The bridges over the Oconee and Fisher’s Creek were burned behind the army. The rebels were compelled to speak well, on the whole, of General Sherman’s command. I shall add their testimony, given at the time: “In their route they destroyed, as far as possible, all mills, cribs, and gin-houses, cotton screws and gins, cotton implements, etc., and carried off all stock, provisions, and negroes. When their horses gave out they shot them. At Eatonton they killed over one hundred. At Milledgeville they only destroyed the arsenal, depot, and penitentiary. They did not burn the factory near that place. The right wing of the Federal army, under General Howard, crossed the Ocmulgee River between Adams’s Ferry and Macon. It is said that the town of Forsyth was completely demolished. The Federals expressed great astonishment at the rich country they were passing, and the abundance of provisions in it. General Slocum gave orders to the citizens along his route to shoot down his stragglers without mercy. One punishment inflicted by some of the Federal generals for plundering, was severe whipping. A portion of Major Graham’s command reached this city last night. They report that they visited Atlanta several days since, and found it completely evacuated and burned. They state that the Federals took all the cattle and forage in their route, but did not molest those who stayed at home.” “The most pathetic scenes occur upon our line of march daily and hourly. Thousands of negro women join the column, some carrying household truck; others, and many of them there are, who bear the burden of children in their arms, while older boys and girls plod by their sides. All these women and children are ordered back, heartrending though it may be to refuse them liberty. They won’t go. One begs that she may go to see her husband and children at Savannah. Long years ago she was forced from them and sold. Another has heard that her boy was in Macon, and she is ‘done gone with grief goin’ on four years.’ “The other day a woman with a child in her arms was working her way along amongst the teams and crowds of cattle and horsemen. An officer called to her kindly: ‘Where are you going, aunty?’ “She looked up into his face with a hopeful, beseeching look, and replied: “‘I’se gwine whar you’se gwine, massa.’ “At a house a few miles from Milledgeville we halted for an hour. In an old hut I found a negro and his wife, both of them over sixty years old. In the talk which ensued nothing was said which led me to suppose that either of them was anxious to leave their mistress, who, by the way, was a sullen, cruel-looking woman, when all at once the old negress straightened herself up, and her face, which a moment before was almost stupid in its expression, assumed a fierce, almost devilish, aspect.