Life and Military Career of Major-General William Tecumseh ShermanHeadley, P. C. (Phineas Camp)
History
Life and Military Career of Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman
Headley, P. C. (Phineas Camp)
Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891
“Owing to the great lack of railroad transportation, General Corse was
obliged to destroy nearly a million of dollars’ worth of property, among
which was a few thousand dollars’ worth of condemned and unserviceable
government stores. Nine rebel guns, captured at Rome by our troops, were
burst, it being deemed unsafe to use them. One thousand bales of fine
cotton, two flour mills, two rolling mills, two tanneries, one salt
mill, an extensive foundry, several machine shops, together with the
railroad depots and storehouses, four pontoon bridges, built by General
Corse’s pioneer corps for use on the Coosa and Etowah rivers, and a
substantial trestle bridge, nearly completed for use, were destroyed.
This trestle, constructed by the Engineer corps, I am told, would have
cost fifty thousand dollars North. Recollecting the outrages perpetrated
upon Colonel Streight by the ‘Romans,’ our troops, as soon as they
learned that the town was to be abandoned and a portion of it burned,
resolved to lay Rome in ashes in revenge. The roaring of the flames, as
they leaped from window to window, their savage tongues of fire darting
high up into the heavens, and then licking the sides of the buildings,
presented an awful but grand spectacle, while the mounted patrol and the
infantrymen glided along through the brilliant light like the ghostly
spectres of horrid war.”
Concentrating at Atlanta, the last use made of the stronghold and
cherished hope of the Confederacy was the finishing work of getting a
vast army in motion—a grand start into hostile country, away from the
base of supplies.
After the men had bivouacked for the night, the following orders, issued
by General Sherman, were read to the troops, and were greeted with many
manifestations of approbation by the veterans, who, in so many bloody
battles, have followed the lead of Sherman:
“HEADQUARTERS, MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, }
IN THE FIELD, KINGSTON, GA., _Nov. 8, 1864_. }
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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