Federal Barbarities. Ill 



town was only fortified with field-works, but to storm them 

 would cost too many men, and Sherman thought it more secure 

 to compel the Richmond of the West to surrender by starva- 

 tion. He succeeded, and the Confederate army defending it 

 had to leave the town to its fate. This fate was very hard, 

 for Sherman acted only on mere military principles, which 

 always are directly opposed to humanity. He wanted the 

 place for military purposes, and insisted that all its inhabitants 

 should leave it, going either south or being conveyed to the 

 Northern States, where they could not harm the interest of the 

 army. All petitions were in vain ; everybody, even sick 

 women and children, had to leave ; and taking with them such 

 of their goods as they could transport, they were escorted by 

 Federal officers to the army of General Hood. 



This was indeed a very cruel tate after having endured all 

 the horrors of a long siege. 



Poor Atlanta, it was doomed to utter destruction when 

 Sherman started on his celebrated march to Savannah. After 

 having concentrated around Atlanta about 70,000 men, and 

 given up all connections with Chattanooga, he destroyed all 

 railroads and places between, and burnt Atlanta itself on the 

 14th of November. He would leave behind him a wilderness, 

 in order that no Southern army might be able to follow him. 

 Before the Southern chiefs even became aware of his inten- 

 tions, which had been kept wonderfully secret, he had already 

 a start of nearly three hundred miles — thrive hundred miles, in 

 which scarcely a house and no food either for cattle or man 

 was to be found. 



The instructions given by Sherman to the army were 

 extremely severe, and even barbarous, but they became still 

 more so by the manner in which they were executed by the 

 Federal soldiers. Every bit of iood was taken by them, or, if 

 they had too much to transport, destroyed, and nobody cared 

 whether the poor Southern families were left to starve. 

 Jewellery, plate, and valuables, which were transportable, were 

 appropriated under pretext that they might be sold and furnish 

 means to the rebels. In houses from which the inhabitants 

 had fled before the cruelties of the Federals, which on purpose 

 had been exaggerated by the Southern papers, every piece of 

 furniture was destroyed or the whole concern burnt ; and if 

 some DOor wretches were discovered hid in the woods, even 



