Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

The army had moved, with twenty days provision of bread, forty days of beef, coffees, and sugar, and three of forage in their wagons, with instructions to each subordinate commander to live off the country, and save the supplies of the train for an expected time of need, when the army should reach the less productive region near the sea-coast. This they were enabled to do, for the hill country through which they were moving was very fertile, and had not been exhausted by the presence of great armies. Sherman's audacity, and the uncertainty concerning his real destination, because of the widely separated lines of march of the two wings of his army, astounded, bewildered and paralyzed the inhabitants sand the armed militia, and very little resistance was offered to foragers, who swept over the country in all directions. Kilpatrick's march from Atlanta to Gordon had appeared to them, like a meteor-flash to the superstitious, mysterious and evil-boding. At East Point he met some of Wheeler's cavalry, which Hood had left behind to operate Against Sherman. These were attacked and driven across the Flint River. Kilpatarick crossed that stream at Jonesboroa, and pursued them to Lovejoy, where Murray's brigade, dismounted, expelled them from intrenchments, captured the works, took fifty prisoners, and, in the pursuit, Atkins's brigade seized and held two of their guns. Pressing forward, Kilpatrick went through Macdonough and Monticello to Clinton, and then made a dash upon Macon, driving in some of Wheeler's cavalry there, threatening the strongly-manned works, burning a train of cars, tearing up the railway, and spreading the greatest consternation over that region.

By this time the Confederates began to comprehend the grand object of Sherman's movement, but could not determine his final destination. The evident danger to Georgia and the Carolinas caused the most frantic appeals to be made to the people of the former State. “Arise for the defense of your native soil,” shouted Beauregard in a manifesto, as he was hastening from the Appomattox to the Savannah. He told them to destroy “all the roads in Sherman's front, flank and rear,” and to be confident, and resolute, and trustful in an overruling Providence. He dismayed the thinking men of the State by saying, “I hasten to join you in defense of your homes and firesides,” for they knew his incompetency and dreaded his folly. From Richmond, B. H. Hill, a Georgia “Senator,” cried to the people of his State: “Every citizen with his gun, and every negro with his spade and ax, can do the work of a soldier. You can destroy the enemy by retarding his march. Be firm!” Seddon, the “Secretary of War,” indorsed the message; and the representatives of Georgia in the Confederate Congress sent an earnest appeal to the people to fly to arms, assuring them that “President Davis and the Secretary of War” would do every thing in their power to help them in “the pressing emergency.” “Let every man fly to arms,” they said. “Remove your negroes, horses, cattle, and provisions from Sherman's army, and burn what you cannot carry. Burn all bridges, and block up the roads in his route. Assail the invader in front, flank and rear, by night and by day. ”