Chapter 12

Much later when I was finished with my time-shifting expedition and safely back in the nest in the “Big Apple”, I had time to reflect on the things I mistakenly took for granted about life in the 1860s. My biggest misperception was that the road systems were more advanced than they actually were in reality during the American Civil War. The rustic quality of the road system was surprising to me and I could see how the North was situated in a much better location of tactical superiority due simply to the extensive railroad networks. In addition to the rail systems, the North also had the advantage of a viable waterway system that stretched from the New England States right out to the bread basket of the North in Chicago and even to the Mississippi River.

Control of the Great Lakes and of the Mississippi River Basin was insurance against allowing the Confederate forces seizing the initiative in the West and their slow retreat down from Chattanooga to Atlanta and now further south to the Atlantic coastline split their territory in half and robbed them of their much needed logistical support for sustained hostilities. General Lee knew this instinctively but he was in no position to do much about it with the constant pressure on his Eastern forces to keep ahead of the game and stay as a fighting force in the field.

The breakout from Atlanta was welcomed by the men who were bored with the stagnant stalemate in the city and wanted to chase after the Johnny Rebs hoping that surrender would lead to a truce and an end to the unpopular war.

The advancing columns were stretched out on a broad front fanning out on the southward avenues of exit from the burning city. Our movement was in the general direction of Macon. It was a city that I was familiar with in present day and found it to be slow moving and filled with large numbers of dislocated slaves waiting for some resolution to the uncertainty of their status. They were constantly berated about their “Emancipation” granted by President Lincoln and the Republican political machine much to the disgust of the landowners and the “old time” families that considered Georgia their birthright property. Strangely, these staunch anti-Republican elements would fight against the “Carpet-bagger” philosophy of the Yankee invasion after the war and did everything possible to sabotage the governmental structures established after 1865. They were the foundation of the Ku Klux Klan and the other anti-Republican forces that infiltrated every level of government in the Confederate States for the next ninety years. The southern Democrats and prevailing “Jim Crow” laws ruled the south during that time with an iron fist that made a mockery of a truly “United States of America”. True equality was not achieved in minimal adequacy until the enactment of the Civil rights act in the 1960s almost one hundred years later.

In any event, our substantial Army under General Sherman wheeled or “pivoted” in the Macon complex and we paused while our troops labored to destroy the rail systems using the famous Sherman “Bow-ties” to wrap the heat softened steel rails around living trees. I helped do that along with my men and marveled at the effectiveness of it because it created a void in the Confederate transportation system that would not be restored for almost fifty years. I was able to see from the advantage of my time-jumping distortions that several of the southern states like Georgia were now weak links in the development of the southern states with states like Florida gaining ground because of their limited participation in the hostilities.

The troops were lined up covering almost one-third of the State’s land area and when we started moving southeast to Savannah, it was like a horde of locusts had been set free to strip the land of its treasure and return the residents to the time before Columbus landed in the new world. The American Indian population saw the results and secretly rejoiced at the setbacks seeing it as a restoration to the original plan for a natural life. I have to admit it was a bit unfair that the entire region was devoid of most of the male residents of fighting age due to the blanket conscription of all males sturdy enough to shoulder a long-gun.

When we met with opposition it was what we would describe in our reports from the field as “Light Resistance” and in all honesty, it could not be much lighter with only young boys and old men to oppose us. We rolled down the fairly flat terrain like the wrath of Federal might and power destroying everything in our path like the columns of Genghis Khan shredding the blooming buds of civilization in Eastern Europe.

After seeing how the freed Negro slaves reacted so positively to us in Atlanta, I fully expected the former slaves in the Georgia farmlands to welcome us as their saviors. I was shocked to discover that we were treated more like dreaded “outsiders” coming to steal their livelihood and their meager possessions like thieves in the night. It was then that I realized that there were some bonds of geographic affinity that were stronger than the sense of slavery or emancipation. I guess in all truth, it was safe to say that stereotypes were not very useful in understanding those kinds of connections.

Some of the units were a bit harsh on the rural populace but we were instructed to not enter any dwelling that did not fire on us from inside and in retrospect, I came to understand that order was a lifesaver for both sides.

I believe our biggest worry as we progressed to the coast was the danger of snipers. We were constantly harassed by the sniper fire as we went about our business of appropriating food stores and animals for the use of the Army and completing the destruction of public buildings used by the Confederacy to administer control over the people. I doubt if any rail lines in the entire state existed in those areas where General Sherman’s Army had marched.