[
610]
through the
State of Georgia; and to this event, fraught with consequences and recriminations eventually fatal to the
Confederacy, we must now direct the course of our narrative.
Sherman's march to the sea.
At last accounts of operations in
Georgia,
Gen. Sherman was meditating a march to the sea-board.
Preparations were made to abandon all the posts south of
Dalton, and from
Gaylesville and
Rome orders were issued concerning the new movement.
In the latter place commenced the work of destruction: a thousand bales of cotton, two flour mills, two tanneries, foundries, machine-shops, depots, store-houses, and bridges were set on fire; the torch was applied to private dwellings, and the whole town wrapped in a fearful and indiscriminate conflagration.
The march back to
Atlanta left a track of smoke and flame.
Having concentrated his troops at
Atlanta by the 14th of November,
Sherman was ready to commence his march, threatening both
Augusta and
Macon.
On the night of the 15th the torch was applied to
Atlanta; and where the merciless commander had already created a solitude, he determined to make a second conflagration, by the light of which his marching columns might commence their journey to the sea. The work was done with terrible completeness; buildings covering two hundred acres were in flames at one time; the heavens were an expanse of lurid fire; and amid the wild and terrific scene the
Federal bands played β
John Brown's soul goes marching on.β
The next morning
Sherman's army moved from a scene of desolation such as had occurred in no modern picture of civilized war. From four to five thousand houses were reduced to ruins; and four hundred left standing was the melancholy remnant of
Atlanta.
Nearly all the shade trees in the park and city had been destroyed, and the suburbs, stripped of timber, presented to the eye one vast, naked, ruined, deserted camp.
The main outline of
Sherman's march was, that
Howard, with the right wing, should follow the
Georgia Central road, running southeast through
Macon and
Milledgeville to
Savannah; while
Slocum, commanding the left wing, was to march directly east, on the railroad leading from
Atlanta to
Augusta, destroying it as he went.
Two columns of cavalry-one to the north of
Slocum, and the other to the south of Howard-were to protect their flanks, and conceal entirely from view the routes of the infantry.
An order directed the army βto forage liberally on the march.β
The country immediately around
Atlanta had been foraged by
Slocum's corps when it held the city; but two days march brought
Sherman's troops into regions of such abundance as were scarcely supposed to exist
