made him take off his boots and hat, which they wore away They left him an old Yankee hat, which he now wears. He swears he never 'll buy another till the government pays him for his losses.

"My wife did the neatest thing. She took all our valuables, such as watches and silver-spoons, and hid them in the cornfield. With a knife she would just make a slit in the ground, open it a little, put in one or two things, and then let the top earth down, just like it was before. Then she'd go on and do the same thing in another place. The soldiers went all over that corn-field sticking in their bayonets, but they did n't find a thing. The joke of it was, she came very near never finding them again herself.

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"One of my neighbors, a poor man, was stopped by some cavalry boys, who demanded his watch. He told 'em it was such a sorry watch they would n't take it. They wanted to see it, and when he showed it, they said, Go along!-we won't be seen carrying off such a looking thing as that!'" The following story was related to me by a Northern man, who had been twenty-five years settled in Eastern Georgia:My neighbors were too much frightened to do anything well and in good order. But I determined I'd save as much of my property as I could drive on its own feet or load on to wagons. I took two loads of goods, and all my cattle and hogs, and run 'em off twenty miles into Screven County. I found a spot of rising ground covered with gall bushes, in the middle of a low, wet place. I went through water six inches deep, got to the knoll, cut a road through the bushes, run my wagons in, and stuck the bushes down into the wet ground where I had cut them. They were six or eight feet high, and hid everything. My cattle and hogs I turned off in a bushy field. After that, I went to the house of a poor planter and staid. That was Friday night.

"Sunday, the soldiers came. I lay hid in the woods, and saw 'em pass close by the knoll where my goods were, running in their bayonets everywhere. The bushes were green yet, and they did n't discover anything, though they passed right by the edge of

"All at once I heard the women of the house scream murder. Thinks I, 'It won't do for me to be lying here looking out only for my own interests, while the soldiers are abusing the women.' I crawled out of the bushes, and was hurrying back to the house, when five cavalrymen overtook me. They put their carbines to my head, and told me to give 'em my money.

"As soon as I'd got over my fright a little, I said, 'Gentlemen, I've got some Confederate money, but it will do you no good.'

"Give me your pistol,' one said. I told him I had no pistol. They thought I lied, for they saw something in my pocket; but come to snatch it out, it was only my pipe. Then they demanded my knife..

"I've nothing but an old knife I cut my tobacco with ;you won't take an old man's knife!'

"They let me go, and I hurried on to the house. It was full of soldiers. I certainly thought something dreadful was happening to the women; but they were screeching because the soldiers were carrying off their butter and honey and cornmeal. They were making all that fuss over the loss of their property; and I thought I might as well have stayed to watch

mine.

"That night the army camped about a mile from there; and the next morning I rode over to see if I could get a safeguard for the house. But the officers said no; they were bound to have something to eat. I went back, and left my horse at the door while I stepped in to tell the women if they wished to save anything that was left they must hide it. Before I could get out again my horse was taken. I went on after it; the army was on the march again, and I was told if I would go with it all day, I should have my horse come night. I marched a few miles, but got sick of it, and went back. I could see big fires in the direction of my house, and I knew that the town was burning.

"I got back to the poor planter's house, and found a new misfortune had happened to him. The night before, all his bogs and mine came together to his door,—the soldiers having

let the fences down. This won't do,' I said; 'I'm going to make another effort to save my hogs.' But he was true Southern; he had n't energy; he said, 'No use!' and just sat still. I tolled my hogs off with corn, and scattered corn all about in the bushes to keep them there. The next day it was hot, and they lay in the shade to keep cool; so the soldiers did n't find them.

"But when, as I said, I got back to his house, I found the soldiers slaughtering his hogs right and left. They killed every one. So much for his lack of faith. But the worst part of the joke was, they borrowed his cart to carry off his own hogs to the wagon-train which was passing on another road half a mile away. They said they'd bring it back in an hour. As it didn't come, he went for it, and found they'd piled rails on to it and burnt it. I had taken care of my wagons, and he might have done the same with his. But that's the difference between a Northern and a Southern man.

"Monday I returned home, and found my family living on corn-meal bran. They had been robbed of everything. The soldiers had even taken the hat off from my little grandson's head, six years old. They took a mother-hen away from her little peeping chickens. There were fifty or a hundred soldiers in the house all one day, breaking open chests and bureaus; and those that come after took what the first had left. My folks asked for protection, being Northern people; and there was one officer who knew them; but he could control only his own men. So we fared no better than our neighbors."

The staging to Scarborough was very rough; but our route lay through beautiful pine woods, carpeted with wild grass. It was January, but the spring frogs were singing.

The best rolling-stock of the Central Road had been run up to Macon on Sherman's approach, and could not be got down again. So I had the pleasure of riding from Scarborough to Savannah in an old car crowded full of wooden chairs, in place of the usual seats.

The comments of the passengers on the destruction wrought

THE ROAD TO SAVANNAH.

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by Sherman were sometimes bitter, sometimes sentimental. A benevolent gentleman remarked: "How much good might be done with the millions of property destroyed, by building new railroads elsewhere!" To which a languishing lady replied: "What is the use of building railroads for slaves to ride on? I'd rather be free, and take it afoot, than belong to the Yankees, and ride."

Our route lay along the low, level borders of the Ogeechee River, the soil of which is too cold for cotton. We passed immense swamps, in the perfectly still waters of which the great tree-trunks were mirrored. And all the way the spring frogs kept up their shrill singing.

At some of the stations I saw bales of Northern hay that had come up from Savannah. "There is a commentary on our style of farming," said an intelligent planter from near Millen. "This land, though worthless for cotton, could be made to grow splendid crops of grass, and we import our hay."

CHAPTER LXX.

A GLANCE AT SAVANNAH.

On the 16th of November, 1864, Sherman began his grand march from Atlanta. In less than a month his army had made a journey of three hundred miles, consuming and devastating the country. On December 13th, by the light of the setting sun, General Hazen's Division of the 15th Corps made its brilliant and successful assault on Fort McAlister on the Ogeechee, opening the gate to Savannah and the sea. On the night of the 20th, Savannah was hurriedly evacuated by the Rebels, and occupied by Sherman on the 21st. The city, with a thousand prisoners, thirty-five thousand bales of cotton, two hundred guns, three steamers, and valuable stores, thus fell into our hands without a battle. Within forty-eight hours a United States transport steamer came to the wharf, and the new base of supplies, about which we were all at that time so anxious, was established.

The city was on fire during the evacuation. Six squares and portions of other squares were burned. At the same time a mob collected and commenced breaking into stores and dwellings. The destroyers of railroads were in season to save the city from the violence of its own citizens.

A vast multitude of negroes had followed the army to the sea. This exodus of the bondmen from the interior had been permitted, not simply as a boon to them, but as an injury to the resources of the Confederacy, like the destruction of its plantations and railroads. What to do with them now became a serious problem. Of his conference with Secretary Stanton on the subject at Savannah, General Sherman says: "We agreed perfectly that the young and able-bodied men should be enlisted as soldiers or employed by the quartermaster in