But in the fall of 1864, while Sherman's army was lying around Atlanta like a pent-up torrent ready to burst forth at any moment, my father was afraid to let us get out of his sight, and we all stood waiting in our defenseless homes till we could see what course the destroying flood would take. Happily for us it passed by without engulfing the little town of Washington, where our home was situated, and after it had swept over the capital of the State, reaching Milledgeville November 23d, rolled on toward Savannah, where the sound of merry Christmas bells was hushed by the roar of its angry waters.
Meanwhile the people in our part of Georgia had had time to get their breath once more, and began to look about for some way of bridging the gap of ruin and desolation that stretched through the entire length of our State. The Georgia Railroad, running from Atlanta to Augusta, had been destroyed to the north of us, and the Central of Georgia, from Macon to Savannah, was intact for only sixteen miles; that part of the track connecting the former city with the little station of Gordon having lain beyond the path of the invaders. By taking advantage of this fragment, and of some twelve miles of track that had been laid from Camack, a station on the uninjured part of the Georgia railroad, to Mayfield, on what is now known as the Macon branch of the Georgia, the distance across country could be shortened by twenty-five miles, and the wagon road between these two points at once became a great national thoroughfare.
By the middle of December, communication, though subject to many difficulties and discomforts, was so well established that my father concluded it would be practicable for us to make the journey to our sister. We were eager to go, and would be safer, he thought, when once across the line, than at home. Sherman had industriously spread the impression that his next move would be on either Charleston or Augusta, and in the latter event, our home would be in the line of danger. Southwest Georgia was at that time a "Land of Goshen" and a "city of refuge" to harassed Confederates. Thus far it had never been seriously threatened by the enemy, and was supposed to be the last spot in the Confederacy on which he would ever set foot — and this, in the end, proved to be not far from the truth.
So then, after careful consultation with my oldest brother, Fred, at that time commandant of the Georgia camp of instruction for conscripts, in Macon, we set out under the protection of a reliable man whom my brother detailed to take care of us. It may seem strange to modern readers that two young women should have been sent off on such a journey with no companion of their own sex, but the exigencies of the times did away with many conventions. Then, too, the exquisite courtesy and deference of the Southern men of that day toward women made the chaperon a person of secondary importance among us. It was the "male protector" who was indispensable. I have known matrons of forty wait for weeks on the movements of some male acquaintance rather than take the railroad journey of fifty miles from our village to Augusta, alone; and when I was sent off to boarding school, I remember, the great desideratum was to find some man who would pilot me safely through the awful difficulties of a railroad journey of 200 miles. Women, young or old, were intrusted to the care of any man known to their family as a gentleman, with a confidence as beautiful as the loyalty that inspired it. Under no other social régime, probably, have young girls been allowed such liberty of intercourse with the other sex as were those of the Old South — a liberty which the notable absence of scandals and divorces in that society goes far to justify.
Dec. 24, 1864, Saturday. — Here we are in Macon at last, and this is the first chance I have had at my journal since we left home last Monday. Father went with us to Barnett, and then turned us over to Fred, who had come up from Augusta to meet us and travel with us as far as Mayfield. At Camack, where we changed cars, we found the train literally crammed with people going on the same journey with ourselves. Since the destruction of the Georgia, the Macon & Western, and the Central railroads by Sherman's army, the whole tide of travel between the eastern and western portions of our poor little Confederacy flows across the country from Mayfield to Gordon. Mett and I, with two other ladies, whom we found on the train at Camack, were the first to venture across the gap — 65 miles of bad roads and worse conveyances, through a country devastated by the most cruel and wicked invasion of modern times.
As we entered the crowded car, two young officers gave up their seats to us and saw that we were made comfortable while Fred was out looking after the baggage. Near us sat a handsome middle-aged gentleman in the uniform of a colonel, with a pretty young girl beside him, whom we at once spotted as his bride. They were surrounded by a number of officers, and the bride greatly amused us, in the snatches of their conversation we overheard, by her extreme bookishness. She was clearly just out of school. The only other lady on the car was closely occupied with the care of her husband, a wounded Confederate officer, whom we afterwards learned was Maj. Bonham, of South Carolina.
Photograph of the original manuscript of the diary
It is only eleven miles from Camack to Mayfield, but the road was so bad and the train so heavy that we were nearly two hours in making the distance. Some of the seats were without backs and some without bottoms, and the roadbed so uneven that in places the car tilted from side to side as if it was going to upset and spill us all out. We ate dinner on the cars — that is, Fred ate, while Metta and I were watching the people. The weather was very hot, and I sweltered like a steam engine under the overload of clothing I had put on to save room in my trunk. At three o'clock in the afternoon we reached Mayfield, a solitary shanty at the present terminus of the R. R. Fred had sent Mr. Belisle, one of his men, ahead to engage a conveyance, and he met us with a little spring wagon, which he said would take us on to Sparta that night for forty dollars. It had no top, but was the choice of all the vehicles there, for it had springs, of which none of the others could boast. There was the mail hack, which had the advantage of a cover, but could not carry our trunks, and really looked as if it were too decrepit to bear the weight of the mail bags. We mounted our little wagon, and the others were soon all filled so full that they looked like delegations from the old woman that lived in a shoe, and crowds of pedestrians, unable to find a sticking place on tongue or axle, plodded along on foot. The colonel and his wife were about to get into a rough old plantation wagon, already overloaded, but Fred said she was too pretty to ride in such a rattle-trap, and offered her a seat in ours, which was gladly accepted. We also made room for Dr. Shine, one of the officers of their party, who, we afterwards found out, was a friend of Belle Randolph.
About a mile from Mayfield we stopped at a forlorn country tavern, where Fred turned us over to Mr. Belisle, and went in to spend the night there, so as to return to Augusta by the next train. I felt rather desolate after his departure, but we soon got into conversation with the colonel and his bride, the gentlemen who were following on foot joined in, and we sang rebel songs and became very sociable together. We had not gone far when big drops of rain began to fall from an angry black cloud that had been gradually creeping upon us from the northwest. The bride raised a little fancy silk parasol that made the rest of us laugh, while Metta and I took off our hats and began to draw on shawls and hoods, and a young captain, who was plodding on foot behind us, hastened to offer his overcoat. When we found that he had a wounded arm, disabled by a Yankee bullet, we tried to make room for him in the wagon, but it was impossible to squeeze another person into it. Ralph, the driver, had been turned afoot to make room for Dr. Shine, and was walking ahead to act as guide in the darkness.
Just after nightfall we came to a public house five miles from Sparta, where the old man lives from whom our wagons were hired, and we stopped to pay our fare and get supper, if anybody wanted it. He is said to be fabulously rich, and owns all the land for miles