Thursday, July 28, 2016

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Fessenden Morse: September 13, 1864

Atlanta, Ga., September 13, 1864.

The families are fast moving South; a large wagon train goes out each day, conveying them to General Hood's lines. The family in whose house our rooms are, is going North; I wish they were going to stay, so that we might continue to enjoy the nice beds and furniture. However, we shall have our balcony left, on which we spend our evenings. It is quite a place of resort for the staff officers and others in town who call on us, especially as our brigade band, or the Thirty-third Massachusetts', plays in front of the house almost every night. I enclose some pieces of a rebel flag which was captured here and presented to me; they will answer as a memento of our entrance into the city. General Sherman told an officer of our corps that the reason he left the Twentieth Corps behind was because he knew he was going to take Atlanta by this last movement, and he wanted the corps which had done the hardest fighting and the hardest work of the campaign to have the honor of entering the city first; I believe this is honest, for there is very little humbug about General Sherman.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 190-1

No comments: