Southern Storm (18 page)

Beauregard’s wasn’t the only exhortation in circulation today. From Richmond, Georgia senator B. H. Hill telegraphed his constituents:

Words were fine, but Georgia’s leaders were seeking more substantial support. Today Jefferson Davis did his best to buck up his old
friend Howell Cobb while, at the same time, promising nothing from outside the region.

The public rhetoric in Macon reflected a different picture. Readers of the
Macon Daily Telegraph
were advised “that the military authorities will do every thing in their power to stop the advance of the enemy, and we trust they will receive the cordial support of the entire community.” Major General Cobb, his headquarters now in town, received reconnaissance reports indicating that the enemy was crossing the Ocmulgee in strength at Planter’s Factory. Cobb’s chief scout complained that it was proving difficult to locate any civilians with useful information “as all have taken [to] the forest.”

Lacking any central command, Macon’s various defenders were each deciding how best to deploy themselves. The militia commander, Major General Smith, then at Forsyth, determined that the best place for his citizen-soldiers was “in the fortifications at Macon, leaving the outside work to the cavalry.” Major General Wheeler was also getting advice in lieu of reinforcements. “Employ your cavalry to best advantage, retarding advance of Sherman’s army and destroying supplies in his front,” counseled General Beauregard. From General Hood came the admonition that Wheeler “should not allow any portion of your mounted force to be shut up in a besieged city, but keep them constantly harassing the enemy, destroying his trains, and cutting off his foraging parties.” Wheeler’s situation report for November 18 was blunt: “Enemy pressing on rapidly.”

In Milledgeville, the General Assembly set records approving a slew of measures prompted by the growing crisis. An act was passed autho
rizing the Georgia Supreme Court to convene wherever circumstances allowed; another limited the liability for owners of cotton warehouses burned by the enemy. Governor Brown received his authority to raise a
levy en masse,
and special tax relief was extended to citizens who had property commandeered by local officials or “rendered valueless by reason of the public enemy.”

Their work done, the legislature adjourned so that the elected officials could scatter to the winds. “Some members,” reported an observer, “unable to get seats on railway trains [using the spur line], hired private conveyance to the Central [rail]road at Gordon and other points. I heard of two members who paid $500 each for a carriage to the Central Railway. The panic was complete.”

At the Governor’s Mansion, Joseph Brown was eating an unapologetic serving of crow. In previous discussions with Confederate officials, Brown had given broad assurances that in an emergency the manpower he had protected from impressment would rally to the state’s defense. Sherman, however, had moved too fast; and the Georgia authorities had reacted too slow. Today Brown composed a message to Jefferson Davis that admitted the fact: “A heavy force of the enemy is advancing on Macon, laying waste the country and burning the towns. We have not sufficient force. I hope you will send us troops as re-enforcements till the exigency is passed.”

This evening, a prominent citizen named William G. McAdoo called on Governor Brown. “Everything in the Executive Mansion was in the wildest uproar,” he recollected. “The halls and rooms were filled with convicts arrayed in Penitentiary Stripes removing furniture and every thing valuable from the Mansion
*
and Mrs. Brown, pale and hurried, was every where at the same instant. The Governor’s iron face was unmoved…. The energetic evacuation of Milledgeville was now grown frantic.”

There was no panic farther east at Camp Lawton, where the processing of the sick for prisoner exchange had reached a lucrative stage. “By paying the doctor a good sum, from twenty to fifty dollars in greenbacks, he will put a person on the sick list, and thus they will get out of prison,” attested a POW. Business was so good, he contended,
that “many of the sick are actually crowded out to give place to those who have bought their freedom. The doctors are making quite a speculating game out of it.”

Right Wing

The first section of Missouri engineers completed their pontoon across the Ocmulgee River by 1:00
P.M
., at which time the passage (measured at 264 feet) was open for business. The second section of boats and bridging elements did not make it through the press of wagons and men until nearly 3:00
P.M
., so the additional crossing wasn’t completed until two hours later. This kept things backed up, allowing even more bored soldiers opportunities to rummage around. “Here many of our boys went out foraging, and some got sweet potatoes, others turnips,” recorded an Ohio soldier; “some found whiskey and those were pretty well corned.”

Idlers from the 100th Indiana came upon a cache of current newspapers at Indian Springs, which, in more peaceful times, enjoyed a brisk business as a health resort. “The Confederate officials promulgated some highly inflammatory addresses to the people of Georgia, exhorting them to rise up in their might and crush out the invaders,” read one bemused Hoosier. Other soldiers “entered into interesting conversation with the inhabitants of the village and those who fled from the cities and towns to this far inland resort, hoping to escape the dread coming of Sherman’s army.”

Among these unfortunates was a newlywed couple and friends whose celebrations had been cut short. The group (four altogether), arriving from Macon on November 17, had been detained overnight. Given permission today to return to Macon, the wedding party had not gone far before an artillery officer stopped their carriage to swap horses—their sleek pair for his dilapidated set. The exchange completed, the bridegroom tried without success to urge his new team on, his futile efforts drawing forth a chorus of jibes and jeers from passing infantry. “But the tears of the gentle women melted the hearts of the soldiers,” wrote one of them, “who lent a helping hand and the party was soon beyond the lines, and on the road to home and friends.”

General Howard’s intention was to cross all of the Seventeenth Corps, followed by the remaining divisions of the Fifteenth Corps and Kilpatrick’s cavalry. His original design had the cavalry going over first, but thanks to the diversionary movement against Forsyth, the Yankee horsemen did not reach the Planter’s Factory area until well after sundown. In their stead, a small mounted party led by Captain James M. McClintock of the signal corps crossed the river to scout all the way to the village of Monticello. “Drove in the enemy’s pickets at M[onticello],” McClintock wrote in his diary. “Exchanged a few shots and returned. Arrived in camp at 8
P.M
.”

Back along the river, as the various units were formed up and marched to the Planter’s Factory bridges, they encountered an unexpected wrinkle. Before reaching the pontoons, the columns passed through checkpoints manned by provost guards and quartermasters, who confiscated all unauthorized animals. Too many units needing fresh mounts weren’t getting them, while too many foot soldiers were riding. Even the gunners with artillery batteries were not exempt, and “in this way many of our cannoneers lost the nags they had picked up,” groused one of them.

Additionally, large piles of foraged goods accumulated at the checkpoints, since most of the soldiers had used the horses and mules as pack animals, leaving them with loads that were more than they cared to carry. “This looked hard to some of them who had a dozen hams and a lot of chickens, or a sack of sweet potatoes, and all sorts of good things to eat,” commented an observer. Slowly, the herd of broken-down animals left in the exchange began to grow.

The Ocmulgee crossing was becoming the major impediment that General Howard had feared. The lag in bringing up the pontoon train had delayed the schedule until the afternoon, and the process of weeding out all the unauthorized animals had further slowed the pace. Then it began to rain; sprinkles at first, but soon turning into a more steady downfall. “At the eastern end of the bridge the bank rose quite abruptly, making a steep hill,” remembered a member of Howard’s staff. “The falling rain softened the clay ground and made the crossing difficult. The wagons and artillery carriages were helped up the hill by over 1,000 men stationed along the road between the river and crest of the hill.” Seconded a weary Howard, “The crossing of the Ocmulgee,
with its steep and muddy banks, was hard enough for the trains.” It was going to be a long night for all concerned.

Left Wing

Brigadier General John W. Geary’s division, leading the Twentieth Corps this day, pushed rapidly along the Georgia Railroad until it reached the station stop called Rutledge. There the advance came to a temporary halt while the work of destruction commenced. A soldier in the 28th Pennsylvania recalled his unit burning “a considerable amount of public property among which was several [railroad] cars.” A member of the 29th Ohio never forgot marching “along the R.R. and in many places we would stop and pile fence rails on the track and set fire to them, in other places we pried up the track and turned the road bottom side up.” “Men feel a little jaded,” groaned an Ohioan. “A night’s rest will restore most of them.”

Behind Geary’s men followed the rest of the corps, some of it wrecking track, some of it foraging. Most of the Yankee boys wondered at the quantities of foodstuffs they found. “Forage abundant,” wrote an amazed Indiana soldier. “Thousands of bushels of sweet potatoes passed by untouched.” The officer commanding the 150th New York was so impressed that he felt he had to itemize today’s gleanings in his official report. “Sent out two companies foraging,” he wrote, “procured 1,530 pounds of fresh pork and 10 sheep, and 6 head of fat cattle—average weight dressed, 300 pounds a head; aggregate, 1,800 pounds—and 42 bushels of sweet potatoes, [plus] about 64 gallons of syrup.”

Several incidents underscored the narrow margin between an adventure and a disaster. One occurred as the column approached Social Circle. Colonel Ezra A. Carmen, commanding the Second Brigade in the First Division, Twentieth Corps, detailed a number of foraging parties, consisting of two companies from each regiment. His instructions were explicit; the detachments were to “proceed along each side of the road, keeping within half a mile of the column, and collect what subsistence they could find for the use of the brigade.” One party consisted of forty-three men from companies D and K of the 107th New York under the command of Captain George W. Reid.
Reid, whose top priority was “whiskey uppermost,” according to a member of the regiment, led his men several miles from the line of march. Even worse, he allowed his command to fall beyond support distance of the rear guard. Reid and his detail did not return to camp that night. It wasn’t until several days later that a few lucky survivors showed up to report that the detail had been ambushed and captured to a man.

In a way, Reid and his little command were lucky. A group of foragers from the Fourteenth Corps shot it out with a squadron of Rebel cavalry. A trooper from the 8th Texas Cavalry noted in his diary that his men scrapped with about nine foragers near Oxford. “After a run of some two miles, we killed three and wounded four,” he boasted. A member of the 105th Ohio was part of a rescue operation that brought in the dead and wounded. He recorded that one of the corpses had eight bullet wounds, and added that the men “were angry & wanted to burn the town [of Oxford] but the rebels did not belong there so [we] would not.”

Some ten miles southwest of Social Circle, most of the Fourteenth Corps passed through Covington. A few regiments made quite a production of it. “On the 18th we marched through the beautiful town of Covington, with our ranks closed up, bands playing and colors flying, as if we were on a holiday parade,” recollected a member of the 75th Indiana. Two military hospitals had operated in the village, so the ranks of the onlookers were spotted with convalescent Rebel veterans. An infantryman in the 31st Ohio recalled seeing “a crippled Confederate soldier…among the few bystanders. One of the boys called to him, ‘Hello, pard; what regiment?’—The fellow gave the number, ‘—Jawjay, sah,’ and gave us the military salute.”

The correspondent for the
New York Herald
was present when one of the Federal bands struck up “Dixie.” “Every window and door swarmed with blooming war widows, stately matrons and shy virgins in homespun and coarse linen,” he reported. Once it had everyone’s attention, the band segued into “Yankee Doodle.” “Oh, what a retreat,” chuckled the newsman, “windows came down with a slam and doors closed very abruptly, until not a fair face was visible.”