tion of all ages, sexes, and conditions in the fields of a desolated country to starve and die, as far as he knew or cared. You have only to read these recitals and you have the picture which Sherman made and which he truly denominated "Hell."
The correspondence between Mayor Calhoun and two councilmen of Atlanta, representing to General Sherman the frightful suffering that would be visited on the people of that city by the execution of his inhuman order, and General Sherman's reply, can be found in the second volume of Sherman's Memoirs, at pages 124-5; we can only extract one or two paragraphs from each. The letter of the former says, among other things:
"Many poor women are in advanced state of pregnancy, others now having young children, and whose husbands, for the greater part, are either in the army, prisoners, or dead. Some say, I have such a sick one at my house, who will wait on them when I am gone? Others say, what are we to do? We have no house to go to, and no means to buy, build or rent any; no parents, relatives or friends to go to."
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"This being so (they say) how is it possible for the people still here (mostly women and children) to find any shelter? And how can they live through the winter in the woods—no shelter or subsistence, in the midst of strangers who know them not, and without the power to assist them much if they were willing to do so."
"This (they say) is but a feeble picture of the consequences of this measure. You know the woe, the horrors and the suffering cannot be described by words; imagination can only conceive it, and we ask you to take these things into consideration."
.* * *
To this pathetic appeal Sherman coolly replied on the next day, his letter commencing as follows:
"I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet I shall not revoke my
