Sherman Destroys Millen Junction

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[JANUARY 7, 1865.

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(Previous Page) At Marietta, November 13, General SHERMAN reviewed KILPATRICK'S cavalry division, which had been organized to accompany the grand expedition. Our artist sends us a spirited sketch of the scene, taken at the moment when General KILPATRICK'S, riding at the head of the whole column, came up to where General SHERMAN with his staff was waiting for the troops to pass in review. Saluting the latter, General KILPATRICK then took position on his right and the long column rode slowly by, each squadron in its order. To the right lay Marietta and as though by way of significant comment upon the deadly earnestness of the scene, otherwise so brilliant and imposing, clouds of smoke were rising from the business part of the city, most of which was destroyed by fire. SHERMAN, superbly mounted, was the life of the spectacle. The fine soldierly appearance and spirited movements of the division met his admiring approval, and fully answered the question put by him to KILPATRICK, " Whether he (General KILPATRICK) had a division of cavalry ?"

Leaving columns of smoke behind them, and destroying the railroad from Kingston, the advancing columns moved on to Atlanta. Here, also, every thing valuable to the enemy was committed to the fames. On the evening of November 15 only a brigade of Massachusetts soldiers were left in the town, and while the air hurtled with flame from burning buildings which covered an area of two hundred acres, the band of the Thirty-third Massachusetts played " John Brown's soul is marching on." Already the army was well on its way east ward across the State, moving two grand columns HOWARD with the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps on the right, and SLOCUM with the Fourteenth and Twentieth on the left. The expedition consisted of not less than fifty thousand veteran soldiers. If the spectacle of the march was hidden from our eyes, it was equally veiled from rebel vision. KILPATRICK'S cavalry hung like a mass of cloud about SHERMAN'S movements, so mistifying the rebel authorities by their movements this way and that way that they never could discern the locality of SHERMAN'S main columns. Now Macon was threatened, and while COBB'S militia was concentrating at that place and BEAUREGARD was hastening to the same, leaving poor HOOD behind, HOWARD had already passed the point of danger, and COBB at Griswoldville on the 22d caught a passing glimpse of his rear guard only, which his raw men dashed against to their satisfaction, losing more than two thousand men. Before the 20th both columns had passed the Ocmulgee without opposition. SLOCUM kept the rail road after crossing as far as to Madison, which was occupied on the 19th. This town is said to be the most picturesque in Georgia. Here the railroad buildings and store houses were destroyed, and the column, then leaving the railroad, moved south to Milledgeville.

Just north of the city Little River was crossed. Here the mill was in operation, and our soldiers used it to grind the corn which they had foraged. The Legislature had been in session at the capitol ; but on the approach of SHERMAN'S left wing, the existence of which appears previously not to have been suspected, that body was seized with a panic which quickly spread among the citizens, followed by a scene of the utmost confusion. The cars were heaped with frightened citizens, and a thousand dollars was a cheap price for a buggy. The Georgians made considerable fun of their much abused Governor BROWN, who seemed to be cooler than the rest of them and took good care to ship his cabbages. Upon entering the town one fine morning the colors of the One Hundred and Seventh New York were raised over the capitol, and General SHERMAN took up his head quarters in Governor BROWN'S mansion, from which the furniture had all been removed. The next day, the 23d, the right wing under HOWARD had reached Gordon, just south from Milledgeville. It was near this point that the battle of Griswoldville, above alluded to, was fought. This was the most serious fight on the march. Only a brigade of infantry and a detachment of cavalry were engaged on the Federal side. General WOLCOT was in command. About five thousand militia, with which were mingled some of HARDEE'S old corps from Savannah, attacked our breast works, and were repulsed with a loss on their part of 2500 men, 300 of whom were left dead on the field.

Then the Oconee was crossed by SLOCUM'S column, when it was found that WHEELER had also crossed and was covering the approaches to Sandersville, to which point he was steadily driven by the advancing column. HOWARD, in the mean while, was attempting to cross the Oconee lower down at the Central Railroad bridge with a rebel cavalry force under WAYNE in his front. This force was of miscellaneous composition, being made up of WHEELER'S cavalry, Georgia militia, and a band of convicts in their prison garb whom Governor BROWN had released on condition that they would help defend the Confederacy. However, in spite of this formidable array, HOWARD crossed with little difficulty.

The army had set out with sixteen days' rations, but it was found that the country furnished supplies in abundance. The cattle trains were so large that it was difficult to manage them, and a great plenty of turkeys placed SHERMAN'S army on a par with GRANT'S as regarded a Thanksgiving dinner. "Hard tack" became a by gone institution. After crossing the Oconee also there was no more apprehension of bad roads, as the sandy soil rapidly absorbs the most abundant falls of rain, rather benefiting the roans than injuring them. The people were found to be very ignorant, even the richest of them. A large number of the able bodied negroes joined the march.

Thus the two columns marched on by roads parallel to the Georgia Central Railroad toward the Ogechee River. KILPATRICK moved on the left flank, still beclouding the rebels by feints on Augusta November 30 the whole army, with the exception of the Fifteenth Corps, had crossed the Ogechee without fighting a battle. KILPATRICK had already advanced to Millen, but had failed to find any of our prisoners there. Our prisoners had

been kept for some time at Millen, four miles distant from Millen Junction. The Junction was completely destroyed by General SHERMAN; no vestige of the place remains. The prison pen at Millen was built of large logs driven into the ground, with sentry posts on the top at short intervals. No shelter whatever was afforded to the prisoners, who burrowed in the earth. The pen was commanded by a fort, which appears in the sketch on the right. The. square buildings shown in the sketch are ovens. Just inside the palisades a light rail fence ran, which was called the dead line. When GEORGE N. BARNARD, whose sketches of the prison pen are here reproduced, was at that place he saw our dead soldiers lying unburied, as shown in the illustration. The grave yard near by showed that over 700 of our men had been buried, the only record being small boards numbering every fifty, thus-50, 100, 150, 200, etc.

Mr. Davis sends us a sketch of a Mill situated on one of the roads by which SHERMAN'S army marched through the heart of Georgia. Limestone Creek, on which the mill stood, is a small stream, running at this point through dense woods of cypress, and which above the mill dam spreads into a " cypress swamp," full of the singular stumps rounded and smooth at the top, and projecting two or three feet above the water known as "cypress-knees." Here was met the first live oak tree, from beneath whose spreading branches, partly shown in the fore ground, upon a sort of bluff overlooking the mill and road, the sketch was made. General SHERMAN and Staff halted at this mill for a short time while the column was passing the General seating himself, as shown in the sketch, on the door step of one of the cabins standing near.

On the march over 200 miles of railroad had been completely destroyed. The army, having been concentrated by December 6 near Millen, began to move on Savannah, flanked on the right by the Ogechee, and on the left by the Savannah River. On the 13th Fort M'Allister was captured, and communication opened with DAHLGREN'S fleet ; and one week afterward Savannah was occupied. The grand march had been then consummated; its grand object the establishment of a new base on the seacoast having been accomplished. This success was gained at a loss of about 1500 men, out without the sacrifice of a single wagon or a single gun.

BLESSINGS OF THE SNOW.

DOWN comes the snow, the fleecy snow,

Soft floating through the air,

And decks in friendly robes of white

The chill earth brown and bare. It spreads o'er all the empty fields, Each naked stalk it kindly shields;

And the beautiful snow, the heaven-born snow, Covers the shivering earth below.

Down floats the snow, the pure white snow, On angel wings of light,

And folds them over Autumn's gloom,

And hides her path from sight.

The dry leaves nestle in its fold

Not one is left out in the cold;

And the beautiful snow, the heaven-born snow, Rests with the saddened earth below.

Down falls the snow, the pretty snow, Like flowers in heaven grown; Pale garlands for the old Year's brow, By angel fingers thrown.

It decks the forest trees forlorn, Of all their summer beauty shorn ;

And the beautiful snow, the heaven-born snow, Blooms on the stricken earth below.

Down comes the snow, the love-like snow, Like answer to our prayers,

God sure will send, if we but wait

And cast on him our cares.

For righteousness and peace shall meet, And o'er our mourning land shall greet,

As the beautiful snow, the heaven-born snow, Kisses the unclean earth below.

THE EXPERIENCE OF A POOR
RELATION.

THE evening was raw and there was snow on the streets, genuine London snow, half thawed, and trodden, and defiled with mud. I remembered it well, that snow, though it was fifteen years since I had last seen its cheerless face. There it lay, in the same old ruts, and spreading the same old snares on the side-paths. Only a few hours arrived from South America via Southampton, I sat in my room at Morley's Hotel, Charing Cross, and looked gloomily out at the fountains, walked up and down the floor discontentedly, and fiercely tried my best to feel glad that I was a wanderer no more, and that I had indeed got home at last.

I poked up my fire, and took a long look back-ward upon my past life, through the embers. I remembered how my childhood had been embittered by dependence, how my rich arid respect-able uncle, whose ruling passion was vain-glory, had looked on my existence as a nuisance, not so much because he was obliged to open his purse to pay for my clothing and education, as because that, when a man, he thought I could reflect no credit upon his name. I remembered how in those days I had a soul for the beautiful, and a certain almost womanish tenderness of heart, which by dint of much sneering had been successfully extracted from me. I remembered my uncle's unconcealed relief at my determination to go abroad and seek my fortune, the cold good-by of my only cousin, the lonely bitter farewell to England hardly sweetened by the impatient hopes that consumed rather than cheered me the hopes of name and gold, won by my own exertions, with which I should yet wring from those who despised me the worthless respect which they denied me now.

Sitting there at the fire, I rang the bell, and the waiter came to me : an old man whose face I remembered. I asked him some questions. Yes, he knew Mr. George Rutland ; recollected that many years ago he used to stay at Morley's when he came to London. The old gentleman had always staid there. But Mr. George was too grand for Morley's now. The family al-ways came to town in the spring, but, at this season, "Rutland Hall, Kent," would be pretty sure to be their address.

Having obtained all the information I desired, I began forthwith to write a letter :

"DEAR GEORGE,--1 dare say you will be as much surprised to see my handwriting as you would to behold an apparition from the dead. However, you know I was always a ne'er-do-well, and I have not had the grace to die yet. I am ashamed not to be able to announce myself as having returned home with my fortune made; but mishaps will follow the most hard-working and well-meaning. I am still a young man, even though fifteen of the best years of my life may have been lost, and I am willing to devote myself to any worthy occupation. Meantime, I am anxious to see you and yours. A long absence from home and kindred makes one value the grasp of a friendly hand. I shall not wait for your reply to this, but go down to Kent the day after to-morrow, arriving, I believe, about dinner-time. You see I em making myself assured of your welcome for a few weeks, till I have time to look about me.

" I remain, dear George,

" Your old friend and cousin,

"GUY RUTLAND."

I folded this missive and placed it in its envelope. " I shall find out, once for all, what they are made of," I said, complacently, as I wrote the address, " George Rutland, Esq., Rutland. Hall, Kent."

It was about seven on a frosty evening when I arrived at the imposing entrance of Rutland Hall. No Cousin George came rushing out to meet me. " Of course not," I thought ; " I am unused to their formal manners in this country. 'He is lying in wait for me on the mat inside." I was admitted by a solemn person as quietly and mechanically as though my restoration to home and kindred were a thing that had happened regularly in his presence every day since his birth. He ushered me into a grand hall, but no mat supported the impatient feet of the dignified master of the house. " Ah!" said I, "even this, perhaps, were scarcely etiquette. No doubt he stands chafing on the drawing-room hearth-rug, and I have little enough time to make myself presentable before dinner." So, resigning myself to circumstances, I meekly followed a guide who volunteered to conduct me to the chamber assigned to my especial use. I had to travel a considerable distance before I reached it. "Dear me!" I remarked to myself when I did reach it, " I had expected to find the rooms in such a house more elegantly appointed than this!"

I made my toilet, and again submitting my-self to my guide, was convoyed to the drawing-room door. All the way down stairs I had been conning pleasant speeches with which to greet my kinsfolk. I am not a brilliant person, but I sometimes succeed in pleasing when I try, and on this occasion I had the desire to do my best.

The drawing-room door was at the distant end of the hall, and my arrival had been so very quiet, that I conceived my expectant entertainers could hardly be aware of my presence in the house. I thought I should give them a surprise. The door opened and closed upon me, leaving me within the room. I looked around me, and saw darkness there, and nothing more.

Ah, yes, but there was something more! There was a blazing fire which sent eddying swirls of light through the shadows, and right in the blush of its warmth a little figure was lounging in an easy-chair. The little figure was a girl of apparently about fifteen or sixteen years of age, dressed in a short shabby black frock, who was evidently spoiling her eyes by reading by the firelight. She lay with her head thrown back, a mass of fair curly hair being thus tossed over the velvet cushion on which it rested, while she held her book aloft to catch the light. She was luxuriating in her solitude, and little dreaming of interruption.

She was so absorbed in her book, the door had opened and closed so noiselessly, and the room was so large, that I was obliged to make a sound to engage her attention, She started violently then, and Iooked up with a nervous fearfulness in her face. She dropped her book, sat upright, and put out her hand, eagerly grasping a thing I had not noticed before, and which leaned against the chair --- a crutch. She then got up leaning on it and stood before me. The poor little thing was lame, and had two crutches by her.

I introduced myself, and her fear seemed to subside. She asked me to sit down, with a prim little assumption of at-home-ness, which did not sit upon her with ease. She picked up her book and laid it on her lap ; she produced a net from the recesses of her chair, and with a blush gathered up the curls and tucked them into its mesh-es. Then she sat quiet, but kept her hand upon her crutches, as if she was ready at a moment's notice to limp away across the carpet, and leave me to my own resources.

"Thomson thought there was nobody in the room," she said, as if anxious to account for her own presence there "I always stay in the nursery, except sometimes when they all go out and I get this room to myself. Then I like to read here."

"Mr. Rutland is not at home?" I said. "No, they are all out dining."

"Indeed! Your papa, perhaps, did not get my letter?''

She blushed crimson.

"I am not a Miss Rutland," she said. " My name is Teecie Ray. I am an orphan. My father was a friend of Mr. Rutland, and he takes care of me for charity."

The last word was pronounced with a certain controlled quiver of the lip. But she went on. "I don't know about the letter, but I heard a gentleman was expected. I did not think it could be to-night, though, as they all went out."

"A reasonable conclusion to come to," I thought, and thereupon began musing on the eagerness of welcome displayed by my affection-ate Cousin George. If I were the gentleman expected, they must have received my letter, and in it were fully set forth the day and hour of my proposed arrival. " Ah ! George, my dear fellow," I said, "you are not a whit changed !"

Arriving at this conclusion, I raised my glance, and met, full, the observant gaze of a pair of large shrewd gray eyes. My little hostess for the time being was regarding me with such a curiously Iegible expression on her face, that I could not but read it and be amused. It said plainly: "I know more about you than you think, and I pity you. You come here with expectations which will not be fulfilled. There is much mortification in store for you. I wonder you came here at all. If I were once well out-side these gates I should never limp inside them again. If I knew a road out into the world you come from, I would set out bravely on my crutch-es. No, not even for the sake of a stolen hour like this, in a velvet chair, would I remain here."

How any one glance could say all this was a riddle ; but it did say all this. The language of the face was as simple to me as though every word had been translated into my ear. Perhaps a certain internal light, kindled long ago, before this little orphan was horn, or George Rutland had become owner of Rutland Hall, assisted me in deciphering so much information so readily. However that may be, certain things before surmised became assured facts in my mind, and a quaint bond of sympathy became at once established between me and my companion.

"Miss Ray," I said, "what do you think of a man who, having been abroad for fifteen years, has the impudence to come home without a shilling in his pocket ? Ought he not to be stoned alive ?"

"I thought how it was," said she, shaking her head, and looking up with another of her shrewd glances. '"I knew it, when they put you into such a had bedroom. They are keeping all the good rooms for the people who are coming next week. The house will be full for Christmas. It won't do," she added, meditatively.

"What won't do?" I said.

"Your not having a shilling in your pocket. They'll sneer at you for it, and the servants will find it out. I have a guinea that old Lady Thornton gave me on my birthday, and if you would take the loan of it I should be very glad. I don't want it at all, and you could pay me back when you are better off."

She said this with such business-like gravity, that I felt obliged to control my inclination to laugh. She had evidently taken me under her protection. Her keen little wits foresaw snares and difficulties besetting my steps during my stay at Rutland Hall, to which my newer eyes, she imagined, must be ignorantly blind. I looked at her with amusement, as she sat there seriously considering my financial interests. I had a fancy to humor this quaint confidential relation that had sprung up so spontaneously between us. I said, gravely :

"I am very much obliged to you for your offer, and will gladly take advantage of it. Do you happen to have the guinea at hand ?"

She seized her crutches, and limped quickly out of the room. Presently she returned with a little bonbon box, which she placed in my hand. Opening it, I found one guinea, wrapped up carefully in silver paper.

" I wish it had been more!" she said, wistfully, as I coolly transferred it to my pocket, box and all. " But I so seldom get money !"

At this moment the solemn person who had escorted me hither and thither before announced that my dinner was served.

On my return to the drawing-room, I found, to my intense disappointment, that my beneficent bird had flown. Teecie Ray had limped off to the nursery.

Next morning, at breakfast, I was introduced to the family. I found them, on the whole, pretty much what I had expected. My Cousin George had developed into a pompous portly paterfamilias; and, in spite of his cool professions of pleasure, was evidently very sorry to see me. The Mamma Rutland just countenanced me, in a manner the most frigidly polite. The grown-up young ladies treated me with the most well-bred negligence. Unless I had been very obtuse indeed, I could scarcely have failed to perceive the place appointed for me in Rutland Hall. I was expected to sit be-low the salt. I was that dreadful thing it person of no importance. George amused himself with me for a few days, displaying to me his various fine possessions, and then, on the arrive] of grander guests, left me to my own resources. The Misses Rutland endured my escort on their riding expeditions only till more eligible cavaliers appeared. As for the lady of the house, her annoyance at having me quartered indefinitely on her premises, was hardly concealed. The truth was, they were new people in the circle in which they moved, and it did not suit them to have a poor relation coming suddenly among them, calling them "cousin," and making him-self at home in the house. For me, I was not blind, though none of these things did it suit me to see. I made myself as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances, took every sneer and snub in excellent part, and was as