, and was speedily converted into cornfavorable opportunity to desert to our lines, tell- cakes for the hungry soldiers. Nearly every ing us doleful stories of the demoralization of the building in Meridian was destroyed, save those so-called confederates. The bridge was saved, which were occupied, and the smoking ruins, and the next day our troops found this rebel with their blackened walls and chimneys standpontoon-bridge convenient for crossing Pearl Ri-ing as giant sentinels over the sorrowful scene, General Sherman ordered the advance to proceed to Brandon, some twelve miles distant, arriving there Sunday noon, meeting with but slight resistance on their march.

ver.

At Jackson, some twenty buildings were destroyed by the slaves, in retaliation for the inhuman cruelties perpetrated upon them by their rebel masters. At Brandon, similar scenes were witnessed, and the outraged bondmen and bondwomen revenged the brutality of those they once were compelled to call masters.

VOL. VIII.-Doc. 31

sent a thrill of pity to the hearts of those whom stern war and military necessity compelled to apply the torch.

It was part of the military programme for General Smith's cavalry expedition, which left Memphis, Tennessee, to operate in conjunction with General Sherman's forces, and to unite at Meridian; and it was the failure of this portion of the plan that induced General Sherman to remain seven days in Meridian. General Sherman sent out several scouting-parties as far north as Louis

ville and Kosciusko, hoping to gain some infor- road cars, engine-house, two saw-mills, and thouination of General Smith's whereabout, but was sands of dollars' worth of lumber were consumed, unable to gather any intelligence of his move-spirits of turpentine, from the Signal corps, aiding materially in the rapid destruction of the buildings.

ments.

A number of small expeditions were sent from Meridian in different directions, for the purpose Decatur was entered on the twelfth of Februof destroying whatever might benefit the rebel- ary, where some thirty buildings were burned. lion. Among the places devastated were Enter-Decatur is the county-seat of Newton County. prise, Marion, Quitman, Hillsboro, Canton, Lake The Sixteenth army corps, General Hurlbut, enStation, Decatur, Bolton, and Lauderdale Springs. tered Meridian on the fourteenth of February, At Enterprise, the dépôt, two flour-mills, fifteen juts in time to witness the hurried departure of thousand bushels of corn, two thousand bales of General Baldwin's rebel brigade on a special train fine cotton, branded C.S.A., two military hospi- for Mobile. A few shells went hissing after the tals, and several new buildings connected with a train, but we could not learn of any damage reparole camp were laid in ashes. sulting from them.

them, killing five, and capturing three. None of our men were injured. General Sherman, with two of his staff, was in a perilous condition at this time, and it was feared the entire party would be surrounded by the guerrillas. They escaped, however, and joined their command, some four miles distant, without molestation.

At Marion, the railroad station, wood-house, About two miles east of Decatur, a party of and a few small buildings were burned. Quit- forty or fifty rebels attacked one of our trains, man was visited, and two flour-mills, a fine saw-killing seventeen mules. The guard repulsed mill, railroad dépôt, and other storage buildings, with several thousand feet of lumber, fell a prey to the fire-king. At Hillsboro several stores were set on fire. Seventeen damaged locomotives, six locomotives in fine running order, a number of cars, and a repair-shop, with hand-cars, quantities of sleepers, and tool-house, were destroyed at Canton-all belonging to the Mississippi Central General Crocker, commanding the Fourth diRailroad. No private property was molested or vision, Seventeenth army corps, deserves great injured at Canton, the inhabitants never having credit for the effectual manner in which he defired upon our troops. Beyond the depletion of stroyed Enterprise and other places, and for the a few unguarded hen-roosts, very little depreda- discipline he maintained among his troops, pretion was committed. One rampant female secesh venting lawlessness or pillage on private property. discovered a vile Yankee surreptitiously purloin- It is impossible to state with any degree of acing a pair of fat chickens. Terribly incensed at curacy the exact loss of either army, no reports this wanton robbery and gross violation of the having been made up to the present time. Staffrights of personal property, she made a bold on-officers estimate that our loss in killed and woundslaught; but I regret to say that all her exposed will not exceed fifty men, with about one huntulations failed to convince the demoralized and dred captured. The captured men were taken to hungry "mudsill" that he was sinning, for he Mobile. The rebel loss in killed and wounded replied: “Madam ! this accursed rebellion must is much greater, their loss by desertion and capbe crushed, if it takes every chicken in Missis- ture being estimated at over six hundred. Among sippi." The door was slammed to with violence, the prisoners are Lieutenant Tomlinson, of the reand the enraged feminine retired, disgusted with bel Brigadier-General Ferguson's staff, and Lieu"Yankee" habits, to mourn over the loss of her tenant Winn, the rebel conscription officer at plump pair of chickens. Jackson. The deserters who flocked to our lines in squads report a universal feeling of dissatisfaction in Bishop Polk's army, and the renegade Bishop has publicly proclaimed his inability to restrain his men from insubordination and desertion.

Our troops raised sad havoc with the Mobile and Ohio, and the Southern Railroad lines, inflicting such damage as a million dollars cannot repair. The Southern road was torn up, rails twisted, and sleepers burnt, from Jackson to twenty miles east of Meridian to Cuba Station. The Mobile and Ohio road, which was so thorThe Mobile and Ohio road was destroyed for fifty-oughly destroyed, was considered by engineers six miles, extending from Quitman to Lauderdale to be the finest built road in the United States, Springs. Five costly bridges were totally de- costing fifty thousand dollars per mile. It was stroyed. The one spanning the Chickasawhay River was two hundred and ten feet long, with trestle-work, which required four months' hard labor of hundreds of mechanics to construct it. It was a substantial covered bridge. The bridges over Octchibacah, Alligator, Tallasha, and Chunky Rivers were also burned. On the eleventh, Captain Foster, of the Tenth Missouri cavalry, received instructions to make a raid on Lake Station, seventeen miles from Hillsboro, and to destroy all property available for the rebels. Two livery-stables, several machine-shops, three locomotives, water-tank, turn-table, thirty-five rail

built principally by English capitalists; and George Peabody, the London banker, owned sev eral thousand shares. The destruction of this road will prevent the rebels from reënforcing Mobile by rail, and effectually cuts off the fertile region of country in Northern Mississippi from which the rebels derived immense subsistenco supplies. The weather was most propitious for such a bold movement, and notwithstanding the female secessionists prayed loud and long for rain as soon as they heard of our troops crossing the Big Black, yet the elements failed to wage a war against this justifiable crusade into the vitals of

with as much feeling in his bosom as even Legree road-centre. This was done, and done effectualin Mrs. Stowe's immortal story, to look on such ly; so effectually, indeed, as to place it out of a scene unmoved. Old men with the frosts of the power of the rebels to put those roads in ninety years upon their heads, men in the prime operation again during the continuance of the of manhood, youth, and children that could bare-war. This, therefore, as any one familiar with ly run, women with their babies at their breasts, the topography of Mississippi will readily pergirls with the blood of proud Southern masters ceive, cuts off the State from any further miliin their veins, old women, tottering feebly along, tary occupation by the confederate army, it being leading from a land of incest and bondage, pos- impossible longer to manoeuvre or subsist an sessing horrors worse than death, children and army there without posession of the river. Cavgrandchildren, dear to them as our own sons and alry may sweep down or across the State, but daughters are to us. They came, many of them, with all the strongholds along the Mississippi it is true, with shout and careless laughter, but River, we hold military control of the entire silent tears coursed down many a cheek-tears State, effectively and effectually. of thankfulness for their great deliverance, and When the news was brought in to Sherman, there were faces in that crowd which shone with that the rebels had abandoned Meridian without a joy which caused them to look almost inspired. a blow, and that the destruction was un fait ac Those may smile who will, but the story of the compli, he is said by eye-witnesses to have walkcoming up of the children of Israel out of the landed silently to and fro for some minutes, and then of Egypt can never call up to my mind a more profound emotion that the remembrance of that scene. The carnival at Rome, with the fantastic costumes of the populace, presents nothing more varied and promiscuous than did the attire of this interesting assemblage.

When I looked upon the long lane filing in through roads along which our slaughtered brothers lie buried thicker than sheaves in a harvest-field, and reflected on the horrors to which this race had been subjected by the foes whom we are fighting, I felt faith in a God of justice renewed in my heart, and hope in the success of our cause rekindle to a brighter flame.

At Canton, which our army visited but did not burn, we succeeded in capturing and destroying seventeen locomotives. Another was also destroyed at Meridian, making eighteen in all, inflicting a loss on the confederates which is of incalculable value. It is a fact perhaps known, but will bear repeating here, that Grierson's raid last year through this State damaged the railroad some forty miles north of Okolona to such an extent, that they have never repaired nor undertaken to operate it above that point. I learn from an engineer who has been forced for two years past to run a locomotive over their roads, and who was enabled to get to our lines during the late raid, that ten miles per hour is and has been for months the maximum speed attainable by their trains. The destruction by Grierson of passenger cars a year ago has never been made good on the roads, and left them almost destitute of cars, even before Sherman came in now to give their Mississippi railroads this coup de grace. It is no news to state that the confederates were put to their wits' end to keep up the ordinary wear and tear of their roads for the past year; it will therefore be the more fully apparent how immensely important a work has been accomplished by Sherman. Advancing to within twenty-five miles of Meridian, he sent detachments ten or fifteen miles beyond that point, and thirty or forty north and south to tear up the track, destroy culverts, burn the dépôts, bridges, and ties, and render useless, by bending, the rails of the several roads diverging from that important rail

burst out excitedly: "This is worth fifty millions to the Government." The rebels seemed, up almost to the last moment, to have regarded Mobile as the point aimed at, Farragut's bombardment of Fort Powell serving to keep up the impression. I am warranted in saying that Sherman was sanguine of his ability to have taken that city without difficulty, and had the object of his expedition permitted, would have done so. He states unhesitatingly that he felt sorely tempt ed to do so as it was, and nothing but the fact of its possibly frustrating other important movements already planned prevented his undertaking it.

Being ignorant of the combinations hinted at, it seems to me to be a pity that he did not undertake it, for, from all the information made public, and some received through private sources, it appears that the Mobilians were in the same frame of mind of Captain Scott's coon. Believing their fate fixed to fall into our hands, they were quite ready to permit themselves to be taken, without any very stubborn resistance. At Meridian, the confederate authorities had built or were constructing quite a considerable number of buildings for government use, including machine-shops, quartermaster's and commissary quarters, a hospital, capable of accommodating two thousand five hundred to three thousand patients, etc. These, with the town, were of course destroyed. We also burnt every dépôt and station along the line of the railroad, as far as our army reached, the beautiful town of Canton, as before stated, being spared.

At Enterprise, which was sixteen miles below Meridian, and one of the most pestiferous nests that the sun shone on in all the limits of Dixie, we found a camp of paroled prisoners, being part of the old Vicksburgh garrison. These men informed us that the confederate authorities had been forcing many of their number into the army again, telling them they had been exchanged. At one point on our march, a rebel post-office was captured, containing, among others, a letter from a paroled lieutenant, who had thus been forced to serve, and who, writing home, expressed the opinion that they would be driven into Mobile,