DOCUMENT: ELIZA FRANCES ANDREWS: THE JOURNAL OF A ...

Eliza Andrews saw the work of Sherman's army about fiftymiles east of Dolly Lunt Burge at the end of November. The extractspublished here recount her views of the "Burnt Country," a swathof territory that had been systematically destroyed by Unionsoldiers, as she traveled from Sparta south to Gordon a fewdays after it had been laid waste. The opening reveals one sourceof uncertainty in wartime casualty figures: the execution ofcaptured soldiers and foragers by local forces was done casuallyand without fanfare, outside the reach of either law or recordkeeping.Andrews' hostility toward the Union, and her pride in the Confederacyand the South as a whole, is clear from her descriptions ofthe destruction Sherman's army wrought on Georgia. It is reinforcedin the conclusion's chilling declarations of pride in "uncontaminatedAnglo-Saxon blood" and the "secret vigilance and masterful strategy"of "the ghostly bands of 'The Invisible Empire' "--better-knownas the Ku Klux Klan. . . . All being now ready, we moved out of Sparta. We soon becamevery sociable with our new companions, though not one of usknew the other even by name. Mett and I saw that they were alldying with curiosity about us and enjoyed keeping them mystified.The captain said he was from Baltimore, and it was a sufficientintroduction when we found that he knew the Elzeys and the Irwins,and that handsome Ed Carey I met in Montgomery last winter,who used to be always telling me how much I reminded him ofhis cousin "Connie." Just beyond Sparta we were halted by oneof the natives, who, instead of paying forty dollars for hispassage to the agent at the hotel, like the rest of us, hadwalked ahead and made a private bargain with Uncle Grief, thedriver, for ten dollars. This "Yankee trick" raised a laughamong our impecunious Rebs, and the lieutenant, who was justout of a Northern prison, and very short of funds, thanked himfor the lesson and declared he meant to profit by it the nextchance he got. The newcomer proved to be a very amusing character,and we nicknamed him "Sam Weller," on account of his shrewdnessand rough-and-ready wit. He was dressed in a coarse home-madesuit, but was evidently something of a dandy, as his shirt-frontsported a broad cotton ruffle edged with home-made cotton lace.He was a rebel soldier, he said: "Went in at the fust pop andbeen a-fightin' ever since, till the Yankees caught me here,home on furlough, and wouldn't turn me loose till I had tooktheir infernal oath--beg your pardon, ladies--the jig's prettynigh up anyway, so I don't reckon it'll made much difference." He told awful tales about the things Sherman's robbers haddone; it made my blood boil to hear them, and when the captainasked him if some of the rascals didn't get caught themselvessometimes--stragglers and the like--he answered with a winkthat said more than words: "Yes; our folks took lots of prisoners; more'n'll ever be heard of agin." "What became of them?" asked the lieutenant. "Sent 'em to Macon, double quick," was the laconic reply. "Got'em thar in less'n half an hour." "How did they manage it?" continued the lieutenant, in a tonethat showed he understood Sam's metaphor. "Just took 'em out in the woods and lost 'em," he replied,in his jerky, laconic way. "Ever heerd o' losin' men,lady?" he added, turning to me, with an air of grim waggerythat made my flesh creep--for after all, even Yankees are humanbeings, though they don't always behave like it. "Yes," I said, "I had heard of it, but thought it a horrible thing." "I don't b'lieve in losin' 'em, neither, as a gener'l thing,"he went on. "I don't think it's right principul, and I wouldn'tlose one myself, but when I see what they have done tothese people round here, I can't blame 'em for losin'every devil of 'em they kin git their hands on." "What was the process of losing?" asked the captain."Did they manage the business with firearms?" "Sometimes, when they was in a hurry," Mr. Weller explained,with that horrible, grim irony of his, "the gun wouldgo off an' shoot 'em, in spite of all that our folks could do.But most giner'ly they took the grapevine road in the fust patchof woods they come to, an' soon as ever they got sight of atree with a grape vine on it, it's cur'ous how skeered theirhosses would git. You couldn't keep 'em from runnin' away, nomatter what you done, an' they never run fur before their headswas caught in a grape vine and they would stand thar, dancing'on nothin' till they died. Did you ever hear of anybody dancin'on nothin' before, lady?"--turning to me. I said he ought to be ashamed to tell it; even a Yankee wasentitled to protection when a prisoner of war. "But these fellows wasn't regular prisoners of war, lady,"said the sick soldier; "they were thieves and houseburners,"--andI couldn't but feel there was something in that view of it. About three miles from Sparta we struck the "Burnt Country,"as it is well named by the natives, and then I could betterunderstand the wrath and desperation of these poor people. Ialmost felt as if I should like to hang a Yankee myself. Therewas hardly a fence left standing all the way from Sparta toGordon. The fields were trampled down and the road was linedwith carcasses of horses, hogs, and cattle that the invaders,unable either to consume or to carry away with them, had wantonlyshot down to starve out the people and prevent them from makingtheir crops. The stench in some places was unbearable; everyfew hundred yards we had to hold our noses or stop them withthe cologne Mrs. Elzey had given us, and it proved a great boon.The dwellings that were standing all showed signs of pillage,and on every plantation we saw the charred remains of the gin-houseand packing-screw, while here and there, lone chimney-stacks,"Sherman's Sentinels," told of homes laid in ashes. The infamouswretches! I couldn't wonder now that these poor people shouldwant to put a rope round the neck of every red-handed "devilof them" they could lay their hands on. Hay ricks and fodderstacks were demolished, corn cribs were empty, and every baleof cotton that could be found was burnt by the savages. I sawno grain of any sort, except little patches they had spilledwhen feeding their horses and which there was not even a chickenleft in the country to eat. A bag of oats might have lain anywherealong the road without danger from the beasts of the field,though I cannot say it would have been safe from the assaultsof hungry man. Crowds of soldiers were tramping over the roadin both directions; it was like traveling through the streetsof a populous town all day. They were mostly on foot, and Isaw numbers seated on the roadside greedily eating raw turnips,meat skins, parched corn--anything they could find, even pickingup the loose grains that Sherman's horses had left. I felt temptedto stop and empty the contents of our provision baskets intotheir laps, but the dreadful accounts that were given of thestate of the country before us, made prudence get the betterof our generosity. . . . Before crossing the Oconee at Milledgeville we ascended animmense hill, from which there was a fine view of the town,with Gov. Brown's fortifications in the foreground and the riverrolling at our feet. The Yankees had burnt the bridge, so wehad to cross on a ferry. There was a long train of vehiclesahead of us, and it was nearly an hour before our turn came,so we had ample time to look about us. On our left was a fieldwhere 30,000 Yankees had camped hardly three weeks before. Itwas strewn with the dbris they had left behind,and the poor people of the neighborhood were wandering overit, seeking for anything they could find to eat, even pickingup grains of corn that were scattered around where the Yankeeshad fed their horses. We were told that a great many valuableswere found there at first,--plunder that the invaders had leftbehind, but the place had been picked over so often by thistime that little now remained except tufts of loose cotton,piles of half-rotted grain, and the carcasses of slaughteredanimals, which raised a horrible stench. Some men were plowingin one part of the field, making ready for next year's crop. . . . About noon [the next day] we struck the Milledgeville &Gordon R.R., near a station which the Yankees had burnt, anda mill near by they had destroyed also, out of pure malice,to keep the poor people of the country from getting their cornground. There were several crossroads at the burnt mill andwe took the wrong one, and got into somebody's cornfield, wherewe found a little crib whose remoteness seemed to have protectedit from the greed of the invaders. We were about to "press"a few ears for our hungry mules, when we spied the owner comingacross the fields and waited for him. The captain asked if hewould sell us a little provender for our mules, but he gavesuch a pitiful account of the plight in which Sherman had lefthim that we felt as mean as a lot of thieving Yankees ourselves,for having thought of disturbing his property. He was very polite,and walked nearly a mile in the biting wind to put us back inthe right road. Three miles from Gordon we came to Commissioners'Creek, of which we had heard awful accounts all along the road.It was particularly bad just at this time on account of theheavy rain, and had overflowed the swamp for nearly two miles.Porters with heavy packs on their backs were wading throughthe sloughs, and soldiers were paddling along with their legsbare and their breeches tied up in a bundle on their shoulders.They were literal sans culottes. Some one who had justcome from the other side advised us to unload the wagon andmake two trips of it, as it was doubtful whether the mules couldpull through with such a heavy load. The Yankees had throwndead cattle in the ford, so that we had to drive about at randomin the mud and water, to avoid these uncanny obstructions. Ourgentlemen, however, concluded that we had not time to make twotrips, so they all piled into the wagon at once and trustedto Providence for the result. We came near upsetting twice,and the water was so deep in places that we had to stand ontop of the trunks to keep our feet dry. Safely over the swamp, we dined on the scraps left in our baskets,which afforded but a scanty meal. The cold and wind had increasedso that we could hardly keep our seats, but the roads improvedsomewhat as we advanced, and the aspect of the country was beautifulin spite of all that the vandalism of war had done to disfigureits fair face. Every few hundred yards we crossed beautiful,clear streams with luxuriant swamps along their borders, gaywith shining evergreens and bright winter berries. But whenwe struck the Central R.R. at Gordon, the desolation was morecomplete than anything we had yet seen. There was nothing leftof the poor little village but ruins, charred and black as Yankeehearts. The pretty little dpot presented only a shapelesspile of bricks capped by a crumpled mass of tin that had oncecovered the roof. The R.R. track was torn up and the iron twistedinto every conceivable shape. Some of it was wrapped round thetrunks of trees, as if the cruel invaders, not satisfied withdoing all the injury they could to their fellowmen, must spendtheir malice on the innocent trees of the forest, whose onlyfault was that they grew on Southern soil. Many fine young saplingswere killed in this way, but the quickest and most effectivemethod of destruction was to lay the iron across piles of burningcross-ties, and while heated in the flames it was bent and warpedso as to be entirely spoiled. A large force is now at work repairingthe road; as the repairs advance a little every day, the placefor meeting the train is constantly changing and not alwayseasy to find. . . . Conclusion. Here the record ends, amid the gloom and desolation of defeat--agloom that was to be followed ere long by the still blackerdarkness of Reconstruction. Yet, I would not have the readerdraw from its pages a message of despair, but of hope and courageunder difficulties; for disaster cheerfully borne and honorablyovercome, is not a tragedy, but a triumph. And this, the mostglorious of all conquests, belongs to the South. Never in allhistory, has any people recovered itself so completely fromcalamity so overwhelming. By the abolition of slavery alonefour thousand millions worth of property were wiped out of existence.As many millions more went up in the smoke and ruin of war;while to count in money the cost of the precious lives thatwere sacrificed, would be, I will not say an impossibility,but a desecration. I do not recall these things in a spirit of bitterness or repining,but with a feeling of just pride that I belong to a race whichhas shown itself capable of rising superior to such conditions.We, on this side of the line, have long since forgiven the warand its inevitable hardships. We challenged the fight, and ifwe got more of it in the end than we liked, there was nothingfor it but to stand up like men and take our medicine withoutwhimpering. It was the hand that struck us after we were downthat bore hardest; yet even its iron weight was not enough tobreak the spirit of a people in whom the Anglo-Saxon blood ofour fathers still flows uncontaminated; and when the insatiablecrew of the carpet-baggers fell upon us to devour the last meagerremnants left us by the spoliation of war, they were met bythe ghostly bands of "The Invisible Empire," who through secretvigilance and masterful strategy saved the civilization theywere forbidden to defend by open force. To conquer fate is a greater victory than to conquer in battle,and to conquer under such handicaps as were imposed on the Southis more than a victory; it is a triumph. Forced against ourwill, and against the simplest biological and ethnological laws,into an unnatural political marriage that has brought forthas its monstrous offspring a race problem in comparison withwhich the Cretan Minotaur was a suckling calf; robbed of thelast pitiful resource the destitution of war had left us, bya prohibitory tax on cotton, our sole commercial product; discriminatedagainst for half a century by a predatory tariff that mulctsus at every turn, from the cradle to the grave; giving millionsout of our poverty to educate the negro, and contributing millionsmore to reward the patriotism of our conquerors, whose imperishablemultitudes as revealed by the pension rolls, make the four-yearresistance of our thin gray bands one of the miracles of history;yet, in spite of all this, and in spite of the fact that thepath of our progress has been a thorny one, marked by many anunwritten tragedy of those who went down in the struggle, tooold, or too deeply rooted in the past to adapt themselves tonew conditions, we have, as a people, come up out of the depthsstronger and wiser for our battle with adversity, and the landwe love has lifted herself from the Valley of Humiliation toa pinnacle of prosperity that is the wonder of more favoredsections. Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal ofa Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (1908.)