Southern Storm (50 page)

The retreating Confederates had a last trick up their sleeves. A train was waiting for them on the Central of Georgia tracks. Much to the wonderment of the pursuing Federals, the Rebels clambered aboard and clattered off. “They took the cars for Savannah,” marveled an Iowa soldier. Once Rice’s men reached the railroad, they made contact with scouts from Williamson’s brigade marching down from Wright’s Bridge. The combined force took possession of a railroad station known as Eden. Experienced soldiers who did the math reckoned they were now within a day’s march of Savannah.

The First, Third, and Fourth divisions encamped this night near Jenks’ Bridge. The Second had turned south to follow roads taking it to the Canoochee River crossing probed on December 6. Leading the way for the Second Division was Colonel John M. Oliver’s brigade,
whose route led across Black Creek, where another enemy party was waiting, the bridge ablaze with the streambed tangled with tree pieces and brush. Hardly had the enemy skirmishers been driven off when a cloud of pioneers attacked the blockage with a vengeance. “At Black Creek,” reported the colonel, “the obstructions in the ford were removed, so that our ambulances and ammunition wagons crossed the ford before the troops could get across on the stringers of the still burning bridge.”

Savvy field officers, knowing there was a second bridge just ahead at Mill Creek, rushed the pace so that the leading Yankees and retreating Confederates reached it at the same time. The Federals took the crossing intact, allowing them to continue as far as Bryan County Court House, also known as Eden.
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Here most of the division would spend the night with pickets forward about two miles to the Canoochee River. While the unsupported thrust had no greater objective than securing the river crossing, it did cause the enemy to spread his defending forces southward to cover that approach to Savannah, thus reducing the concentration in the northwest quadrant, where Sherman had massed most of his men.

It fell to the 83rd Illinois to picket the river this night, always a dangerous operation in the close presence of the enemy. Already this evening there had been a firing incident when a party of Rebel scouts attempted to slip past the cordon. Joseph Grecian of Company A had just reached his post at one of the posts involved when he observed five riders heading toward him. “There they come, boys!” he shouted and pulled the trigger, only to hear the percussion cap snap without igniting the gunpowder. Quickly recapping the piece, the soldier tried again with the same result; however, a comrade next to him successfully fired his rifle. A verbal exchange with the intruders established they were Yankee scouts who were allowed to come in. The officer commanding them said that one sentry’s bullet had hissed close to his head, yet when his men had tried to shoot back, their guns too had only popped their percussion caps. “It seems providential, indeed, that so many pieces were snapped, but only one shot was fired and all our lives were saved,” noted Grecian.

Across southeastern Georgia, life went on in the wake of Sherman’s passage. It was business as usual in Augusta, as a member of Wheeler’s staff discovered when he cooled his heels for twelve hours in the offices of the government powder works before he could satisfy the rules of the bureaucracy in order to secure a requisition of ammunition for the troopers at the front. “An apparently small trifle sometimes wields the destiny of nations,” he fumed.

In Milledgeville, Governor Joseph Brown, back in his office, took the offensive against local citizens who had helped themselves to State House and Executive Mansion property during the Yankee occupation. Unless everything was returned right away, Brown vowed to search any household suspected of colluding and punishing those responsible.

In Savannah, the time had come for Lieutenant General William J. Hardee to man the city’s battlements. Into the field works guarding the northwest approaches Hardee sent the Georgia militia, now commanded by Major General Gustavus W. Smith. One of the approximately 2,500 civilian-soldiers so assigned took the opportunity to dash off a letter to his wife. Wrote Felix W. Prior:

Major General William Tecumseh Sherman.

He was forty-six years old at the time of the Savannah Campaign and about to undertake an operation that he described as “smashing things to the sea.” Before setting out, Sherman reviewed his cavalry arm, commanded by Brigadier General H. Judson Kilpatrick. The General considered Kilpatrick a “hell of a damned fool.”

Working from orders by Captain Orlando Poe, Union soldiers destroyed Atlanta’s manufacturing and transportation systems.

On November 15, the Twentieth Corps (one-half of the Left Wing) left Atlanta, heading due east.

Many facets of this operation are depicted in the composite sketch of the march.

Peaceful Georgia villages such as Madison played unwilling host to the Yankee invaders. “Colored people are pleased to see the Yanks,” wrote an Ohio soldier. “Whites look sour & sad.”

“Cotton stored near the railroad station [in Madison] was fired, and the jail near the public square gave up its whips and paddles to increase the big bonfire in the public square,” noted an Ohioan.

On November 22, Sherman’s Left Wing entered Milledgeville, where the Stars and Stripes were raised over the capitol building.

Union soldiers held a mock session of the legislature in the capitol building and repealed Georgia’s act of secession.

Sherman spent the night of November 23 in the Governor’s Mansion, where he had to use his field equipment, since Joseph Brown had hidden the furniture.

After resting just a day in Milledgeville, Sherman had his Left Wing marching on November 24. The crossing of the Little River was accomplished by means of a pontoon bridge.

The first real opposition to the Left Wing came at Sandersville, where Wheeler’s cavalry skirmished with Federal infantry.