Southern Storm (16 page)

Yet again the tail end of the column struggled to keep pace. “The trains moved awfully slow,” recorded a Connecticut man. “Short marches & long halts for the cattle to get a mile or two ahead,” complained a member of the 2nd Minnesota. Wrote one disgusted New Yorker, “Standing still in the road at 12.” A Wisconsin comrade reported that they “waited till heartily tired for an order to march.”

Noon–Midnight

Confederate Major General Joseph Wheeler transmitted three situation reports today. In them he finally identified the Fourteenth Corps as part of the Federal column, so for the first time Confederate author
ities had a complete picture of Sherman’s forces. The absence of an overall commander was beginning to rankle the heavily stressed cavalryman. “Please give me [the] wishes and intentions of [the] Government, or send some one who knows the course they desire pursued,” he complained to Richmond. From the information he was getting, it seemed to Wheeler that several Yankee columns were on the “shortest road to Macon.” In that city, a civil order closed all the liquor stores, while a military directive from Major General Howell Cobb summoned every able-bodied man to arms. Another Cobb order put all transportation under central control.

Cobb was caught in a seesaw of emotions. Maintaining a calm face to his wife, he joked that “we shall have lively times in the course of the next ten days.” Appealing directly to Jefferson Davis, he labeled Sherman’s movement “the most dangerous of the war,” and argued forcefully that if the garrisons of Charleston, Savannah, and Wilmington, North Carolina, could be ordered to Macon, the chance existed to crush Sherman’s advance, leading directly to “the greatest result of the war.” Writing to Davis’s military adviser, Cobb worried that Macon’s feeble defenses could not withstand a major assault.

Governor Brown’s eyes in Macon belonged to Brigadier General Robert Toombs, just arrived from Milledgeville, where he had defended Georgia’s sovereignty before the state supreme court. “Things are very bad here,” Toombs wired. Citing the paltry roster of units ready to defend the city, he urged the governor to “send all the troops you can. If we do not get help we must abandon this place.” The public face of iron resolve was presented by the city’s newspaper, the
Macon Daily Telegraph
: “Macon is to be defended to the last, and those best informed believe it can be held against any force Sherman can bring against it.”

No one in the town of Madison, square in the path of the Left Wing, had any illusions of defense. Frantic residents hurried to fill a last train waiting at the depot with steam up, as a rueful Yankee described the next day, “with such things as they had time to get away with.” The townspeople did such a good job that another Federal would gripe about all the empty store shelves he saw. At least Madison’s residents did not have to deal with Wheeler’s men, a privilege denied those farther south. Writing to Jefferson Davis about a month after the events took place, a Griffin resident named P. A. Lawson explained, “When General Sherman left Atlanta Wheeler’s cavalry
commenced their retreat before him, and but a handful of Sherman’s men ran W[heeler’s] whole command down to Griffin, and while S[herman’s] army was marching through Fayette, Clayton, Henry, and Butts [counties], Wheeler’s cavalry was burning up all the corn and fodder, driving off all the stock of the farmers for ten miles on each side of the railroad, all of from ten to twenty-five miles to the right and rear of Sherman’s forces. Worse than all, the stock of mules and horses which General Wheeler’s forces carried off, nine out of ten they have appropriated to their own use.”

In the state capital, Milledgeville, Governor Brown was trying to get ahead of fast-developing events. Delivering a special message to the General Assembly, he demanded “the passage of a law…authorizing the Governor to make a levy
en masse,
of the whole male population, including every man able to do Military duty, during the emergency.” Brown also sent off a telegraph to General Wheeler, promising to “do all I can to rally force to aid you,” while also reminding that officer of the importance of his daily situation reports. Another telegram went off to General Beauregard in Alabama, in which Brown had to confess that “we have not force to stop the movements of the enemy.”

Included among the litany of issues that Howell Cobb pressed on Richmond was the matter of Yankee POWs. “The prisoners should be removed from this State,” Cobb insisted, anxious about Yankee raids aiming at freeing the captives. At Camp Lawton, outside Millen, then the state’s largest prison compound, the inmates were taking advantage of the pleasant, even warm, days. A wood-chopping detail was organized, thirty strong. The men worked without guards, but with the knowledge that if any of them failed to return, no one in the thousand-man division to which they were assigned would be allowed to collect wood until the prodigal returned. Even though the weather was uncommonly temperate, everyone knew that colder days were coming. Right now the mortality rate was ten per day, estimated an Illinois POW. Once the weather turned bitter, however, that would change.

Right Wing

The Right Wing marched widely dispersed today, so the foraging only improved as the day wore on. A soldier in the 11th Iowa, serving as rear
guard for the Fourth Division of the Seventeenth Corps, reported that despite being the very last in a long line, the men “found plenty of fresh pork and all the sweet potatoes we could carry.” A happy diarist in the 4th Minnesota (Fifteenth Corps) wrote: “A plenty of chickens & potatoes.” Soldier complaints were a matter of too much of a good thing. “Our men are clear discouraged with foraging,” chortled an Illinois man. “They can’t carry half the hogs and potatoes they find right along the road.”

Amazingly, large amounts of easily movable property remained to be confiscated as well. “The men detailed for [foraging]…are finding lots of horses and mules,” reported a Fifteenth Corps soldier. An Ohio boy was perhaps stating the obvious when he commented: “Along our route today we surprised the citizens very much[,] they were not expecting us so soon.” In the Seventeenth Corps, the requisition of animals was joined to a determination not to leave anything valuable to the Rebels. “We…obtained a number of good horses and mules,” wrote an Ohio diarist, “turned out our poorest, shot them and supplied their places with good ones.” Also slated for destruction were the usual suspects. “Fire is doing its work among the cotton,” related another Buckeye. “Black clouds of smoke mark well our way.”

Just a short distance away from the main columns, death or capture awaited the unwary or unlucky. “[Rebel] cutthroats are following us & watching our movements,” warned an Iowa diary keeper. A party from the 55th Illinois that took a wrong turn found itself several miles from the main column when the sun set. The men camped for the night, taking care to post a picket detail that reported another group bivouacked nearby. A cautious investigation revealed the neighbors as “a troop of Confederate cavalry.” The wary Federals laid low, watched the enemy ride off in the morning, and eventually rejoined their column without further incident. Sometimes the danger was close at hand. Recorded a diarist in the 11th Iowa: “A couple of orderlies got drunk [this evening]…and one shot and killed the other.”

As the Fifteenth Corps drew close to Jackson, its mounted advance encountered a hodgepodge of convalescent Rebel soldiers and local boys out to make a noise. The Confederates first fired at the Yankees some three and a half miles out of town on the McDonough Road. Then, according to a resident, “They retreated beyond the creek and made a stand this side (the Jackson side) and fired on the enemy as
they came into sight on the opposite hill, and again retreated. They halted across the next creek and again exchanged shots with them and ran into Jackson.” At this point, the Rebels scattered.

The first Federals to enter the town found the courthouse already smoldering, courtesy of Wheeler’s departing cavalry. However, most of the county records were preserved through the quick thinking of a town official named Wiley Goodman, who packed them on a wagon and carted them into Jasper County, where he hid them in the woods until the danger had passed.

Just ahead of the Right Wing corps was the first major water barrier to be encountered, the Ocmulgee River. There were no bridges to utilize (passage here was via ferry), so the engineers would have an opportunity to display their skills. The two corps would cross the Ocmulgee near a cloth-manufacturing center called Planter’s Factory.
*
Major General Oliver Otis Howard decided to seize the crossing point before the Rebels realized he wasn’t moving directly against Macon. Orders went to Major General Osterhaus, Fifteenth Corps, to handle the matter. Osterhaus selected a small regiment of mounted infantry, the 29th Missouri Mounted Infantry, for the job.

The unit, numbering about 115 men, trotted forward as the main column closed on Jackson. The mounted riflemen galloped through the town, scared its residents into hiding, then hurried on to the river without further incident. An advance party floated across by ferry to scout the area, while the rest of the regiment foraged a bit, and waited for the heavy columns to reach them sometime next morning.

Major General Howard also sought to misdirect his opponents as to his real objectives. General Kilpatrick was told to do all that he could to make the enemy “think we are making for Macon, via Forsyth.” At the same time, Confederate defenders at Griffin, realizing that the enemy had bypassed them and now threatened to cut them off from Macon, cleared out. “Great excite[ment],” said a Georgia cavalryman in the town. “Brig[ade,] corps & squads of cavalry hurrying to & fro from the front. We have a large wagon train, retreat on several roads.”

The carriage carrying Mary Buttrill, her aunt, two maids, and a convalescent soldier handling the reins had reached a place about a
mile east of the Ocmulgee River. Already on their odyssey they had overtaken Mary’s father, laboring with a pair of heavily laden wagons; they next encountered Mary’s brother, Taylor, and a comrade on another scout. Buttrill’s party had crossed the river on a small flatboat ferry and was stopped for lunch with the family of Stephen Johnson when someone pointed behind. Already, the bank where they had crossed the Ocmulgee was dotted with Yankee soldiers.

There was no time to be lost, and the women knew they would only slow the procession down. In a flash the carriage, accompanied by the pair of scouts, was jouncing off toward Macon. “If this war ever ends, you’ll see me drive up to Sylvan Grove in this rig,” the convalescent called out as he whipped the team to disappear in a cloud of dust. When the ladies made a move to enter the plain house, they were turned back, Mrs. Johnson saying she feared the Yankees would burn her out if she took in refugees. A few minutes more, and a crowd of bluecoat riders filled the yard.

“Where are those damn rebels that were here with you?” demanded a trooper.

“Gone,” Mary answered.

A Buttrill maid acted as if the departing scouts had taken the left fork of the road, so a few of the Federals rode off on a wild goose chase. Looking around her at a gallery of unfriendly faces, Mary at last called out: “Is there a gentleman in this vast crowd who would take us to an officer, where I could ask for protection for my Aunt, two maids, and myself?”

One of the Yankees dismounted and pushed through the others to her side. “I have a mother and sister,” he said, “and I will protect you at the risk of my life.” Their self-appointed guardian led them a short distance to a two-room cabin. Nearby Mary saw the two wagons her father had used in his effort to remove valuables to Macon, now captured, their contents strewn about. The obliging enemy broke open a trunk and invited the ladies to take what they wanted, adding that whatever was left would be given to the workers at a nearby factory that was being burned.

A little later the ladies came under the protection of Colonel George Spencer, commanding the 1st Alabama Cavalry (U.S.) attached to the Seventeenth Corps. This officer took a liking to them, seeing that they had a roof over their head after dark. (It took a day for the Union col
umns to pass by their frail sanctuary. Then they returned to Sylvan Grove to find the family house “standing alone, palings, fences, gin houses, cotton, cows, chickens, horses, mules, everything in the house, except [Mrs. Buttrill’s]…room, destroyed.”)

Overnight orders written for the Right Wing tonight displayed a serious concern regarding straggling. Surgeons were instructed to take position in the rear of their respective regiments and allow “no one to fall behind except such as are unable to march.” “The practice of marching regiments stretched out to two or three times their natural length is so unsoldierlike and unnecessary that all commanding officers who take any pride in their regiments will…take measures to prevent it,” read another directive. Finally, officers and men were reminded “that we are not warring upon women and children.”

Left Wing

Today’s plan had been for the Twentieth Corps to cover most if not all the distance to Social Circle, but the roads and wagons did not cooperate. “It has been a very hard days march,” complained an Ohio soldier. “The country being very hilly.” “Moving very slow,” added an Indiana comrade, “bad roads.” The officer commanding the 33rd Indiana griped that “there was but little system in the management of the immense wagon train and troops.” Things went from bad to worse when the head of the First Division (last in today’s rotation) bumped into the stalled rear of the Third (number two in order). From that point on, grumbled a quartermaster, “we had slow and tedious work.” “Some wagon was continually breaking down or would get stuck in mud holes, thereby blocking everything behind them and causing the mule-drivers to unload their vocabulary of cuss words,” recalled a New Yorker. Many units, up since dawn, did not bed down until midnight or later.