Chapter I: Front Matter

WITH FIRE AND SWORD

With Fire and Sword

BY
MAJOR S. H. M. BYERS

OF GENERAL SHERMAN'S STAFF

Author of "Sherman's March to the Sea," "Iowa
in War Times," "Twenty Years in
Europe," and of other books

NEW YORK
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1911

Copyright, 1911, by

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I 11

My enlistment in the Union Army--The "Bushwhackers" of Missouri--The
Quantrells and the James Brothers--Cutting a man's head off--My
first adventure in the war--Capturing a guerrilla.

CHAPTER II 22

We leave Missouri and go South--The prisoners of Donelson--The taking
of New Madrid--"Kindly bury this unfortunate officer"--Quaker guns
at Shiloh--The killing of the colonel.

CHAPTER III 29

Iuka, the fiercest battle of the war, 217 men out of 482 of my
regiment are shot--The awful rebel charge at Corinth--Moonlight on
the battlefield--Bushels of arms and legs--Tombstones for
fireplaces--One of Grant's mistakes.

CHAPTER IV 40

An unlucky campaign led by General Grant--Holly Springs burned up--The
first foragers--Some modern Falstaffs--Counting dead men.

CHAPTER V 49

The laughable campaign of the war--An army floating among the tree
tops of the Yazoo Pass.

CHAPTER VI 54

Grant's new plan at Vicksburg--Running the Vicksburg batteries--An
hour and a half of horror--The batteries are passed--The most
important event in the war.

CHAPTER VII 63

Crossing the Mississippi on gunboats and steamers--Battle of Port
Gibson--How General Grant looked to a private soldier--A boy from
Mississippi--Fights at Raymond--Battle of Jackson in a
thunderstorm--Digging his brothers' grave--Grant in battle--Saving a
flag--How men feel in battle--An awful spectacle--The critical
moment of General Grant's life--A battlefield letter from him to
Sherman.

CHAPTER VIII 87

Assaults on the walls of Vicksburg--Logan in battle--An army mule--A
promotion under the guns of Vicksburg--A storm of iron hail at
Vicksburg--The Vicksburg clock--The town surrenders--The glad
news--Reading my first order to the regiment--My regiment put on
guard in the captured city--Eight days' furlough in four years of
war.

CHAPTER IX 102

Sherman's army floats across the Tennessee River at
midnight--Washington at the Delaware nothing compared to this--We
assault Missionary Ridge--An awful battle--My capture.

CHAPTER X 111

In Libby Prison--Life there--"Belle Isle"--All prisons bad--The great
escape--"Maryland, My Maryland."

CHAPTER XI 119

Escaping from Macon--An adventure in Atlanta--In the disguise of a
Confederate soldier--My wanderings inside the Confederate army and
what I experienced there--I am captured as a spy--How I got out of
it all.

CHAPTER XII 137

Under fire of our own guns at Charleston--Trying to capture a railway
train--The secret band--Betrayed--The desolation of Charleston.

CHAPTER XIII 144

Living in a grave--An adventure in the woods of South Carolina--Life
in the asylum yard at the capital of South Carolina--The song of
"Sherman's March to the Sea"--How it came to be written--Final
escape--The burning up of South Carolina's capitol.

CHAPTER XIV 174

The army in the Carolinas--General Sherman sends for me--Gives me a
place on his staff--Experiences at army headquarters--Sherman's life
on the march--Music at headquarters--Logan's violin--The General's
false friend--The army wades, swims, and fights through the
Carolinas--I am sent as despatch bearer to General Grant--A strange
ride down the Cape Fear River in the night--General Terry--Learn
that my song "The March to the Sea" is sung through the North, and
has given the campaign its name--I bring the first news of Sherman's
success to the North--An interview with General Grant.

CHAPTER XV 198

Washington City in the last three days of the war--Look, the
President!--_The last man of the regiment._