Not far from this spot the troops encountered a singular character. He had been depot-master before the railroad was destroyed—a shrewd, intelligent old man, so far as the war is concerned. He said to the soldiers: “They say you are retreating, but it is the strangest sort of retreat I ever saw. Why, the newspapers have been lying in this way all along. They allers are whipping the Federal armies, and they allers fall back after the battle is over. It was that ar’ idee that first opened my eyes. Our army was allers whipping the Feds, and we allers fell back. I allers told ’em it was a humbug, and now by —— I know it, for here you are right on old John Wells’s place; hogs, potatoes, corn, and fences all gone. I don’t find any fault. I expected it all. “‘Jeff. Davis and the rest,’ he continued, ‘talk about splitting the Union. Why if South Carolina had gone out by herself, she would have been split in four pieces by this time. Splitting the Union! Why, the State of Georgia is being split right through from end to end. It is these rich fellows who are making the war, and keeping their precious bodies out of harm’s way. There’s John Franklin went through here the other day running away from your army. I could have played dominoes on his coat tails. There’s my poor brother, sick with small-pox at Macon, working for eleven dollars a month, and hasn’t got a cent of the stuff for a year. Eleven dollars a month and eleven thousand bullets a minute. I don’t believe in it, sir. “‘My wife came from Canada, and I kind o’ thought I would some time go there to live, but was allers afraid of the ice and cold; but I can tell you this country is getting too hot for me. Look at my fence-rails burning there. I think I can stand the cold better. “‘I heard as how they cut down the trees across your road up country and burn the bridges; why, one of your Yankees can take up a tree and carry it off, tops and all; and there’s that bridge you put across the river in less than two hours—they might as well try to stop the Ogeechee as you Yankees. “‘The rascals who burnt this yere bridge thought they did a big thing; a natural born fool would have more sense than any of them. “‘To bring back the good old time,’ he said, ‘it’ll take the help of Divine Providence, a heap of rain, and a deal of hard work, to fix things up again.’”