NP, RD 12/27/1864

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch
 
December 27, 1864
 
   The Cincinnati Commercial publishes a long history of the march of Sherman through Georgia. It is rather dull, and as the following summary of it contains about all the lies given in the original, we give it:
   *** The army moved in four columns. Howard on the right and Slocum on the left, with the cavalry in front and rear. In this manner it covered a strip of country nearly sixty miles in width, for three hundred miles.
   Sherman has cut through Georgia a swath of sixty miles, and has completely destroyed the great railroad quadrilateral of which Atlanta, Macon, Augusta and Savannah are the four corners. The railroad leading east from Atlanta to Augusta {Georgia RR} is destroyed for over seventy miles, including the bridges over the Yellow and the contiguous river. The railroad running south from Atlanta to Macon {Macon & Western RR} is destroyed for eighty miles. The railroad running east from Macon to Savannah {Central (of Georgia) RR} is destroyed for a distance estimated at from ninety to one hundred miles. The railroad running between Augusta and Savannah {Augusta & Savannah RR} is destroyed from Waynesboro' to Savannah, a distance of over eighty miles.
   The wholesale work of destruction was carried on leisurely, and with an eye to completeness. Every rail was heated and bent; every tie, bridge, water station, tank, wood shed and depot building was burned, and every culvert blown up. For miles on the Macon and Savannah and Augusta and Savannah roads the track is carried over marshy territory by extensive trestle-work. This is all burned, and it will be very difficult to replace. In all, Sherman has completely destroyed nearly four hundred miles of railroad track.

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