At  seventeen  I  went  gold  digging  .  .  .  seeking
gold  ...  it  was  the  first  rush  of  the  digging
mania  in  California,  but  I  only  got  six  hundred
dollars  worth."

"At  seventeen  years  many  their  fortunes  seek
But  at  fourscore  it  is  too  late  a  week"

said  I  sotto  voce.
"A  mighty  empty  place,"  repeated  the  old
captain,  rocking  his  chair  in  the  dusk.  "Yes,
Sherman  marched  through  here.  He  burned  all
the  cotton  in  the  barns.  I  was  born  here,  and
lived  here  mos'  all  my  life,  but  I  was  with  Lee
then.  That  war  ought  never  to  have  been.  No,
sir.  It  was  all  a  mistake.  We  thought  Abraham
Lincoln  the  devil  incarnate,  but  knew  after-
wards he  was  a  good  friend  to  the  South.
It's  all  forgotten  now.  We  bear  the  North  no
grudge  except  about  the  niggers "

He  interrupted  himself  to  greet  a  pretty  girl
passing  by,  and  he  seemed  offended  if  any
woman  passed  without  smiling  up  at  him.  But
when  he  resumed  conversation  with  me  he  re-
verted to  "The  world's  getting  to  be  a  mighty
empty  place  .  .  .  eighty-four  years  .  .  .  threescore
and  ten  is  the  allotted  span,  but  ..."


MARCHING  THROUGH  GEORGIA  139

I  turn  therefore  to  the  witness  of  the  time,
and  the  genius  who  conceived  the  march  and
watched  his  soldiers  go.  Thus  Sherman  wrote
of  Covington:  "We  passed  through  the  hand-
some town  of  Covington,  the  soldiers  closing  up
their  ranks,  the  color  bearers  unfurling  their
flags,  and  the  bands  striking  up  patriotic  airs.
