are able to assure you that they have done
and are still doing all that can be done to meet the emergency that
presses upon you. Let every man fly to arms! Remove your negroes,
horses, cattle, and provisions from Sherman's army, and burn what
you cannot carry. Burn all bridges, and block up the roads in his
route. Assail the invader in front, flank, and rear, by night and
by day. Let him have no rest.

JULIAN HARTRIDGE
MARK BLANDFORD,
J. H. ECHOLS
GEO. N. LESTER
JOHN T. SHUEMAKER
JAS. M. SMITH,

Members of Congress.

Of course, we were rather amused than alarmed at these threats, and
made light of the feeble opposition offered to our progress. Some
of the officers (in the spirit of mischief) gathered together in
the vacant hall of Representatives, elected a Speaker, and
constituted themselves the Legislature of the State of Georgia! A
proposition was made to repeal the ordinance of secession, which
was well debated, and resulted in its repeal by a fair vote! I was
not present at these frolics, but heard of them at the time, and
enjoyed the joke.

Meantime orders were made for the total destruction of the arsenal
and its contents, and of such public buildings as could be easily
converted to hostile uses. But little or no damage was done to
private property, and General Slocum, with my approval, spared
several mills, and many thousands of bales of cotton, taking what
he knew to be worthless bonds, that the cotton should not be used
for the Confederacy. Meantime the right wing continued its
movement along the railroad toward Savannah, tearing up the track
and destroying its iron. At the Oconee was met a feeble resistance
from Harry Wayne's troops, but soon the pontoon-bridge was laid,
and that wing crossed over. Gilpatrick's cavalry was brought into
Milledgeville, and crossed the Oconee by the bridge near the town;
and on the 23d I made the general orders for the next stage of the
march as far as Millen. These were, substantially, for the right
wing to follow the Savannah Railroad, by roads on its south; the
left wing was to move to Sandersville, by Davisboro' and
Louisville, while the cavalry was ordered by a circuit to the
north, and to march rapidly for Millen, to rescue our prisoners of
war confined there. The distance was about a hundred miles.

General Wheeler, with his division of rebel cavalry, had succeeded
in getting ahead of us between Milledgeville and Augusta, and
General P. J. Harde