he garrison. The country about Savannah is
low and marshy, and the city was well intrenched from the river above to
the river below; and assaults could not be made except along a
comparatively narrow causeway. For this reason assaults must have
resulted in serious destruction of life to the Union troops, with the
chance of failing altogether. Sherman therefore decided upon a complete
investment of the place. When he believed this investment completed, he
summoned the garrison to surrender. General Hardee, who was in command,
replied in substance that the condition of affairs was not such as
Sherman had described. He said he was in full communication with his
department and was receiving supplies constantly.

Hardee, however, was cut off entirely from all communication with the
west side of the river, and by the river itself to the north and south.
On the South Carolina side the country was all rice fields, through
which it would have been impossible to bring supplies so that Hardee had
no possible communication with the outside world except by a dilapidated
plank road starting from the west bank of the river. Sherman, receiving
this reply, proceeded in person to a point on the coast, where General
Foster had troops stationed under General Hatch, for the purpose of
making arrangements with the latter officer to go through by one of the
numerous channels running inland along that part of the coast of South
Carolina, to the plank road which General Hardee still possessed, and
thus to cut him off from the last means he had of getting supplies, if
not of communication.

While arranging for this movement, and before the attempt to execute the
plan had been commenced, Sherman received information through one of his
staff officers that the enemy had evacuated Savannah the night before.
This was the night of the 21st of December. Before evacuating the place
Hardee had blown up the navy yard. Some iron-clads had been destroyed,
as well as other property that might have been valuable to us; but he
left an immense amount of stores untouched, consisting of cotton,
railroad cars, workshops, numerous pieces of artillery, and several
thousand stands of small arms.

A little incident occurred, soon after the fall of Savannah, which
Sherman relates in his Memoirs, and which is worthy of repetition.
Savannah was one of the points where blockade runners entered. Shortly
after the city fell into our possession, a blockade runner ca