SHE CHAPTER XII JOHNSTON'S SURRENDER HERMAN Soon wearied of the civil administra- CHAP. XII. tion of Savannah and of the adjacent region 1865. of Georgia which had suddenly grown loyal. He received in January a visit from the Secretary of War, in which many matters pertaining to the care of captured property and the treatment of reclaimed territory were discussed and settled. But the business which lay nearest to Sherman's heart, and occupied most of his time, was the preparation for his march northward of five hundred miles which was to bring him in upon Grant's left wing to finish the war, either on the banks of the Roanoke or the James. He pushed forward, with his accustomed untiring zeal, the work required to put his magnificent army in position to traverse the wide pine barrens, the spreading swamps, and the deep rivers that lay between him and his goal; and so rapid was his progress that he would have found himself ready to start by the middle of January had it not been for the torrents of rain which fell during that month, swelling the Savannah River out of its bed and flooding the rice fields on its shore for miles around. He made a lodgment meanwhile "Memoirs." at Pocotaligo, where the railroad to Charleston Sherman, Vol. II., p. 255. 1865. CHAP. XII. crosses the Combahee, meeting so little resistance as to convince him that there was a sensible diminution of the energy of the Confederates. The weather cleared away bright and cold at the end of January, and with the opening days of February the great march to the North was begun. Howard commanded the right wing, consisting of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Army Corps, under Logan and Blair; Slocum the left wing, the Fourteenth "Memoirs. Corps, under Jeff. C. Davis, and the Twentieth under A. S. Williams; the cavalry was led by Kilpatrick; a grand total of 60,000 men; added to this Grant had promised him important reënforcements on the way. He had abundant stores, with what he could collect on the march, of food and forage, and ammunition enough for a great battle. Fortunately, this last was never to be used. Sherman, Vol. II., p. 268. The whole campaign in fact is mainly interesting to the military student as one of the most remarkable marches which history records. It amazed the Confederate commanders that Sherman should have thought of advancing before the waters subsided. There is no account of another such march. From Savannah to Goldsboro' is a distance of 425 miles. The country is for the most part low and at that season wet, intersected by innumerable rivers and streams, bordered by swamps, traversed by roads hardly deserving the name, mere quaking causeways in a sea of mud. The advance guard frequently waded through water waist deep. The country was almost as destitute of maps as the region of the Congo; every step forward was made gropingly. At the crossing of the Salkehatchie by Logan's corps, it was found the stream had fifteen channels, Cox, "The March to all of which had to be bridged. The roads were CHAP. XII. impassable to artillery or train wagons until corduroyed; under the heavy weight the logs gradually sank till another layer was necessary, and this toilsome process had to be repeated indefinitely, "bridging chaos for hundreds of miles," as General Cox calls it. There are few instances of equal energy and success in the conquest of physical conditions. General Sherman himself, when it was all over, compared the march northward with the march to the sea, in relative importance as ten to one. the Sea," pp. 171, 172. 1865. He had little except the forces of nature to fight with on the way. By skillfully feigning to right and left he produced the impression that both Charleston and Augusta were threatened, while he marched almost unopposed to Columbia. Charleston being thus turned fell like a ripe fruit into the hands of Dahlgren and Gillmore on the 18th of February; General Hardee hurrying northward to Cheraw, on the Great Peedee. There was nothing like organized resistance at the beginning of the march, even at points where it was expected. When Howard drew near the railroad between Charleston and Augusta, he paused to deploy his leading division to be ready for battle. While thus engaged, a man came galloping down the road, whom he recognized as one of his own foragers, on a white horse, with a rope bridle, shouting, “Hurry up, General, we've got the railroads." A vital line of communication had been captured by a squad of "Memoirs." "bummers," while the generals were preparing for a serious battle. Beauregard and Wade Hampton, who were both in Columbia, had neither the means Sherman, Vol. II., p. 274. 1865. CHAP. XII. nor the disposition to make any effectual resistance. General Sherman entered the place on the 17th of February. That night a great part of the town was destroyed by fire, ignited, Sherman says, by the burning cotton bales which had been set on fire by the retreating Confederates. In spite of all that could be done to check the conflagration it raged all night, and left the capital of South Carolina a heap of ashes.1 Sherman did everything in his power to relieve the houseless and destitute people; he provided shelter for many, gave five hundred beef cattle to the mayor, and took measures to maintain public order after the army should be gone. He destroyed the railroad for many miles, and, after a halt of two days, resumed his march to the North. After leaving Columbia the country was less difficult and the rate of progress more rapid. With no more delay than was necessary to destroy the railroads of the State, the army pushed on towards the Great Peedee. This was a most important stage in the journey. Sherman felt if he crossed that river prosperously there lay no serious obstacle before him south of the Cape Fear, and that river he expected to find in the possession of the National forces. Hardee, after evacuating Charleston, had established himself in formidable works at Cheraw, but Sherman flanked him out of them with his left 1 General Wade Hampton and other Confederate writers charge General Sherman with the malicious burning of Columbia. We consider General Sherman's assertion to be a sufficient disproof of this charge. He had, it is true, ordered the public buildings to be de stroyed, but he had expressly directed General Howard to "spare libraries, asylums, and private dwellings." Any one acquainted with Sherman's character would believe that if he had ordered the town to be destroyed he would have admitted and defended the act. |