I did not want to make a mistake like “Ball’s
Bluff” at that period of the war; so, taking
one or two of my personal staff, I rode back to Grog’s
Bridge, leaving with Generals Howard and Slocum orders
to make all possible preparations, but not to attack,
during my two or three days’ absence; and there
I took a boat for Wassaw Sound, whence Admiral Dahlgren
conveyed me in his own boat (the Harvest Moon) to
Hilton Head, where I represented the matter to General
Foster, and he promptly agreed to give his personal
attention to it. During the night of the 20th
we started back, the wind blowing strong, Admiral
Dahlgren ordered the pilot of the Harvest Moon to run
into Tybee, and to work his way through to Wassaw
Sound and the Ogeechee River by the Romney Marshes.
We were caught by a low tide and stuck in the mud.
After laboring some time, the admiral ordered out
his barge; in it we pulled through this intricate and
shallow channel, and toward evening of December 21st
we discovered, coming toward us, a tug, called the
Red Legs, belonging to the Quarter-master’s
Department, with a staff-officer on board, bearing
letters from Colonel Dayton to myself and the admiral,
reporting that the city of Savannah had been found
evacuated on the morning of December 21st, and was
then in our possession. General Hardee had crossed
the Savannah River by a pontoon-bridge, carrying off
his men and light artillery, blowing up his iron-clads
and navy-yard, but leaving for us all the heavy guns,
stores, cotton, railway-cars, steamboats, and an immense
amount of public and private property. Admiral
Dahlgren concluded to go toward a vessel (the Sonoma)
of his blockading fleet, which lay at anchor near
Beaulieu, and I transferred to the Red Legs, and hastened
up the Ogeechee River to Grog’s Bridge, whence
I rode to my camp that same night. I there learned
that, early on the morning of December 21st, the skirmishers
had detected the absence of the enemy, and had occupied
his lines simultaneously along their whole extent;
but the left flank (Slocum), especially Geary’s
division of the Twentieth Corps, claimed to have been
the first to reach the heart of the city.
Generals Slocum and Howard moved their headquarters
at once into the city, leaving the bulk of their troops
in camps outside. On the morning of December
22d I followed with my own headquarters, and rode
down Bull Street to the custom-house, from the roof
of which we had an extensive view over the city, the
river, and the vast extent of marsh and rice-fields
on the South Carolina side. The navy-yard, and
the wreck of the iron-clad ram Savannah, were still
smouldering, but all else looked quiet enough.
Turning back, we rode to the Pulaski Hotel, which
I had known in years long gone, and found it kept
by a Vermont man with a lame leg, who used to be a
clerk in the St. Louis Hotel, New Orleans, and I inquired
about the capacity of his hotel for headquarters.
He was very anxious to have us for boarders, but