With Fire and Sword

I now tried to find my regiment. It was gone. Many battles and many marches had so decimated it that the little fragment left had been disbanded and transferred into a regiment of cavalry.

Colonel Silsby, of the Tenth Iowa, offered me a place with his mess. I accepted. The Colonel, as it happened, had charge of perhaps a hundred prisoners, captured on the march. Naturally, I was interested to go among them. I soon saw how much better they fared than I had done when in Southern hands. Two or three of them, as it happened, had been among the guards who had treated us so badly while we were in the prison known as "Camp Sorghum," outside of Columbia. They were perfectly terrified when they learned that I had been there under their charge. They seemed to fear instant and awful retaliation; but I thought of nothing of the kind. I was too glad just to be free to be thinking of any vengeance.

A curious incident now happened. This was the discovery, among these prisoners, of the husband of the young Mrs. C – who had given us food in Columbia and whose belongings I and my comrade had tried to save. He was overjoyed to learn from me that his wife and child were at least alive. I instantly went to General Logan, and related to him how this man's family had been kind to me the day that I escaped. I had no trouble in securing his release. It was at Logan's headquarters, too, that I had secured money and an order for provisions to give to Edward Edwards, the black man who had been the means of my final rescue. His sick wife had kept him behind, else he would have followed the army. We left him in Columbia. Years later, as a sign of my gratitude toward this slave, I dedicated a little volume to him, in which I had described my prison life.

CHAPTER XIV

The army in the Carolinas – General Sherman sends for me – Gives me a place on his staff – Experiences at army headquarters – Sherman's life on the march – Music at headquarters – Logan's violin – The General's false friend – The army wades, swims, and fights through the Carolinas – I am sent as a despatch bearer to General Grant – A strange ride down the Cape Fear River in the night – General Terry – Learn that my song "The March to the Sea" is sung through the North, and has given the campaign its name – I bring the first news of Sherman's successes to the North – An interview with General Grant

It was on this march in the Carolinas that General Sherman sent for me to come to army headquarters. We were two days away from Columbia. I was ashamed to go in my prison rags, so I waited. The next day the request was repeated, and Major Nichols of the staff came and said, "But you must go, it is an order." And I went. The General was sitting by a little rail fire in front of his tent, reading a newspaper, when we approached his bivouac in the woods. I was introduced. He at once told me how pleased he had been with my song, that I had written in prison about his army. Devine had given him a copy at that time when he halted his column to greet us by the door-step at Columbia. "Our boys shall all sing this song," he said; "and as for you, I shall give you a position on my staff. Tomorrow you will be furnished a horse and all that you need; and you must mess with me."

It would be very hard to express my feelings at this sudden transition from a prisoner in rags to a post at the headquarters of the great commander. I was almost overcome, but General Sherman's extreme kindness of manner and speech at last put me partly at my ease. Shortly a big colored man, in a green coat, announced dinner. "Come," said the General, pushing me ahead of him into a tent, where a number of handsomely uniformed staff officers stood around a table waiting his approach. I was still in my rags. I could not help noticing the curious glances of the fine gentlemen, who doubtless were wondering what General Sherman had picked up now.

My embarrassment was extreme. The commander however soon told them who I was, gave me the seat at his right hand, and almost his entire conversation at the table was directed to me. The officers of the staff quickly took the General's cue, and I was soon an object of interest, even to them.

He directed a hundred questions to me as to the general treatment of war prisoners in the South, and he, as well as the staff, interested themselves in all the details of my escape. Telling the story very soon relieved me of my embarrassment as to my clothes. The horrible tales of Southern prison pens, however, was nothing new to General Sherman, for he related to me some of the awful things he had heard of Andersonville while his army was at Atlanta.

"At one time," said he, "I had great hopes of rescuing all of them at one quick blow. I gave General Stoneman a large body of cavalry, with directions to raid down about Macon. This raid was to go farther, and, by a quick, secret dash capture Andersonville and release every prisoner there. It was a chance to do the noblest deed of the war, but it all failed miserably. Stoneman had not fully obeyed orders, and, instead of releasing a whole army of suffering captives, he got captured himself, and, with him, a lot of my best cavalry."

It happened that I saw General Stoneman the very day he was brought to the prison. My narrative of how by desperately bold and violent cursing he denounced and defied his captors, and everything in Rebeldom, greatly amused Sherman and all at the table.

Stoneman's awful language and flashing eyes did indeed fairly intimidate the officer in charge. Evidently he thought he had captured a tiger. It was a wonder Stoneman was not killed.

The conversation about the prisoners continued. Twenty-five thousand of them were starving and dying in Andersonville. "It is one of the awful fates of war," said the General. "It can't be helped; they would have been better off had all been killed on the battlefield; and one almost wishes they had been." After a pause, he continued. "At times, I am almost satisfied it would be just as well to kill all prisoners." The remark, to me, a prisoner just escaped, seemed shocking. I am sure he noticed it, for he soon added: "They would be spared these atrocities. Besides, the more awful you can make war the sooner it will be over."

It would, after all, be a mercy.

"War is hell, at the best," he went on, half in anger, and using an expression common to him.

For the moment I thought him heartless, but other remarks made to me, and to the staff, soon told us that whatever the cruelties imposed on him as a commander, they were executed with heart-pain and only as plain duty for the salvation of his own army. He even talked of how glad he would be to be out of the whole bloody business, once the Union were restored. But if the rebellion continued all his life, he would stay and fight it out.

When the dinner was over each looked about him to find some garment to give me. This one had an extra coat, that one a pair of trousers, and another one a hat. In short I was quickly attired in a rather respectable uniform.

This matter was just about ended when a beautiful woman was conducted to Sherman, to ask protection for her home, that was in his line of march. She was "true blue Union," despite her surroundings. In a moment the whole atmosphere about the tent was changed. The red-handed warrior, who a moment before was ready to kill even prisoners, suddenly became the most amiable, the most gallant and knightly looking man I ever saw. Beauty, that can draw a soldier with a single hair, had ensnared the great commander. He had become a gentle knight. The whole army if need be, would stand stock still to do her one little favor. I now recall how long after the war I noticed a hundred times this perfectly knightly gallantry of Sherman toward all women.

This one particular woman seemed a hundred times more beautiful, more fascinating, there in the green wood alone, with an army of a hundred thousand strangers about her, when, pointing her hand toward a great banner that swung in the wind between two tall pines, she smiled and cried: "General Sherman, THAT IS MY FLAG TOO." There was a clapping of hands from all of us, and any one of us would have been glad to be sent as the protector of her home.

The great army was now marching, or rather swimming and wading, in the direction of Fayetteville, N. C. There were heavy rains and the country, naturally swampy, was flooded everywhere. I soon learned from the staff where the army had already been. After the end of the march to the sea and the capture of Savannah, Sherman had started in with sixty thousand men, to treat South Carolina in the manner he had treated Georgia – march through it and desolate it. His proposed march northward from Savannah was regarded by the Southern generals as an impossibility. The obstacles were so great as to make it a hundred times as difficult as his march from Atlanta to the sea. But he led a great army of picked veterans, accustomed to everything, whose flags had almost never known defeat. Their confidence in their general and in themselves was simply absolute. So far, in their march from Savannah they had hesitated at nothing.

It was midwinter, and yet that army had often waded in swamps with the cold water waist deep, carrying their clothes and their muskets on their heads. Half the roads they followed had to be corduroyed, or their horses would all have been lost in the bottomless mire and swamps. Often their artillery was for miles pulled along by the men themselves, and that in the face of the enemy, hidden behind every stream, and ready to ambush them at every roadside. Over all these infamous wagon roads, across all these bridgeless rivers and endless swamps, our army now dragged with it a train of sixty-nine cannon, twenty-five hundred six-mule wagons, and six hundred ambulances. The tremendous obstacles they encountered before reaching Columbia they were again to encounter beyond. Not a bridge was left on any creek or river in the Carolinas. Roads were built of poles and logs through swamps ten miles wide. Sherman's army had few rations and no tents. The foragers brought in all the food they could pick up near the line of march. The little rubber blankets the soldiers carried were their sole protection from storm. They were almost shoeless. There were not a dozen full tents in the army. Officers used tent flies sometimes, but oftener simply rolled themselves up in their blankets, as their men did. At army headquarters we had but one large tent, used generally for dining under; so we usually slept in deserted cabins at the roadside.

I recall one fearfully stormy night when the General and his staff had all crept into a little church we found in the woods. The General would not accept the bit of carpet one of us had improvised into a bed for him on the pulpit platform. "No," he said, "keep that for some of you young fellows who are not well." He then stretched himself out on a wooden bench for the night. I think he never removed his uniform during the campaign. Day and night he was alert, and seemed never to be really asleep. We of the staff now had little to do save carrying orders occasionally to other commanders.

General Sherman did most of his own writing, and he wrote a rapid, beautiful hand. We had breakfast by the light of the campfire almost every morning, and were immediately in the saddle, floundering along through the mud, always near to, or quite at, the head of the army. At noon we always dismounted and ate a simple lunch at the roadside, sometimes washed down by a little whisky. Now and then some one of the army, recognizing the General riding past, would give a cheer that would be taken up by brigades and divisions a mile away. There seemed to be something peculiar about this Sherman cheer, for soldiers far off would cry out: "Listen to them cheering Billy Sherman."

On the 3d of March we took Cheraw, and twenty-four cannon, also nearly four thousand barrels of gunpowder. That day General Logan, General Howard, General Kilpatrick, General Hazen, and many other notables came to headquarters. There was a jolly time of rejoicing.

Here General Logan, who could play the violin, entertained them by singing my song of "Sherman's March to the Sea," accompanying his voice with the instrument. A dozen famous generals joined in the chorus. After the singing, Logan insisted that I should also recite the poem. I did so, meeting with great applause from the very men who had been the leaders in the great "March." Alas! save one or two, they are now all dead.

Among the captures that day had been eight wagonloads of fine, old wine. It was now distributed among the different headquarters of the Union army, and as a result some of the said headquarters were pretty nearly drunk. One of our staff, at dinner the next day, attempted to explain his condition of the day before. "Never mind explaining," said General Sherman crustily, and without looking up, "but only see that the like of that does not happen again; that is all." That staff officer was a very sober man the rest of the campaign.

While we were lying there in Cheraw we heard an awful explosion; the very earth shook. I supposed it to be an earthquake until a messenger brought word that a lot of captured gunpowder had exploded and killed and wounded twenty soldiers.

As we were crossing on our pontoons over the Pedee River at Cheraw I noticed a singular way of punishing army thieves. An offender of this kind stood on the bridge, guarded by two sentinels. He was inside of a barrel that had the ends knocked out. On the barrel in big letters were the words: "I am a thief." The whole army corps passed close by him. An occasional man indulged in some joke at his expense, but the body of soldiers affected not to see him. The day we entered Cheraw General Sherman and his staff rode through the country alone for ten miles, going across from one column to another. It was a hazardous ride, as the whole country was full of guerrillas. But nothing of note happened to us.

On the 8th of March the headquarters staff was bivouacked in the woods near Laurel Hill. The army was absolutely cut off from everywhere. It had no base; it was weeks since Sherman had heard from the North or since the North had heard from him. Now he resolved to try to get a courier with a message through to Wilmington, at the seaside. An experienced spy by the name of Pike was selected to float down the Cape Fear River to ask the commander to try to send a tugboat up, to communicate with the army. I did not know then that the next one to run down Cape Fear River would be myself.

In four days we had taken Fayetteville and its wonderful arsenal, built years before by the American people, and where now half the war supplies of the Rebel army were made.

When the General and his staff first rode into Fayetteville headquarters were established in the arsenal. The General, wishing to look about the town for an hour or so, left me in charge. The other officers rode away with him. Very shortly a well-dressed, fine-looking old Southerner came to me and complained that his home was being disturbed by some of our soldiers. He was, he said, an old West Point friend of General Sherman's. While waiting the return of the commander, he regaled me with incidents of their early days together in the North and with his intimacies with one who would now doubtless be overwhelmed with joy at seeing him. He begged me to observe what would be his reception when the General should come. Impressed by his conversation, I at once sent a soldier or two to guard his home.

Shortly after General Sherman rode in through the arsenal portal and dismounted. The Southerner advanced with open arms, and for a moment there was a ray of pleasure illuminating Sherman's face. Then he went and leaned against a column, and, turning to the Southerner, said, "Yes, we were long together, weren't we?" "Yes," answered the Southerner, delighted. "You shared my friendship, shared my bread, even, didn't you?" continued Sherman. "Indeed, indeed!" the Southerner replied, with increasing warmth. The General gave the Southerner a long, steady, almost pathetic look, and answered, "You have betrayed it all; me, your friend, your country that educated you for its defense. You are here a traitor, and you ask me to be again your friend, to protect your property, to send you these brave men, some of whose comrades were murdered by your neighbors this very morning – fired on from hidden houses by you and yours as they entered the town. Turn your back to me forever. I will not punish you; only go your way. There is room in the world even for traitors." The Southerner turned ashy white and walked away from us in silence. Sherman sat down with the rest of us to our noonday lunch. We sat about the portal on stones, or barrels, or whatever happened to answer for seats. The General could scarcely eat. Never had I seen him under such emotion; the corners of his mouth twitched as he continued talking to us of this false friend. The hand that held the bread trembled and for a moment tears were in his eyes. For a little while we all sat in silence, and we realized as never before what treason to the republic really meant. The General spoke as if he, nor we, might ever live through it all.

Very soon General Howard rode in to complain anew of the outrages committed on our troops by men firing from windows as they passed along the streets. Two or three soldiers had been killed. "Who did this outrage?" cried Sherman, in a loud and bitter voice, "Texans, I think," answered General Howard. "Then shoot some Texan prisoners in retaliation," said Sherman sternly. "We have no Texans," replied Howard, not inclined, apparently, to carry out the serious, but just order. "Then take other prisoners, take any prisoners," continued General Sherman. "I will not permit my soldiers to be murdered." He turned on his heel and walked away. Howard mounted and rode into the town. What happened, I do not know.

On Sunday morning General Sherman asked me to take a walk with him through the immense arsenal of Fayetteville before he should blow it up. We were gone an hour, and I was surprised at his great familiarity with all the machinery and works of the immense establishment. He talked constantly and explained many things to me. Never more than at that time was I impressed with the universal knowledge, the extraordinary genius, of the man. There seemed to be nothing there he did not understand. On our way back to headquarters I heard him give the order to destroy everything, to burn the arsenal down, blow it up, to leave absolutely nothing, and he added the prayer that the American government might never again give North Carolina an arsenal and forts to betray. He was very angry now at those who had used the United States property in their desire to destroy the government itself. He had seen nothing in the war that seemed so treasonable, unless it was the base ingratitude of those who entered the service of the Rebellion after having been educated at West Point at the Government's expense.

Pretty soon he said to me: "If I can get any kind of a boat up here, I am going to have you try to reach Wilmington with dispatches." Almost at that minute a steam whistle sounded in the woods below us. "There it is," said the General joyfully. "Pike got through." Very soon someone came running to say a communication had come from the seashore; a little tug had run the Rebel gauntlet all the way from Wilmington.

We went in to lunch and the General announced to the staff his intention of sending me down the river, and off to General Grant with dispatches. This chance to get word of his movements and his successes to General Grant and the North was of vast importance, and it moved him greatly. He left his lunch half finished and commenced writing letters and reports to the commander-in-chief. That evening at twilight General Sherman walked with me down to the riverside where the little tug lay waiting. "When you reach the North," he said, putting his arm around me, "don't tell them we have been cutting any great swath in the Carolinas; simply tell them the plain facts; tell them that the army is not lost, but is well, and still marching." So careful was I as to his injunctions, that even the newspapers at Washington never knew how the great news from Sherman reached the North.

I did not know then, starting down the river with my message, that it was to be seven years before I was again to see the face of my beloved commander.

The Cape Fear River was flooded at this time, a mile wide, in places even more, and though its banks were lined with guerrillas there could not be great danger, if we could stay in the middle of the stream, unless our little boat should get wrecked in the darkness by floating trees or by running into shallow places. The lights were all put out. The pilot house and the sides of the boat were covered by bales of cotton, to protect us against the Rebel bullets. My dispatches to General Grant were carefully sewed up inside my shirt, and were weighted, so that I could hastily sink them in the river should we be captured. A half dozen refugees from Columbia joined us. Among them was the Mrs. C – , whose property Devine and I had tried to save the night of the fire. It was a curious and dangerous voyage down that roaring, flooded river for a woman to be undertaking in the darkness, but this woman had now undertaken many dangers. Another of my companions on that strange voyage was Theodore Davis, a corresponding artist of Harper's Weekly. We kept the boat in the channel as far as we could guess it, and, for the rest, simply floated in the darkness. We went through undiscovered; not a shot fired at us. Before daylight, so swift had been the current, we were in Wilmington.

General Terry had just taken Wilmington and was in command of the city. Some of my dispatches were for him. He was still in bed, in one of the fine residences of the place, but instantly arose and urged me to jump into bed and get some rest while he should arrange to get me immediate transportation to Grant. I slept till nine, and when I came down to the drawing-room, now used as headquarters, General Terry asked if perhaps it were I who wrote the song about Sherman's March from Atlanta seaward. It had been sung at the theater the night before, he said. I was much gratified to have him tell me that the whole army had taken it up. "Tens of thousands of men," he said, "were singing it." I knew, as already told, that an exchanged prisoner had brought the song through the Rebel lines in an artificial leg he wore, but it was an agreeable surprise to now learn of its sudden and tremendous success.

General Terry impressed me as the handsomest soldier I had seen in the army – McPherson, the commander of my own corp, only excepted. He was, too, a refined and perfect gentleman. Looking at him I thought of the cavaliers of romance. Here was real knighthood, born and bred in the soil of the republic. The laurels for his heroic capture of Fort Fisher were fresh on his brow.

Before noon an ocean steamer, the Edward Everett, was ordered to take me at once to Fortress Monroe. Two of my army friends went along. The captain, leaving on so short notice, had provided his ship with insufficient ballast, and to me, a landsman, the vessel's lurchings were very astonishing. I had never seen the ocean before, and it was not long till I wished I might never see it again. To add to my alarm, a fierce tempest sprang up as we passed around Cape Hatteras, and the danger was no longer imaginary, but very real. The few passengers on the boat might as well have been dead, so far as any self-help was to be thought of in case of disaster. Even the captain was very seasick, and, altogether, passengers and crew were badly scared. For many hours it was nothing but a fierce blow and a roll about on the mad waters. All things come to an end; so did this storm, and at last we reached Fortress Monroe, where I was hurriedly transferred by some sailors in a yawl over to a boat that had already started up the James toward Richmond. Our captain had signaled that he had a dispatch bearer from the Carolinas. We had not gone far until we passed the top of a ship's mast sticking a few feet above the water. It was the mast of the Cumberland, that had gone down in her fight with the Merrimac with as brave a crew as ever manned a war boat.

The steamer I was now on was crowded with officers in bright uniforms, apparently returning to their regiments. I wondered if all the Eastern army had been home on a furlough. I could not help contrasting to myself this ship full of sleek, brightly uniformed officers with the rough-clad soldiers and officers of the army of Sherman. Sherman's foragers and veterans of the March to the Sea might have cut an awkward figure alongside these gay youths just from Washington.