nt to
rob and then burn every house in Georgia and South Carolina. We will get
millions of dollars by robbery alone, don't you see?"

PALMETTO

"Hark from the tomb that doleful sound,
My ears attend the cry."

General J. B. Hood established his headquarters at Palmetto, Georgia,
and here is where we were visited by his honor, the Honorable Jefferson
Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, and the Right
Honorable Robert Toombs, secretary of state under the said Davis.
Now, kind reader, don't ask me to write history. I know nothing of
history. See the histories for grand movements and military maneuvers.
I can only tell of what I saw and how I felt. I can remember now General
Robert Toombs' and Hon. Jeff Davis' speeches. I remember how funny
Toombs' speech was. He kept us all laughing, by telling us how quick we
were going to whip the Yankees, and how they would skedaddle back across
the Ohio river like a dog with a tin oyster can tied to his tail.
Captain Joe P. Lee and I laughed until our sides hurt us. I can remember
today how I felt. I felt that Davis and Toombs had come there to bring
us glad tidings of great joy, and to proclaim to us that the ratification
of a treaty of peace had been declared between the Confederate States of
America and the United States. I remember how good and happy I felt when
these two leading statesmen told of when grim visaged war would smooth
her wrinkled front, and when the dark clouds that had so long lowered
o'er our own loved South would be in the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
I do not know how others felt, but I can say never before or since did I
feel so grand. (I came very near saying gloomy and peculiar). I felt
that I and every other soldier who had stood the storms of battle for
nearly four long years, were now about to be discharged from hard marches,
and scant rations, and ragged clothes, and standing guard, etc. In fact,
the black cloud of war had indeed drifted away, and the beautiful stars
that gemmed the blue ether above, smiling, said, "Peace, peace, peace."
I felt bully, I tell you. I remember what I thought--that the emblem of
our cause was the Palmetto and the Texas Star, and the town of Palmetto,
were symbolical of our ultimate triumph, and that we had unconsciously,
nay, I should say, prophetically, fallen upon Palmetto as the most
appropriate place to declare peace between the two sections. I was sure
Jeff Davis and Bob To