The Daily Dispatch: February 10, 1865., [Electronic resource]

The progress of Sherman through Georgia is said, by a correspondent of a South Carolina paper, to have been much less destructive than was at first described. The writer, consolingly, says:

‘ "Having traveled over a part of the section of the country through which General Sherman passed from Atlanta to Savannah, I thought I would give you a brief account of the effect produced upon it, and also give a statement as to the method of travel to the West by way of Macon. One, in passing through the district through which Sherman's route was, is at once struck with the fact of the great exaggeration in reference to the destruction of property by the enemy. In fact, with the exception of a few burnt houses and bad roads, there are no other visible signs of a hostile army ever having passed through the country. Mills, factories and gin-houses were spared, and but few dwellings burnt. It is true that some of all of them were destroyed, but then the inhabitants allege that it was done by straggling parties; nor did I meet one person who thought that any commanding officer was a party to the arson; but to the contrary, every citizen who asked, on the approach of the army, for protection, was furnished with a guard. Neither did the enemy destroy all the provisions in the country, but left a plenty for a year's subsistence. I heard of no man in a distance of some forty miles who had everything taken from him. It is true they helped themselves to horses, mules and provisions as they needed them, taking away a large number of hogs and kine, but in no instance was a family left destitute and totally in want. But few negroes were taken off, comparatively, and but few of these were compelled to go; some of which have been permitted to return, and so loose were they in their discipline, that many have run away and returned to their masters. The above statement accords with what I have heard in reference to other sections of the country through which Sherman passed. Indeed, I have heard persons who were living in the neighborhood of Atlanta, and even between Dalton and Atlanta, state they were much surprised at the small extent of injury they had sustained at the hands of the enemy. In connection with this statement, and what we daily hear from Savannah, is it not reasonable to suppose that Sherman has inaugurated a new policy — that of leniency to the people, in order to win them back to the Union? If not so, it is certainly a great relief to have an enemy who is so different to many others, who is possessed of manliness, generosity and humanity, insomuch as to respect the helplessness of those in his power, and to extend such protection to suffering humanity as to prevent total destitution. Another fact it may be worth the while to state, which is: upon inquiry, I found no one'who heard General Sherman or any other high official say ‘"that in Georgia he could restrain his men, but in South Carolina he could nor would not."’ It is true, this remark was made frequently, but always by the common soldiery and a few captains, who were, if possible, a little meaner than the stragglers who did the injury to dwellings, &c. I am forced to the conviction that even if South Carolina is ever so unfortunate as to be overrun by the enemy that Sherman and his commanding officers will show the same leniency as he did in Georgia. And if he fails to create a Union feeling in the country — if, by his present course, it is his object to do, and in which he has failed in Georgia--still I do not believe the people of South Carolina need apprehend any more damage to them by the enemy than what the citizens of Georgia have already suffered."

’ We are surprised that the writer should impute sinister motives to General Sherman. His extermination proclamations at various points of the Southwest, his wholesale banishment of the population of Atlanta, and the brilliant illuminations he got up in that city, show that he is one of the most frank and single minded of men. He is one of those persons who, when they have you in their power, afford you every facility for ascertaining the fact. We cannot suspect a character of this sort of playing a part when you are not in his power, and pretending, from interested motives, to be courteous and humane.--Uncharitable persons may suggest that Sherman's march to Atlanta was a retreat instead of an advance, and that he acted upon the principle of "You let me alone and I will let you alone." We prefer to believe, in the language of the correspondent, that he is "possessed of manliness, generosity and humanity,"all of which were illustrated in his so-called "extermination proclamations." Those proclamations, rightly interpreted, prove that he is the most humane and merciful of Federal generals. He only proposed to put the Southern people at once out of their misery, and translate them to better world.

We regret that the Carolinian's correspondent should qualify his praises of Sherman by the intimation that he may have been insincere in his tender treatment of the people of Georgia, and only seeking thereby to establish a Union feeling in that country. The correspondent must have seen by Lincoln's ultimatum that no such motive could have entered the hero's mind. He was only following the natural instincts of a magnanimous soul. We congratulate the people of South Carolina that they are assured in advance of similar leniency on his march through that Commonwealth. "Mills, factories and ginhouses" will be spared in South Carolina, as well as Georgia, and no dwelling-houses burnt "except by stragglers. " There is nothing like the mutual interchange of courtesies among gentlemen; and if South Carolina discards the rude manners of the Swamp Foxes of the Revolution, and looks on upon a grand military promenade with the decorum of a civilized people, she will find General Sherman a cruelly-mis-represented man. She need not, in that event, "apprehend any more damage by the enemy than the citizens of Georgia have already suffered." That is, on the march; nor is it at all likely, for various reasons, that any injury need be anticipated hereafter.

They must have seen by this time, from the legislation of the Yankee Congress, and the reply of Lincoln to our Commissioners, that there is nothing the United States so much desire as Peace. The terms announced in that reply were so exceedingly liberal that the world will stand aghast at the audacious obstinacy of the South in not accepting them at once. When you ask a gentle- man for both his money and his life, it can never enter your head that he will meet you with a flat refusal, and thus justify you in taking both upon the spot. It never entered the imagination of Lincoln that the South could hesitate to close with his generous offer, and thus compel him to exterminate and confiscate the whole country. Besides, the well-known characteristics of the Sons of the Pilgrims forbid the idea that, when they have succeeded in conquering the country, they should inflict any "damage" upon these whom they spared in an invading march. The Yankees have never looked from their barren rocks, with a covetous and greedy eye, upon the fat and fertile plains of the South. They have never envied the comparatively easy and comfortable life upon Southern plantations. They are Pilgrims upon the earth in pursuit of a heavenly Canaan and do not desire their attention to be distracted by the things of time and sense. Not one of Sherman's large surveying party cast a longing glance upon the fertile Georgia fields through which he passed, nor inwardly resolved that some time he could come back and "locate in them diggins."--Let us be just and generous to a chivalric foe and not embitter our minds by unworthy ideas of Yankee human nature.

Let South Carolina exercise the cardinal virtues of courtesy and hospitality to the nation's guest, and she will escape, certainly for the present, all "damage."If Sumpter and Marion have any descendants in that province, let them be put in close confinement. If such a breed as that is permitted to go at large, somebody will be hurt. The harmony of the occasion will be interrupted, and General Sherman, in spite of his humane inclinations, may find himself unable to hold in "the stragglers." These reckless and turbulent spirits would be popping off rifles from every tree and swamp, and compel the illustrious visitor, in recognition of such a reception, to illuminate several cities and do some damage generally. Not content with bringing such mischief upon the great interests of society, the Sumpters and Marions would brutally laugh at the "damage" as trifling transient, and not to be compared with the permanent and irreparable ruin which will come upon a conquered country. Send such lunatics to the madhouse and clear the track for Sherman.