every mile of his march with the evidences of savage warfare. His army had been permitted to do whatever crime could compass and cruelty invent. A Northern correspondent, who travelled with the army, thus relates its prowess in pillage and all provinces of cowardly violence: "Such little freaks as taking the last chicken, the last pound of meal, the last bit of bacon, and the only remaining scraggy cow, from a poor woman and her flock of children, black or white not considered, came under the order of legitimate business. Even crockery, bed-covering, or cloths, were fair spoils. As for plate, or jewelry, or watches, these were things rebels had no use for. Men with pockets plethoric with silver and gold coin; soldiers sinking under the weight of plate and fine bedding materials; lean mules and horses, with the richest trappings of Brussels carpets, and hangings of fine chenille; negro wenches, particularly good-looking ones, decked in satin and silks, and sporting diamond ornaments; officers with sparkling rings, that would set Tiffany in raptures-gave colour to the stories of hanging up or fleshing an old cuss,' to make him shell out. A planter's house was overrun in a jiffy; boxes, drawers, and escritoires were ransacked with a laudable zeal, and emptied of their contents. If the spoils were ample, the depredators were satisfied, and went off in peace; if not, everything was torn and destroyed, and most likely the owner was tickled with sharp bayonets into a confession where he had his treasures hid. If he escaped, and was hiding in a thicket, this was prima facie evidence that he was a skulking rebel; and inost likely some ruffian, in his zeal to get rid of such vipers, gave him a dose of lead, which cured him of his Secesh tendencies. Sorghum barrels were knocked open, bee-hives rifled, while their angry swarms rushed frantically about. Indeed, I have seen a soldier knock a planter down because a bee stung him. Should the house be deserted, the furniture is smashed in pieces, music is pounded out of four hundred dollar pianos with the ends of muskets. Mirrors were wonderfully multiplied, and rich cushions and carpets carried off to adorn teams and war-steeds. After all was cleared out, most likely some set of stragglers wanted to enjoy a good fire, and set the house, debris of furniture, and all the surroundings, in a blaze. This is the way Sherman's army lived on the country."

The sum of these villanies has passed into Northern history as a weight of martial glory. But the day will yet come when the hero of such a story, instead of enjoying as now the plaudits of ferocious and cowardly nobs, will obtain the execrations of civilized mankind. The facility of his progress was no achievement of genius to illuminate a record of villany It is clear enough, when it is known that there was nothing to oppose hia march but some hasty levies of regular troops, and clans of scattered militia. It is melancholy to look over the map of this march, a region of swamp and thicket, and observe that in no portion of it could a field be

CAPTURE OF FORT M'ALLISTER.

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found adequate to the display of ten thousand men, and reflect how small a Confederate force, put between Sherman and the sea, might have disputed his march, exacted a bloody toll at every defile, and brought him to grief and disaster. But there was no such force. The general story of the march is that the Confederates had no partisan fighting as in days past; that their levies of regular troops did not make their appearance in season for a concentration of strength at any one point; that Hardce, having a command of not more than ten thousand men, remained to cover Savannah; that the clans of militia and small detachments of Wheeler's cavalry were utterly unable to cope with the enemy, and were rather calculated to provoke his enterprise than to impede his march; and that the consequence was that the sum of opposition to Sherman's march was little more than a series of small skirmishes, without result on either side.

On the 2d December Sherman's army pivoted upon Millen, swung slowly round from its eastern course, and swept down in six parallel columns, by as many different roads, towards Savannah. About ten miles from the city his left wing struck the Charleston Railroad, and encountered some Confederate skirmishers, which indicated for the first time the presence of Hardee's army. Sherman's right wing was now thrown for ward; his army closed gradually and steadily in upon Savannah; and on the 10th December it lay in line of battle, confronting the outer works about five miles distant from the city. His first task was to open communication with Dahlgren's fleet, which lay in Ossabaw Sound, and he therefore determined to capture Fort McAllister, at the mouth of the Ogeechee, which enters the ocean but a few miles south of the Savannah.

Fort McAllister was a large enclosure, with wide parapets, a deep ditch and thickly-planted palisades. There were twenty-one guns, large and small, in the fort, all mounted en barbette. It had resisted two or three bombardments of the enemy's iron-clads; and it appears that Gen. Hardee had overlooked the possibility of a land attack, and had neglected to strengthen the garrison. Anyhow the Confederate commander was not up to the quick decision of Sherman, who, instead of building entrenchments and rifle-pits, resolved to take the fort by assault. A whole division was ordered for the work, on the evening of the 30th December. The fort was commanded by Major Anderson; and its garrison, at the time of attack, was less than two hundred men. The fact that its guns were mounted en barbette exposed the gunners to the deadly aim of sharpshooters; and as the division of the enemy's troops commanded by Gen. Hazen advanced to the assault, it was found that the artillery of the fort did but little execution upon them. The Federals went easily over the parapet; but the little Confederate garrison, although desperately outnumbered, fought to the last. Many of these devoted men disdained quarter, and were bayoneted at their posts. Capt. Clinch, who commanded

the artillery, refused to surrender until he was disabled by three sabre and two gun-shot wounds, and faint from loss of blood.

When Sherman saw the Federal flag raised upon Fort McAllister, he seized a slip of paper, and telegraphed to Washington: "I regard Savannah as already gained." The possession of the fort opened Ossabaw Sonnd, effected communication with Dahlgren's fleet, and indeed made the capture of Savannah, where Hardee appeared to be shut up with ten or twelve thousand men, but a question of time. But it was Sherman's hope to capture Hardee's army with the city; and movements were made to close up all avenues of escape, Sherman's army stretching from the Savannah to the Ogeechee River, while Foster's troops covered the railroad to Charleston. It was intended to place a division to operate with Foster by way of Broad River; but while Sherman's flank movement was in process of operation, Hardee outwitted him, and on the night following the enemy's demand for the surrender of the city, the Confederates had evacuated it, and were on the Carolina shore.

The evacuation was a complete surprise to Sherman. On the night of the 28th December, Hardee opened a fierce bombardment, expending his ammunition without stint. After dark, he threw his men on rafts and steamboats across the river to the South Carolina shore. The night was dark, with a fierce gust of wind deadening the sounds of the wagons and the tramp of the troops. As morning broke, the attention of the enemy was excited at last by unusual sounds, and his pickets were advanced on the extreme left of the line. Meeting no opposition, they pushed still further, crawled through the abatis, floundered through dikes and ditches, scaled the first line of works, and found it deserted. All the ordnance stores and supplies which Hardee could not transport, had been destroyed before the evacuation; he had burned the ship-yard and sunk two ironclads; but all the rest of the uninjured city fell into the hands of the enemy.

Sherman announced his success in a characteristic despatch. He wrote to President Lincoln: "I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." And thus ended the story of the march to the sea. In his official report of his achievements, Gen. Sherman wrote: "We have consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country thirty miles on either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah, as also the sweet potatoes, cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry, and have carried away more than ten thousand horses and mules, as well as a countless number of their slaves. I estimate the damage done to the State of Georgia and its military resources at one hundred millions of dollars; at least twenty millions of which has inured to our advantage, and the remainder is simple waste and destruction."

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The North exhibited its characteristic measure of greatness by taking Sherman's "march from the mountains to the seas" as the greatest military exploit of modern times. It fitted the Northern idea of magnitude. It was, of course, "the Great March," as everything the North admired, from a patent-machine to an ariny, was "the great." But it is difficult for a sober historian to find in the easy marches of Sherman through Georgia, any great military merit, or to discover in the excessively vulgar character of this commander any of the elements of the hero. Where there is nothing to oppose an army, the mere accomplishment of distances is no great wonder or glory. From the time Sherman left Gaylesville to the day he encountered the lines around Savannah, he never had a thousand men on his front to dispute his advance; he had nothing to threaten his rear beyond a few bodies of Confederate horse; he moved through a country so full of supplies that his own commissariat was scarcely taxed to sub sist his army; he himself telegraphed to Washington: "Our march was most agreeable," and compared it to "a pleasure-trip." And yet this pleasant excursion the North insisted upon amplifying as a great military exploit, to be compared with Napoleon's march to Moscow, and other splendid adventures of invasion, while the chief excursionist was raised to the dignity of a hero.

Sherman is an example of the reputation achieved in the North by intrepid charlatanism and self-assertion. He had elements of Northern popularity outside of the severe circle of military accomplishments. His swagger was almost irresistible; he wrote slang phrases in his official despatches; his style was a flash Fourth-of-July tangled oratory, that never fails to bring down the applause of a Northern mob. It is the office of history to reduce the reputations of the gazette. The man who is now known in Northern newspapers as a hero of the war and luminary of the military age will scarcely be known in future and just history, further than as the man who depopulated and destroyed Atlanta, essayed a new code of cruelty in war, marched so many miles, achieved much bad notoriety, and ended with a professional fame mediocre and insignificant, holding a place no longer conspicuous in the permanent records of the times.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS, AND THEIR TREATMENT IN CAPTIVITY.—EXCEEDING INTEREST OF THE SUBJECT.-SLIGHT ACCOUNT OF PRISONERS IN THE EARLY PERIODS OF THE WAR. -MR. BOYCE'S PROPOSITION. THE WOOL-COBB NEGOTIATION. THE FORT DONELSON CAPTURES.-BAD FAITH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. THE CARTEL OF 1862.

CHARACTER OF COMMISSIONER OULD.-HIS HUMANE AND ZEALOUS SERVICES.-SHAMEFUL VIOLATION OF THE CARTEL BY THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES.-SOLEMN PROTEST OF COMMISSIONER OULD.-COUNTER-CHARGE OF THE FEDERALS.-IT IS DISPROVED BY COMMISSIONER OULD. -CASE OF STREIGHT. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DECLARES PAROLES VOID.—COMMISBIONER OULD DENOUNCES THE CHEAT.—HIS RETALIATION WITH RESPECT TO THE VICKSBURG PRISONERS.-HE WAIVES THE CARTEL, AND MAKES A NEW PROPOSITION.—HE SENDS TO WASHINGTON LISTS OF MORTALITY IN THE ANDERSONVILLE PRISON.-THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOES NOT REPLY.-ITS PERSISTENT AND INHUMAN SILENCE.-EXPLANATION OF IT. THE WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT RESOLVED TO MAKE A CASE OF REBEL BARBAR

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ITY." THE SITE, ARRANGEMENTS AND DISCIPLINE OF THE ANDERSONVILLE PRISON.-EXPLANATION OF THE SUFFERING AND MORTALITY THERE.-EXTRAORDINARY PROPOSITION OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE WITHOUT EQUIVALENTS AND WITHOUT FORMALITY ALL SICK AND WOUNded fedeRAL PRISONERS.-SECRETARY STANTON DEAF TO THE CRY OF THE SUFFERERS.-HIS GREAT GUILT.-EXCHANGES RESUMED UNDER GEN. GRANT'S AUTHORITY.-REPORT OF THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS, APPOINTED TO INVESTIGATE THE CONDITION AND TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR.-NORTHERN PUBLICATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT.-REFUTATION OF RAWHEAD-AND-BLOODY-BONES STORIES.-HUMANITY OF THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES.— A TERRIBLE RECORD OF FEDERAL CRUELTIES.-BARBAROUS PUNISHMENT IN NORTHERN PRISONS.--LAST HUMANE PROPOSITION OF COMMISSIONER OULD.-HIS LETTER TO GEN. GRANT.-A COMPLETE RECORD OF JUSTICE AND HUMANITY ON THE PART OF THE CONFEDERATES.

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THE exchange of prisoners taken during the war; their treatment in their places of confinement North and South; the incidents of the cartel, altogether, constitute so large and interesting a subject that we have reserved its treatment for a separate chapter. On the exposition of this intricate matter depends much of the good name of the Confederates and the contrary title of the enemy; and it may be remarked that no subject which tended to keep alive a feeling of bitterness and animosity between the