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

“ [408] Let him have no rest.” And Governor Brown, just before he fled from Milledgeville, issued a proclamation ordering a levy, en masse, of the whole white population of the State between the ages of sixteen and forty-five years; and offered a pardon to the prisoners in the penitentiary at Milledgeville, if they would volunteer and prove themselves good soldiers. But the people neither flew to arms nor burned property, nor set the negroes at work making obstructions; and only about one hundred of the convicts seemed to think that fighting Sherman was to be preferred to imprisonment, for only that number accepted the Governor's offer. All confidence in “President Davis” and the Confederate Government had vanished. The great mass of the people were satisfied that it was “the rich man's war and the poor man's fight,” as they expressed it, and would no longer lend themselves to the wicked work of the corrupt Conspirators at Richmond.

When Howard struck the Georgia Central railway at Gordon, his troops began the work of destroying the road eastward from that point to Griswoldsville, and while thus engaged, the most serious contest of the Georgia campaign occurred. While the right wing of the Fifteenth Corps, under General Walcott, was operating at Griswoldsville, about five thousand Confederates came upon them from the direction of Macon.

Nov. 22, 1864.

These consisted of several brigades of militia, under General Phillips, and a part of Hardee's command, which had been sent up from Savannah. Walcott's troops quickly intrenched themselves, and, with small loss, repulsed six desperate assaults made upon them, while the assailants, who finally fled toward Macon, left three hundred dead upon the field. The entire loss of the Confederates was estimated at twenty-five hundred men, including General Anderson severely wounded. Howard could easily have taken Macon, after this blow upon its defenders, but such was not a part of Sherman's plan, and the former was content to cover the roads diverging from that city toward the Oconee River.

Howard and Slocum now moved eastward simultaneously, the former from Gordon to Sandersville, destroying the railway to Tennille Station. He was confronted at the Oconee River, when laying a pontoon bridge for the passage of his army, by a force under General Wayne, of Georgia, composed of some of Wheeler's cavalry, a body of militia, and convicts from the Milledgeville penitentiary, already mentioned. Most of the latter, dressed in their prison garb, were captured in a skirmish that ensued, and Howard crossed the river without much difficulty. Slocum also moved to Sandersville from Milledgeville, and had some skirmishing near the former, with the main body of Wheeler's cavalry. At the same time Kilpatrick moved from Gordon to Milledgeville, and thence by Sparta and Gibson to Waynesboroa, on the Augusta and Millen railway, for the threefold purpose of making a feint toward Augusta, covering the passage of the main army over the Ogeechee River, and making an effort to liberate the prisoners at Millen.¹ Kilpatrick had several skirmishes with Wheeler on the way, but no severe battle; and on the 27th

November.

a portion of his troopers, under