With Fire and Sword

My enlistment in the Union Army--The "Bushwhackers" of Missouri--The Quantrells and the James Brothers--Cutting a man's head off--My first adventure in the war--Capturing a guerrilla.

CHAPTER II 22

We leave Missouri and go South--The prisoners of Donelson--The taking of New Madrid--"Kindly bury this unfortunate officer"--Quaker guns at Shiloh--The killing of the colonel.

CHAPTER III 29

Iuka, the fiercest battle of the war, 217 men out of 482 of my regiment are shot--The awful rebel charge at Corinth--Moonlight on the battlefield--Bushels of arms and legs--Tombstones for fireplaces--One of Grant's mistakes.

CHAPTER IV 40

An unlucky campaign led by General Grant--Holly Springs burned up--The first foragers--Some modern Falstaffs--Counting dead men.

CHAPTER V 49

The laughable campaign of the war--An army floating among the tree tops of the Yazoo Pass.

CHAPTER VI 54

Grant's new plan at Vicksburg--Running the Vicksburg batteries--An hour and a half of horror--The batteries are passed--The most important event in the war.

CHAPTER VII 63

Crossing the Mississippi on gunboats and steamers--Battle of Port Gibson--How General Grant looked to a private soldier--A boy from Mississippi--Fights at Raymond--Battle of Jackson in a thunderstorm--Digging his brothers' grave--Grant in battle--Saving a flag--How men feel in battle--An awful spectacle--The critical moment of General Grant's life--A battlefield letter from him to Sherman.

CHAPTER VIII 87

Assaults on the walls of Vicksburg--Logan in battle--An army mule--A promotion under the guns of Vicksburg--A storm of iron hail at Vicksburg--The Vicksburg clock--The town surrenders--The glad news--Reading my first order to the regiment--My regiment put on guard in the captured city--Eight days' furlough in four years of war.

CHAPTER IX 102

Sherman's army floats across the Tennessee River at midnight--Washington at the Delaware nothing compared to this--We assault Missionary Ridge--An awful battle--My capture.

CHAPTER X 111

In Libby Prison--Life there--"Belle Isle"--All prisons bad--The great escape--"Maryland, My Maryland."

CHAPTER XI 119

Escaping from Macon--An adventure in Atlanta--In the disguise of a Confederate soldier--My wanderings inside the Confederate army and what I experienced there--I am captured as a spy--How I got out of it all.

CHAPTER XII 137

Under fire of our own guns at Charleston--Trying to capture a railway train--The secret band--Betrayed--The desolation of Charleston.

CHAPTER XIII 144

Living in a grave--An adventure in the woods of South Carolina--Life in the asylum yard at the capital of South Carolina--The song of "Sherman's March to the Sea"--How it came to be written--Final escape--The burning up of South Carolina's capitol.

CHAPTER XIV 174

The army in the Carolinas--General Sherman sends for me--Gives me a place on his staff--Experiences at army headquarters--Sherman's life on the march--Music at headquarters--Logan's violin--The General's false friend--The army wades, swims, and fights through the Carolinas--I am sent as despatch bearer to General Grant--A strange ride down the Cape Fear River in the night--General Terry--Learn that my song "The March to the Sea" is sung through the North, and has given the campaign its name--I bring the first news of Sherman's success to the North--An interview with General Grant.