disappeared from the north of Macon and marched eastward. Cobb was
delighted. He pronounced me to be the wisest of generals, and said he
knew nothing of military affairs, but had entered the service from a
sense of duty.

Cobb had been Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and
Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of President Buchanan.
Beloved and respected in his State, he had been sent to Georgia to
counteract the influence of Governor Joe Brown, who, carrying out the
doctrine of State rights, had placed himself in opposition to President
Davis. Cobb, with his conscripts, had been near Atlanta before Sherman
moved out, and gave me a laughable account of the expeditious manner in
which he and "his little party" got to Macon, just as he was inditing a
superb dispatch to General Lee to inform him of the impossibility of
Sherman's escape.

While we were conversing Governor Brown was announced, as arrived from
Milledgeville, the State capital, forty miles to the northeast. Cobb
remarked that it was awkward; for Governor Brown was the only man in
Georgia to whom he did not speak. But he yielded to the ancient jest,
that for the time being we had best hang together, as there seemed a
possibility of enjoying that amusement separately, and brought the
Governor in, who told me that he had escaped from Milledgeville as the
Federals entered. People said that he had brought off his cow and his
cabbages, and left the State's property to take care of itself. However,
Governor Brown deserves praise at my hands, for he promptly acceded to
all my requests. With him were General Robert Toombs, the most original
of men, and General G.W. Smith, both of whom had been in the Confederate
army. Toombs had resigned to take the place of Adjutant-General of
Georgia; Smith, to superintend some iron works, from which he had been
driven by Sherman's movements, and was now in command of Governor
Brown's "army," composed of men that he had refused to the Confederate
service. This "army" had some hours before marched east toward Savannah,
taking the direct route along the railway. I told the Governor that his
men would be captured unless they were called back at once; and Smith,
who undertook the duty in person, was just in time. "Joe Brown's army"
struck the extreme right of Sherman, and suffered some loss before Smith
could extricate it. To Albany, ninety miles south of Macon, there was a
railway, and some forty miles fa