They wanted Atlanta for themselves, you see.
For weeks and months the roads were filled with loaded wagons of old and
decrepit people, who had been hunted and hounded from their homes with a
relentless cruelty worse, yea, much worse, than ever blackened the pages
of barbaric or savage history. I remember assisting in unloading our
wagons that General Hood, poor fellow, had kindly sent in to bring out
the citizens of Atlanta to a little place called Rough-and-Ready about
half way between Palmetto and Atlanta. Every day I would look on at the
suffering of delicate ladies, old men, and mothers with little children
clinging to them, crying, "O, mamma, mamma," and old women, and tottering
old men, whose gray hairs should have protected them from the savage acts
of Yankee hate and Puritan barbarity; and I wondered how on earth our
generals, including those who had resigned--that is where the shoe
pinches--could quietly look on at this dark, black, and damning insult
to our people, and not use at least one effort to rescue them from such
terrible and unmitigated cruelty, barbarity, and outrage. General
Hood remonstrated with Sherman against the insult, stating that it
"transcended in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before
brought to my attention in the dark history of war.
Pages:
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318