Macon in Revolutionary
history, and that it was a fort on the sea coast. He said that the guard
had told him that we were to be taken to a point near that place, and we
agreed that it was probably a new place of exchange. A little later we
passed through the town of Macon, Ga, and turned upon a road that led
almost due south.

About midnight the train stopped, and we were ordered off. We were in
the midst of a forest of tall trees that loaded the air with the heavy
balsamic odor peculiar to pine trees. A few small rude houses were
scattered around near.

Stretching out into the darkness was a double row of great heaps of
burning pitch pine, that smoked and flamed fiercely, and lit up a little
space around in the somber forest with a ruddy glare. Between these two
rows lay a road, which we were ordered to take.

The scene was weird and uncanny. I had recently read the "Iliad," and
the long lines of huge fires reminded me of that scene in the first book,
where the Greeks burn on the sea shore the bodies of those smitten by
Apollo's pestilential-arrows

For nine long nights, through all the dusky air,
The pyres, thick flaming shot a dismal glare.

Five hundred weary men moved along slowly through double lines of guards.
Five hundred men marched silently towards the gates that were to shut out
life and hope from most of them forever. A quarter of a mile from the
railroad we came to a massive palisade of great squared logs standing
upright in the ground. The fires blazed up and showed us a section of
these, and two massive wooden gates, with heavy iron hinges and bolts.
They swung open as we stood there and we passed through into the space
beyond.

We were in Andersonville.

CHAPTER XV.

GEORGIA--A LEAN AND HUNGRY LAND--DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UPPER AND LOWER
GEORGIA--THE PILLAGE OF ANDERSONVILLE.

As the next nine months of the existence of those of us who survived were
spent in intimate connection with the soil of Georgia, and, as it
exercised a potential influence upon our comfort and well-being, or
rather lack of these--a mention of some of its peculiar characteristics
may help the reader to a fuller comprehension of the conditions
surrounding us--our environment, as Darwin would say.

Georgia, which, next to Texas, is the largest State in the South, and has
nearly twenty-five per cent. more area than the great State of New York,
is divided into two distinct and widely differing