On the 24th of May
we cross the long bridge spanning the Potomac and enter Washington City and
pass up Pennsylvania Avenue, and by the White House, with Sherman's army in the
grand review. This was a proud day for Sherman and his army. Flowers and
wreaths, plucked and formed by the hands of the nation's fair ones, fell thick
and fast at the feet of the tramping army as it surged like an ocean wave in
the great avenue. Passing by the stand where stood the nation's great men,
General Sherman turns to his wife and says, "There are the Seventh
Illinois and the sixteen-shooters that helped to save my army in the great
battle on the Allatoona hills."
On that day there
were men in the national capital who were loud in denouncing Sherman as a
traitor, for his actions in his conference with General Joe Johnson [sic]. Generals Howard, Logan, Blair and
Slocum are familiar with the circumstances that controlled Sherman in that
conference. The seventy thousand who with him tramped the continent, have
learned the history of those negotiations, and their expression is unanimous
for Sherman, and to-day they are wild in denouncing all who oppose him.
Catching the spirit of these stalwart men, Lieutenant Flint, of Company G,
writes thus:
Back to your kennels
! 'tis no time
To snarl upon him now,
Ye cannot tear the blood-earned bays
From off his regal brow.
Along old Mississippi's stream,
We saw his banner fly;
We followed where from Georgia's peaks
It flapped against the sky.
And forward! vain her trackless swamps,
Her wilderness of pines,
He saw the sun rise from the sea
Flash on his serried lines!
Back to your kennels! 'tis too late
To sully Sherman's name;
To us it is the synonym
Of valor, worth and fame.
A hundred fights, a thousand miles
Of glory, blood and pain,
From our dear valley of the west,
To Carolina's plain,
Are his and ours; and peace or war,
Let his old pennon reel,
And ten times ten thousand men
Will thunder at his heel,"
After the grand
review, we go into camp a few miles from the capital near the Soldier's Home.
Treason and rebellion being prostrate, and the Union saved, the western troops
are ordered to rendezvous at Louisville, Kentucky, preparatory to their muster out
of the United States service.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 309-11
