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“Mr.------, my friend and our guest, has relatives in the South-two brothers in the rebel army.”
“ Is that true?
They are fighting in a good cause” she said spiritedly.
I rejoined, “No doubt they think so,” and had hoped to avoid a discussion of that most of all unpleasant subject.
In this I was doomed to disappointment.
“How can you, Mr.----, fight against them?”
she continued, half angrily.
“ I am not fighting or willing to fight against relatives, but for principle, a flag, a Government.
Nor am I in the loyal army because I hate the South, for in my opinion that man who cannot rise above sectional animosities, is not equal to the emergency!
One can give no greater proof that he loves his whole country than that he is willing to die for its salvation.”
A warm discussion ensued, in which the young lady became angry at every body in general, and myself in particular.
But I could not wish her any harm, any way. And when a few days afterward, her brother was caught in the act of burning a railroad bridge, and she could be seen, in her despair, imploringly asking “Will the authorities hang him, my poor, dear brother?”
I was glad to offer her my heartfelt sympathy.
This same young lady, so warm an advocate of Southern rights, has since married a Yankee officer.
In Huntsville I called upon a lady, and was ushered into the parlor of a large brick mansion, where every thing betokened wealth and luxury.
The walls were hung with paintings, the piano was most elaborately ornamented, and the floor was covered with a velvet down of a Brussels carpet.
Such a home!
Was not it a happy one?
“I'll tell you, Mr.------,” said the lady, and I shall never forget her saddened tone, “Before the war we used to live luxuriously as a family; but since then many a time have we sat down to a breakfast consisting of only corn-bread and water I Meat we could not buy, and coffee was out of the country.”
Her experience is but an evidence of what this war has done for Southern aristocracy.
Two of her sons are in the Southern army and one of her son-in-laws is a member of the rebel Congress.
What must they think of an “Independence” which only affords their mother corn-bread and water.
The effectiveness of our batteries is proverbial.
The rebels have a holy horror of them.
While advancing on Resaca, when Sweeny's division was on the right and in reserve, Captain Arndt's Michigan battery was wheeled into position.
“Do you see that house?”
said the Captain, addressing one of his gunners, and pointing to a building a mile away.
“I do, Captain, was the response.”
“Can you hit it?”
“Yes, sir!”
The piece was leveled, the lanyard drawn, and the chimney of the house fell with a crash I
Any of the Sherman's batteries could have done the same thing.
The Sixty-sixth Illinois infantry, or Western Sharpshooters as they call themselves, one of the best regiments in the Sixteenth corps, use the Henry rifle, which, when fully charged, shoots sixteen times.
Generally it is employed as a skirmish regiment.
Speaking of these guns, some of the rebel prisoners at Dallas remarked :
What kind of guns do you sharpshooters use? We are forced to believe that they are loaded on Sunday so that they'll shoot all the rest of the week I And--alluding to the peculiar motion of priming these fire-arms no doubt--“such soldiers I why they are the most polite fellows we ever saw, for every time they kill one of us they come to a present arms!” If Georgia is noted for anything beyond its tar-makers it is for remorseless wood-ticks. The whole country is full of them. No insect could be more impertinent — none more uncomfortable to one's feelings. It was an imposing scene. A rebel regiment, their bayonets glistening in the slanting rays of the setting sun, were having a dress parade on the summit of the Kenesaw Mountain. Below were their rifle-pits, and their comrads de armes occupying them. The armies of the Republic, flaunting the glorious old stars and stripes, were in the valley making gradual but confident approaches. A courier dashed up; he hands the Adjutant a document. It is an order from Johnson, announcing that the Southern cavalry had cut the railroad, behind Sherman, and completely severed his communication with the United States. Breathless silence evinces the attention which every word of the order receives, as the Adjutant reads. Cheers are about to be given, when hark I loud whistles from Sherman's cars, at Big Shanty, interrupt them. The number of whistles increase. Altoona, Ackworth, and Big Shanty depots resound with them. The rebel soldiers set up a broad laugh, and the last my informants1--some thirty in all, including four commissioned officers — saw of the Adjutant, he was stalking away, with the order in his hand, ejaculating derisively, “Over the left!” “in a horn!” and “what will come next!”
Big Shanty, Georgia, June 17, 1864.
Joe Johnson holds steadily on his position, twenty-six miles north of Atlanta, though the heavy skirmishing along his front for the past three days, has compelled him to sharply define his lines.
His line is now closely circumscribed by ours.
In no place are the hostile parallels more than a musket-shot apart.
The rebel right rests on Kenesaw Mountain, on the 