“But the majority accept the advent of the Yankees as the fulfilment of the millennial prophecies. The ‘day of jubilee,’ the hope and prayer of a lifetime, has come. They cannot be made to understand that they must remain behind, and they are satisfied only when General Sherman tells them, as he does every day, that we shall come back for them some time, and that they must be patient until the proper hour of deliverance comes.” The enemy finding our army had deceived them and was gone, General Cobb sent a force from Macon to attack the rear-guard at Griswoldsville, a part of which had been employed to threaten Macon, where a sharp skirmish resulted in a loss to them of several hundred killed and wounded; the severest battle of all the march. General Slocum’s left wing had pressed on through De Kalb County to Covington, burning railroad buildings on the way. Near this town, while foraging in the fine fertile country, a force from one of the brigades of the Twentieth Corps was assailed by a party of “bushwhackers,” and one of our soldiers killed. Then followed the execution of General Sherman’s threat of devastation, involving in it the burning of the Methodist College at Oxford. The large libraries, the cabinets and apparatus, all were swept away by the fires of war, the charred ruins of an institution which cost nearly a million of dollars, only remaining in the wake of relentless Mars. General Slocum pushed forward his troops, living on the “fat of the land,” destroying railways, and flinging on his path the flames of burning warehouses, markets, and bridges. The same day that General Howard reached Gordon, General Slocum was at Eatonton, the northern terminus of the branch railroad. The troops came together at Milledgeville, General Howard entering it first with his troops; because the far-seeing commander-in-chief found that the best point for crossing the Oconee was there. The legislature, which was in session on the 18th, hearing of the advance of General Sherman’s resistless columns, prepared to flee before them. Governor Brown departed in his private carriage for Macon, taking with him the public papers, funds, and whatever of personal effects he could convey. Never was such a stampede of the law-making chivalry of Georgia dreamed of by them. Members of this terrified body hurried away to Augusta, and others followed the Governor to Macon; some in carriages, some on horses, and others on foot, not having Confederate currency enough to pay for other means of escape. Two of the honorable fugitives paid one thousand dollars to be carried eight miles. Scarcely had Governor Brown reached Macon when he hastened to the City Hall and issued a flaming proclamation—chanticleer crowing after he is driven from the field by his rival in the fight.