Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1886-04-19

patrick In command OF the cavalry.
These four corps were grouped into the
right and left wings pf the army. The
right wing was composed of the fifteenth
and seventeenth army corps and was
under command OF Maj. Gen. o. O. How.
ard. The left wing was composed of the
fourteenth and twentieth army corps
and was under command of Major
General IL. W. Siocum. The ag-
gregato numerical strength of Sher-
mans command was e2,2o4 officers and
men, of which 5000 was cavalry, 800
artillery and the balance infantry. The
two wings OF the army kept their desig-
mated positions throughout the march.
The cavalry travelled wherever it's pres
ence was most needed-in the front, rsar
or on one or both hanks, though it usual
ly occupied the advance. The general
plan of the march was in columns of
corps, making four columns on parallel
roads, from five to twenty miles apart.
On the 10TH day of November, 1864,
Sherman's army moved out of Atlanta
and began its march to the sea. Aswe
left the battered and blackened walls of
the city our army had conquered by the
tolls OF four months of sangulnary cam
palgning through the valleys and over
the mountains of Georgia, the smoke of
consuming fires was waited skyward and
the crash of succeeding explosions told
the story of grim wars necessity-the
destruction of q city abandoned by it's
captors to those from whom it had been
wrested at the bayonet's point amid the
screams of plunging shot and kissing
showers of leaden balls. Sherman's
army never again saw Atlanta. We
walked away from it under onr victeri-
ous banners and sought fresh fields of
strife and victories new, and the
bands played gaily and the flags
waved proudly as the veteran host
stretched its sinuous length along the
roads leading southwark and eastward,
deeper into the domain of treason.
The fifteenth army corps was the COM
mand to which belonged and my par
tlcular place was IN the ranks OF an ar
tillery company. My recital Of the
events of the march necessarily pertain
more to the movements of this army
corps than to the army as a whole,
though the experiences of the campaign
were very much alike throughout ths
entire command.
The march to the sea has gone into
history. and romance, as hazardous and
difficult military achievement, fraught
with perils and privatlons and confront
ed by dangers innumerabie. This is
the impression I first seek to dissipate.
Sherman's march to the sea was in re.
sllty the most delightful experience of
the war to its federal participants. 1t
was an excursion on grand scale, a
happy holiday jaunt, made in the care
less, free and go easy mood of men who
have no anxieties upon their minds and
no heed of the morrow. Though it was
IL the winter season, after the first few
days Of rain and mud, the weather set
tied down into delightful balminess and
under the sunlight and under the star.
light we threaded the mazes of the con.
federacy and gathered to our own nses
the rich autumnal fruits of generous
land. Our days marches were easy, the
larder was stocked with delicacies net
known upon the stereotyped army bill
fare, wood and water were abundant and
there was little fighting to do. The
army had become Injured through the
experiences Of the summer and of its pre-.
cediDg campaigns to all that war can
produce in the way Of dangers, tolls and
priraticns, and this happy change was to
us almost like the peace OF home life
with enough OF adventure thrown in to
dlspel monotony.
The plan of invasion was one of bold
conception. It's execution was series
of admirable successes. While immedi.
ate starvation was our predicted fate, we
fattened on the choicest iuxuries of the
land as we sauntered over our prescribed
course, and all the way from Atlanta tc
Savannah the stomach was full and the
heart was light.
Out of Atlanta the right wing Of the
army took for its general course the rail.
road leading from Atlanta to Macon, Mill
edgeville and Savannah and the left
wing the railroad leading to Savannah
via. Augusta and Mlllen junction. From
the directions in which the several col
nuns were headed, if appeared to thu
enemy that our objective point might
be Macon, or Milledgeville, or Augusta
or Savannah, or Charleston, or almos
any other place south or east of Atlanta
1 It did not then occur to the rebels tina
our mission was purely one OF destruc
tion and that the place OF final lodge
ment was not definitely settled in th
original programme. Yet it has sine
been divnlged by Sherman himself tina
he did not know exactly where he wa
going when he started. His design Wa
to first destroy the effectiveness of til
important railroad systems of Geu:gis
! over which supplies were transporte
to the armies of the coEfederacy. Thi
being the chief task of the army, th
work of destruction began when we LET
Atlanta and as we moved forward th
j, two lines OF railroad were stripped 9