Life in Dixie during the War Part 32

"To show how this order was executed, the same writer tells a story of how he witnessed with his own eyes General Lee and a surgeon of his command repairing the damage to a farmer's fence. Colonel McClure, of Philadelphia, a Union soldier himself, bears witness to the good conduct of Lee's ragged rebels in that famous campaign. He tells of hundreds of them coming to him and asking for a little bread and coffee, and others who were wet and s.h.i.+vering asking permission to enter a house, in which they saw a bright fire, to warm themselves until their coffee should be ready. Hundreds of similar instances could be given, substantiated by the testimony of men on both sides, to show the splendid humanity of that great invasion. Blessed be the good G.o.d, who, if in His wisdom denied us success, yet gave to us and our children the rich inheritance of this great example.

"Major General Halleck, the commander-in-chief, under the President, of the armies of the Union, on the 18th of December, 1864, dispatched as follows to Sherman, then in Savannah: 'Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed; and if a little salt should be sown upon its site it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullification and secession.' On December 27th, 1864, Sherman made the following answer: 'I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don't think "salt" will be necessary. When I move, the 15th corps will be on the right of the right wing, and their position will bring them naturally into Charleston first, and if you have watched the history of the corps you will have remarked that they generally do their work up pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning with insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate; but feel that she deserves all that seems to be in store for her.... I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston.' Therefore Columbia was burned to ashes. And though he knew what was in store for South Carolina, so horrible that he even trembled, he took no steps to avert it, for he felt that she deserved it all. Did she, indeed? What crime had she committed that placed her outside the protection of the law of civilized nations? What unjust, or barbarous, or brutal conduct had she been guilty of to bring her within the exceptions laid down by the writers on the laws of war as authorizing extraordinary severity of punishment?

They are not even imputed to her. South Carolina's crime, and the crime of all the seceding States, was that of a construction of the const.i.tution of the United States differing from that of General Sherman and the 15th corps--which 'always did up its work pretty well.' Happily the Divine Goodness has made the powers of recuperation superior to those of destruction; and though their overthrow was so complete that 'salt' was not needed as the type of utter desolation, Marietta and Atlanta are thriving and prosperous cities."

Governor Vance does not wish to confine himself, in quoting, to Southern testimony. There are plenty of honest and truthful soldiers in the Federal army, who served in its ranks, to tell all we want and more. This is what one of them says, writing to the "Detroit Free Press" of that campaign: "One of the most devilish acts of Sherman's campaign was the destruction of Marietta. The Military Inst.i.tute and such mills and factories as might be a benefit to Hood could expect the torch, but Sherman was not content with that; the torch was applied to everything, even the shanties occupied by the negroes. No advance warning was given. The first alarm was followed by the crackling of flames. Soldiers rode from house to house, entered without ceremony and kindled fires in garrets and closets, and stood by to see that they were not extinguished." Again he says: "Had one been able to climb to such a height at Atlanta as to enable him to see for forty miles around, the day Sherman marched out, he would have been appalled at the destruction. Hundreds of houses had been burned; every rod of fence destroyed; nearly every fruit tree cut down, and the face of the country so changed that one born in that section could scarcely recognize it. The vindictiveness of war would have trampled the very earth out of sight, had such a thing been possible."

One cold and drizzly night in the midst of this marching General Sherman found shelter and warmth beneath the roof of a comfortable plantation home.

"In looking around the room," he says, "I saw a small box, like a candle box, marked 'Howell Cobb,' and, on inquiring of a negro, found we were at the plantation of General Howell Cobb, of Georgia, one of the leading rebels of the South, then a General in the Southern army, and who had been Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Buchanan's time. Of course we confiscated his property, and found it rich in corn, beans, peanuts, and sorghum mola.s.ses. Extensive fields were all around the house. I sent word back to General Davis to explain whose plantation it was, and to instruct him to spare nothing. That night huge bonfires consumed the fence-rails, kept our soldiers warm, and the teamsters and men, as well as slaves, carried off an immense quant.i.ty of corn and provisions of all sorts."

Do the records of civilized warfare furnish a parallel to this petty and mercenary wreaking of spite upon the helpless home of a gallant foeman?

The General furnished us with proof of how worthy of their selection his staff-officers proved during that memorable raid. While camped that night on Cobb's plantation, Lieutenant Snelling, who was a Georgian commanding his escort, received permission to visit his uncle, who lived some six miles away.

"The next morning," says the General, "he described to me his visit. The uncle was not cordial by any means to find his nephew in the ranks of the host that was desolating the land, and Snelling came back, having exchanged his tired horse for a fresher one out of his uncle's stables, explaining that surely some of the 'b.u.mmers' would have got the horse had he not." It was the eternal fitness of things that the staff-officers of this prince of free-booters should be renegades capable of stealing from their nearest kin.

The unfailing jocosity of this merry marauder breaks out in his recital of a negro's account of the destruction of Sandersville: "First, there came along some cavalrymen, and they burned the depot; then came along some infantrymen, and they tore up the track and burned it, and, just before they left, they sot fire to the well!" The well, he explains, was a boxed affair into which some of the debris was piled, and the customary torch was applied, making the negro's statement literally true. This was one of the incidents to leaving the pretty town of Sandersville a smoking ma.s.s of ruins.

But why enumerate further details of an unresisted movement which cost Sherman one hundred and three lives, and the State of Georgia one hundred million dollars, twenty millions of which he frankly states he carried off, and eighty millions of which he destroyed? It began in shame at Atlanta--it pa.s.sed with a gathering burden of infamy to Savannah.

Starvation, terror, outrage hung upon its flanks and rear. Its days were darkened by the smoking incense from unparalleled sacrifices upon the altar of wantonness; its nights were lurid with flames licking the last poor shelter from above the heads of subjugated wives and children.

Its history is the strongest human argument for an orthodox h.e.l.l.

TESTIMONIALS.

STATE OF GEORGIA, EXECUTIVE OFFICE, ATLANTA, September 1st, 1894.

"Life in Dixie During the War," by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, presents a striking picture of home life among our people during that dark period of our history.

While such presentation is hardly looked for in more elaborate history of those times, Miss Gay's conception was a wise one, and the record she has given will preserve a most desirable part of the history of our section.

Her book deserves to be widely circulated.

W. J. NORTHEN, Governor.

"LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR."

This handsome volume from the pen of Miss Mary A. H. Gay, whose many acts of self-denial ent.i.tle her to the name of philanthropist, will meet with a hearty welcome from her wide circle of friends. But a casual glance at the volume leads us to conclude that outside of this circle, even with the reader who will look into it as a key to the history of the "times that tried men's souls," it will be a book of more than pa.s.sing interest. The author writes with the feelings of a partisan, but time has mellowed her recollections of these stormy times, and even the reader whose sympathies were with the other side will agree with Joel Chandler Harris in his introduction to the book. In its mechanical get-up, the book is a gem.--_Atlanta Const.i.tution_, December 18, 1892.

"LIFE IN DIXIE."

Miss Mary A. H. Gay has published a volume ent.i.tled "Life in Dixie During the War," which should be in every Southern home. It is one of the truest pictures of the life of our people during the war that has yet been drawn.

In fact, it could not be better, for it shows things just as they were.

The struggles and sufferings of the Southern people during that awful period exhibited a heroism that has seldom been matched in the world's history. Miss Gay was among them. She looked on their trials with sympathetic eyes and suffered with them. Fortunately she is gifted with the power of describing what she saw, and her book will be a cla.s.sic of war literature. Its every page is interesting. The story of Dixie during the war reads like romance to the generation that has arisen since, but it should have for generations an interest as deep as that with which it is read by those who lived and acted amid the scenes it records. It shows how grand was the courage and virtue, how sublime the faith and endurance of the men and women of the South throughout that terrible ordeal. It is a book that will live, and one that will give to the world a true representation of the conduct of a n.o.ble people in affliction. Miss Gay has made numerous contributions to our literature which mark her as a woman of rare capacity and exquisite feelings, but she has done no work that is worthier of grat.i.tude and praise than that embodied in "Life in Dixie."--_The Atlanta Journal_, January 17, 1893.

"LIFE IN DIXIE."

Miss Mary Gay's recent book, "Life in Dixie During the War," is rapidly winning favor with the public. Some of our most distinguished writers speak of it in very high terms as a notable contribution to our history.

The Rev. Dr. J. William Jones says of it:

"'Life in Dixie During the War' is a charming story of home-life during those dark days when our n.o.ble women displayed a patient endurance, and active zeal, a self-denying work in the hospitals, a genuine patriotism, a true heroism which equalled the record of their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers in the army.

"But Decatur, near Atlanta, was the scene of stirring events during Sherman's campaign against the doomed city, and Miss Gay's facile pen vividly portrays historic events of deepest interest.

"Visits from the soldier boy to the old home, letters from the camp, visits to the camps and hospitals, the smoke and changing scenes of battle in the enemy's lines, refugeeing, and many other events of those stirring days, are told with the vividness of an eye-witness and the pen of an accomplished writer.

"It is, in a word, a vivid and true picture of 'Life in Dixie During the War,' and should find a place not only in our Southern homes, but in the homes of all who desire to see a true account of the life of our n.o.ble women during those trying days.

"REV. JOHN WILLIAM JONES."

_The Const.i.tution_, May 2nd, 1893.

The "Confederate Love Song," by Miss Mary A. H. Gay, of Decatur, was written during the late war. It is a charming bit of verse, and forms one of a galaxy of beautiful songs from the same true pen. In 1880, Miss Gay published a volume of verses which received the unusual compliment of public demand for no less than eleven editions. The author's life is one of the most beautiful; it is, therefore, quite natural that her poetry should partake of the simple truth and sincerity of that life, consecrated as it is, and ever has been, to the n.o.blest work.--_Atlanta Const.i.tution._

Miss Gay's Book, "Life in Dixie During the War."--Editor "_Sunny South_:"

Permit me to say a few words through the columns of your widely read and popular paper about Miss Mary A. H. Gay's "Life in Dixie During the War,"

the second and enlarged edition of which book has just been issued from the press.

The fact that a second and enlarged edition has been called for is proof that the merits of this genuine Southern story has been appreciated by our people. Not only has the author in her book perpetuated interesting and historically valuable material of merely local character, but, to the careful reader, she also presents matter that goes to the deep moral, social and political roots of the cause of the people of the South, that grew and flowered into the crimson rose of war, which the South plucked and wore upon her heart during four of the most tragic yet glorious years recorded in history.

But the chief charms of the book are its simple, earnest, homely style, its depth of womanly and loyal feeling, and the glimpses we get of the homes and hearts of our people during these years of patient suffering and "crucifixion of the soul;" and along with the pa.s.sion and the pain, we are presented with pictures of our people's frequently laughable "makes.h.i.+fts"

to supply many of the common necessaries of life and household appliances of which the stress and savage devastation deprived nearly every Southern family. Above all we are impressed by the more than Spartan heroism, the tender love, the unwavering loyalty, the devoted, self-sacrificing spirit of our n.o.ble Southern womanhood, of which this book speaks so eloquently in its _naive_ simplicity, and of which traits of character, the modest author herself is a living and universally beloved example.

The book deserves a place in the hearts and homes of our people. Surely the patriotic motives that inspired its author to write it is the only pa.s.sport it needs to public favor and patronage.

CHARLES W. HUBNER, "_Sunny South_," Atlanta, Ga., November 3, 1894.

A WAR STORY.

Even in these piping times of peace (peace as far as our own borders are concerned, at any rate)--there is a relish in a war story. And when the scene is laid right here in Georgia, in Decatur, in Atlanta; when familiar names come up in the course of the narrative, and familiar events are pictured by an honest eye-witness; when all through the little volume you feel the truthfulness of the writer, and know that the incidents she narrates happened just so; when, too, you see the writer herself--see her to be an old lady now, who really was a heroine in her young days; and then read the simple, personal narrative--now stirring, as the battle-guns sound--now touching, as some dear one falls; with all this combination of interest, a war story claims and holds the attention.

Such is the little book, called "Life in Dixie," written by Miss Mary Gay, and telling of those stirring times in and about Atlanta, back yonder in the sixties.

There are some vivid pictures in that modest little volume, as well as some interesting facts. Miss Gay was in the thick of the strife, and tells what she saw in those dark days.

Among the well-known characters, a.s.sociated with the recorded events, we find Mrs. L. P. Grant, Mr. and Mrs. Posey Maddox, Dr. J. P. Logan and many others.

A most interesting fact disclosed in those pages is the surprising one that two sisters of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln married Alabama officers in the Confederate army; there is recorded the public presentation, by those two ladies, of an elegant silk banner made for a gallant young company in Georgia's daughter-State. Thus conspicuous were those women in the Southern Confederacy, while their sister and her dearest interests lay on the other side.