. Stories of the civil war . at he had been looking for the angel of the Lordever since he was knee-high, and, though we professedto be fighting for the Union, he supposed that slaverywas the cause, and that our success was his asked him if all the negro slaves comprehended thisfact, and he said they did surely. I then explainedto him that we wanted the slaves to remain where theywere and not to load us down with useless mouths,which would eat up the food needed for our fightingmen ; that our success was their assured freedom; thatwe could receive a few of their young, hearty men asp
. Stories of the civil war . at he had been looking for the angel of the Lordever since he was knee-high, and, though we professedto be fighting for the Union, he supposed that slaverywas the cause, and that our success was his asked him if all the negro slaves comprehended thisfact, and he said they did surely. I then explainedto him that we wanted the slaves to remain where theywere and not to load us down with useless mouths,which would eat up the food needed for our fightingmen ; that our success was their assured freedom; thatwe could receive a few of their young, hearty men aspioneers ; but that, if they followed us in swarms of oldand young, feeble and helpless, it would simply load usdown and cripple us in our great task. I believe thatold man spread this message to the slaves, which wascarried from mouth to mouth, to the very end of ourjourney, and that in part saved us from the great dan-ger we incurred of swelling our numbers so that faminewould have attended our progress. It was at this very. SHERMAN STARTS ON HIS MARCH TO THE SEA I43 plantation that a soldier passed me with a ham on his mus-ket, a jug of sorghum molasses under his arm, and a bigpiece of honey in his hand, from which he was eating, and,catching my eye, he remarked sctto voce and carelessly toa comrade, Forage liberally on the country, quotingfrom my general orders. On this occasion, as on manyothers that fell under my personal observation, I re-proved the man, explained that foraging must be limitedto the regular parties properly detailed, and that allprovisions thus obtained must be delivered to the regu-lar commissaries to be fairly distributed to the men whokept their ranks. 144 STORIES OF THE CIVIL WAR XX \^ SHERMANS MARCH TO THE SEA[By Samitel H. M. Byers.] [This popular song was written while its author was a prisoner at Columbia,S. C. Of its origin he says : There are hundreds of old comrades who remem-ber the afternoon in the prison-pen at Columbia when our glee club sa
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