“And Sherman’s men marched from Atlanta to Savannah–all the way to the sea—burning houses and barns, and tearing up railroads, and freeing slaves in droves.
In December of that year, Sherman sent another telegram to Pa, saying:
I BEG TO PRESENT YOU, AS A CHRISTMAS GIFT, THE CITY OF SAVANNAH.
Pa answered him right back:
MANY MANY THANKS FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS GIFT.
“Cause Pa and everybody else knew, after Savannah, that the South couldn’t last much longer.”
~Me and Willie and Pa by F.N. Monjo.
I’ll bet that was some Christmas, for Sherman and his occupying troops, for the Georgia families who saw what little they had left go up in smoke, for the slaves who were freed but with no place to go, for Lincoln and the rest of Washington who saw the beginning of the end of that long and cruel war.