General Wheeler, with his division of rebel cavalry, had succeeded in getting ahead of us between Milledgeville and Augusta, and General P. J. Hardee had been dispatched by General Beauregard from Hood’s army to oppose our progress directly in front.  He had, however, brought with him no troops, but relied on his influence with the Georgians (of whose State he was a native) to arouse the people, and with them to annihilate Sherman’s army!

On the 24th we renewed the march, and I accompanied the Twentieth Corps, which took the direct road to Sandersville, which we reached simultaneously with the Fourteenth Corps, on the 26th.  A brigade of rebel cavalry was deployed before the town, and was driven in and through it by our skirmish-line.  I myself saw the rebel cavalry apply fire to stacks of fodder standing in the fields at Sandersville, and gave orders to burn some unoccupied dwellings close by.  On entering the town, I told certain citizens (who would be sure to spread the report) that, if the enemy attempted to carry out their threat to burn their food, corn, and fodder, in our route, I would most undoubtedly execute to the letter the general orders of devastation made at the outset of the campaign.  With this exception, and one or two minor cases near Savannah, the people did not destroy food, for they saw clearly that it would be ruin to themselves.

At Sandersville I halted the left wing until I heard that the right wing was abreast of us on the railroad.  During the evening a negro was brought to me, who had that day been to the station (Tenille), about six miles south of the town.  I inquired of him if there were any Yankees there, and he answered, “Yes.”  He described in his own way what he had seen.

“First, there come along some cavalry-men, and they burned the depot; then come along some infantry-men, and they tore up the track, and burned it;” and just before he left they had “sot fire to the well.”

The next morning, viz., the 27th, I rode down to the station, and found General Corse’s division (of the Fifteenth Corps) engaged in destroying the railroad, and saw the well which my negro informant had seen “burnt.”  It was a square pit about twenty-five feet deep, boarded up, with wooden steps leading to the bottom, wherein was a fine copper pump, to lift the water to a tank above.  The soldiers had broken up the pump, heaved in the steps and lining, and set fire to the mass of lumber in the bottom of the well, which corroborated the negro’s description.

From this point Blair’s corps, the Seventeenth, took up the work of destroying the railroad, the Fifteenth Corps following another road leading eastward, farther to the south of the railroad.  While the left wing was marching toward Louisville, north of the railroad, General Kilpatrick had, with his cavalry division, moved rapidly toward Waynesboro’, on the branch railroad leading from Millen to Augusta.  He