XXIV

THE ADVANCE ON COLUMBIA

Nearly one million soldiers composed the Union armies on January 1, 1865. They were guarding and picketing along an almost continuous line fifteen hundred miles in length. They were guarding long lines of communication, captured cities, towns, railroads, and fortified positions; and fighting battles with a brave and hardy people who were holding a country particularly well adapted for defense, because of its broken character, its numerous large rivers, and its narrow and almost impassable roads. But of these none had such thrilling experiences as those had by Sherman's army of 65,000 men while forcing their way for a distance of a thousand miles through the heart of the Confederacy.

From Savannah to Goldsborough Sherman marched his army in midwinter, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles in fifty days, crossing five large navigable rivers, at any one of which a comparatively small force should have made the passage most difficult if not impossible. The country generally was in a primitive state of nature, with innumerable swamps and sluggish creeks, with none but simple dirt roads, nearly every mile of which had to be corduroyed. The enemy relied with pardonable confidence upon the impossibility of such an undertaking. General Hardee had reported to General Johnston that the swamps were flooded and impassable, at the very time the army was marching through them at the rate of

fifteen miles a day, corduroying nearly every foot of the

way.

While at Savannah at the beginning of the new year General Sherman consummated the plans and issued orders preparatory to entering upon the next stage of his famous campaigning, and every department of the army at once entered into active and zealous coöperation to put the troops and equipment in the most perfect readiness, when the word would be given to go forward again. The keynote of the campaign was sounded by General Sherman, when he said: "The army will cut a swath through the Carolinas fifty miles wide", which was the death-knell to the Confederacy.

The organization of the army remained substantially the same as it was from Atlanta to Savannah. It was composed of 188 regiments of infantry, 14 regiments of cavalry, and 17 batteries of artillery, formed into 39 brigades of 3 to 7 regiments each, 14 divisions of 2 to 3 brigades each; 4 army corps of 3 to 4 divisions each, and two armies the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of Georgia - of two army corps each. These armies were designated as the right and left wings of the grand army.

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In the composition of the army, troops were represented who had fought at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Lookout Mountain in the old 11th and 12th army corps of the Army of the Potomac. The 14th Army Corps, organized as a part of the Army of the

32 The official records list two hundred and fifty-nine regiments of infantry, eighteen regiments of cavalry, and thirty-two batteries of artillery in Sherman's army. These were formed into fifty-eight brigades, twenty divisions, six corps, and three armies. The Army of the Ohio was designated as the center. War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Series I, Vol. XLVII, Pt. 1, pp. 46-60.

Cumberland and commanded by General George H. Thomas at the battles of Stone River and Chickamauga, was present. The 15th and 17th army corps which had been successively commanded by General Grant, General Sherman, and General McPherson at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg, and Missionary Ridge composed the Army of the Tennessee. All had been cemented into the one grand army during the four months of battles and campaigning in Northern Georgia for the capture of Atlanta.

General John A. Logan arrived at Savannah by ocean steamer from the north, where he had gone at the close of the Atlanta campaign to aid in the political campaign then pending for the presidency, and was restored in command of the 15th Army Corps. On January 7th, the corps was again reviewed by General Sherman and Gen. eral Logan on the large common just outside of the city and adjacent to the camps. All four divisions and the artillery brigade, composing the corps, participated. The ceremony was witnessed by many hundreds of officers of high rank in the army and by thousands of soldiers and citizens. The command made a splendid appearance and was highly complimented by all.

Pursuant to orders, the Army of the Tennessee commenced the movement from Savannah to Beaufort, South Carolina, January 3rd, embarking on ocean transports at Fort Thunderbolt - the 17th Army Corps in advance. The Sixth Iowa, together with the rest of the First Division, 15th Army Corps, broke camp at 9 a. m., January 10th, and marched four miles to Fort Thunderbolt on the Wilmington River, the point for embarking for Beaufort, where it camped for the night. The whole division remained in camp the next day with large details from

the regiments working on the construction of two new landings, which were made to expedite the loading.

The ocean steamers used for transporting the troops and wagon transportation of the army were of such character that it had been necessary to hoist each horse and mule over the side of the huge vessel by means of a sling and hoisting tackle and to take all the wagons apart before they could be loaded. The new landings erected obviated this necessity and the embarkment was greatly facilitated.

A cold drizzling rain, which continued throughout the day, made the situation, without tents or shelter other than gum blankets [tarpaulins ?], most uncomfortable for all. Officers and enlisted men, in small squads and parties, descended the river in row boats and small sail boats, hired from local fishermen, to the oyster beds, where they secured great quantities of the luscious salt water bivalves.

It was in the afternoon of January 12th, that the Sixth Iowa marched down to the levee to embark, but for some cause there was a delay until about 10 p. m., when the regiment boarded the steamer "Louise", which was soon gliding down the river and out through Wassaw Sound onto the old ocean.

The trip was pleasant and without special incident, except that it furnished the novelty of an ocean voyage for the troops and added another to their wide and varied campaigning experiences. January 13th, the steamer arrived at Beaufort, South Carolina, and was made fast to the dock before daylight. At an early hour the regiment disembarked and marched out into the town, where a halt was made in the streets and the men prepared breakfast.

The population of Beaufort was composed chiefly of army officers and their families, recruiting agents for colored troops, treasury agents speculating in cotton, northern school teachers, church missionaries, and the negroes, while only a very few of the southern white inhabitants remained in the city. The Union forces had been in full possession of the town and Port Royal Island since the first of the war. New customs had been established in the schools, churches, and in the social life of the community conforming with the changed condition and new ideas concerning the great hordes of freedmen gathered there. All of this was strikingly in contrast with the prevailing sentiment among the troops of Sherman's army. The colored people had been recognized throughout the western armies as the true and loyal friends of the Union soldier and his cause and had been kindly and generously treated about the camps, but not many had learned to meet them on terms of equality in all the public and social conditions of life.

The new and radical customs and conditions found in the town at once engendered severe friction between the men and the colored people, causing considerable disturbance and some altercations. For a time serious punishment was threatened for those who had assailed colored citizens for real or imaginary insults, but the good counsels of General Logan -- prompted by his great love for his men - soon secured an amicable adjustment of the affair and the release of the men, who had been arrested and confined in the city prison.

The First Division camped out three miles on the road leading to the Confederate fortified position at Pocotaligo, and just outside of the Union earthworks erected and defended by a regiment of colored troops. The camps