“A number of prisoners, which may be counted in addition to those found in the city, were previously captured during our advance against the enemy’s works. Colonel Clinch, of General Hardee’s staff, with thirty men, was taken on board a transport in the Savannah River a few days before the surrender. A quantity of whiskey was aboard the transport, and when our officers reached it, every man on board, except Colonel Clinch, was found in a state of beastly intoxication. General Harrison, a militia general, and a man of considerable wealth, residing near the city, was also taken prisoner during the siege.” While the sun of December 21st was moving toward the zenith, General Sherman rode at the head of his enthusiastic columns, with music and banners enlivening the magnificent scene, into the broad, quiet streets of Savannah, followed by his wing-commanders, the gallant Howard and Slocum. Hour after hour the tramp of Union soldiers echoes on the pavements, until at length, in mansions, public buildings, and tents, the exultant host settled down into comparative repose. The next day the wires of the telegraph transmitted to the President this laconic message: “SAVANNAH, GA., _December 22, 1864_. “_His Excellency President Lincoln_; “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton. “W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.” In all the world’s history of the Christmas times, was there ever a gift so memorable, or one more worthy to receive it? You will always recollect it with the delight expressed by a playful pen: “The sugar plum which Sherman dropped into the national stocking that Abraham Lincoln hung up, came in the semblance of Savannah. We have all enjoyed it. We have admired its roundness and its sweetness. We rejoice over the one hundred and fifty heavy guns, and the thirty-three thousand bales of cotton. The capture of Savannah is an event which we have long anticipated, and are therefore only quietly enjoying it. Reaching us, as the intelligence did, on a day that was meteorologically gloomy, it shed an interior sunlight brighter than a more substantial one.” The quartermaster, in General Sherman’s behalf, a little later announced, that “all persons wishing to leave the city under existing orders, and go within the Confederate lines, are informed that the steamer _F. R. Spalding_ will be in readiness at the wharf at the foot of Drayton Street, at six o’clock A. M. on Wednesday, the 11th instant, to transport them to Charleston, S. C. Wagons and ambulances will be sent to the residences of families, to take them and their baggage to the boat. As there are no conveniences on the boat to provide food, each family had better provide itself with what it will require for twenty-four hours.