hold it, and retired to his infantry supports, near Griswold Station.  The Fifteenth Corps tore up the railroad-track eastward from Griswold, leaving Charles R. Wood’s division behind as a rear-guard-one brigade of which was intrenched across the road, with some of Kilpatrick’s cavalry on the flanks.  On the 22d of November General G. W. Smith, with a division of troops, came out of Mason, attacked this brigade (Walcutt’s) in position, and was handsomely repulsed and driven back into Mason.  This brigade was in part armed with Spencer repeating-rifles, and its fire was so rapid that General Smith insists to this day that he encountered a whole division; but he is mistaken; he was beaten by one brigade (Walcutt’s), and made no further effort to molest our operations from that direction.  General Walcutt was wounded in the leg, and had to ride the rest of the distance to Savannah in a carriage.

Therefore, by the 23d, I was in Milledgeville with the left wing, and was in full communication with the right wing at Gordon.  The people of Milledgeville remained at home, except the Governor (Brown), the State officers, and Legislature, who had ignominiously fled, in the utmost disorder and confusion; standing not on the order of their going, but going at once—­some by rail, some by carriages, and many on foot.  Some of the citizens who remained behind described this flight of the “brave and patriotic” Governor Brown.  He had occupied a public building known as the “Governor’s Mansion,” and had hastily stripped it of carpets, curtains, and furniture of all sorts, which were removed to a train of freight-cars, which carried away these things—­even the cabbages and vegetables from his kitchen and cellar—­leaving behind muskets, ammunition, and the public archives.  On arrival at Milledgeville I occupied the same public mansion, and was soon overwhelmed with appeals for protection.  General Slocum had previously arrived with the Twentieth Corps, had taken up his quarters at the Milledgeville Hotel, established a good provost-guard, and excellent order was maintained.  The most frantic appeals had been made by the Governor and Legislature for help from every quarter, and the people of the State had been called out en masse to resist and destroy the invaders of their homes and firesides.  Even the prisoners and convicts of the penitentiary were released on condition of serving as soldiers, and the cadets were taken from their military college for the same purpose.  These constituted a small battalion, under General Harry Wayne, a former officer of the United States Army, and son of the then Justice Wayne of the Supreme Court.  But these hastily retreated east across the Oconee River, leaving us a good bridge, which we promptly secured.