"But the majority accept the advent of the Yankees as the fulfillment of the millennial prophecies. The 'day of jubilee,' the hope and prayer of a lifetime, has come. They cannot be made to understand that they must remain behind, and they are satisfied only when General Sherman sometimes tells them that we shall come back for them some time, and that they must be patient until the proper hour of deliverance comes (this because they so swarmed).
"The other day a woman with a child in her arms was working her way along amongst the teams and crowds of cattle and horsemen. An officer called to her kindly: 'Where are you going, aunty?'
"She looked up into his face with a hopeful, beseeching look, and replied:
"At a house a few miles from Milledgeville we halted for an hour. In an old hut I found a negro and his wife, both of them over sixty years old. In the talk which ensued nothing was said which led me to suppose that either of them was anxious to leave their mistress, who, by the way, was a sullen, cruel-looking woman, when all at once the old negress straightened herself up, and her face, which a moment before was almost stupid in its expression, assumed a fierce, almost devilish aspect.
"Pointing her shining black finger at the old man crouched in the corner of the fireplace, she hissed out:
"'What for you sit dar; you 'spose I wait sixty years for nutten? Don't yer see de door open. I'se follow my child; I not stay. Yes, nodder day I goes 'long wid dese people; yes, sar, I walks till I drop in my tracks.' A more terrible sight I never beheld. I can think of nothing to compare with it, except Charlotte Cushman's 'Meg Merrilies.' Rembrandt only could have painted the scene, with its dramatic surroundings.
"It was near this place that several factories were burned. It was odd enough to see the delight of the negroes at the destruction of places known only to them as task-houses."
Sherman did cross the Ogeechee River without having to fight. The 20th Corps moved down the railroad, destroying it to the bridge. The 17th Corps covered the river at this point, where a light bridge was only partially destroyed. It was easily repaired, so that the infantry and cavalry could pass over it, while the wagons and artillery used the pontoons. The Ogeechee is about sixty yards in width at this point. It is approached on the northern or western side through swamps, which would be impassable were it not for the sandy soil, which packs solid when the water covers the roads, although in places there are treacherous quicksands which the army had to span with corduroy roads.