Jacob sandwiches his observations on the actions of the Army between botanical notes and a request for stamps. He certainly seems to have lost little sleep on the way Sherman conducted the march in 1864 – but he may have had different thoughts in the 1880s. Among the papers in the collection are a copy of his journal with a postmark in the 1880s in his own hand that generally mirrors the journal in the Ross County Historical Society with the exception of key redactions. It is almost as if the older Jacob Shively wanted to ensure his journals were cleaned up a bit, perhaps indicating that he may have had second thoughts on the propriety of some of the Army’s actions in the March.
In the swamps near Savanah, Ga
Dec 15th 1864
Dear Mary
This morning still finds me alive and well and I shall attempt to drop a few more lines hoping to be able to start it to you today. Things were unusually quiet along our lines last night, but this morning the artillery is roaring on all sides and such roaring I have never experienced before I came here. Our heavy guns along the coast and river sound like peal after peal of heavy thunder and reverberate along the water and up the river which is constantly roaring like the sound that follows heavy thunder and it has a peculiar sound here in these swamps and dense forests of heavy pines and live oaks. The branches of which are hung with a long grey moss known as Spanish moss. It hangs profusely from all parts of the trees and in the distance it resembles huge icicles three or four feet long. The swamps and woods are thickly covered with long wild grass and palm leaves such as fans are made of. Some places the ground is thickly set with them from the size of one’s hand to four and five feet in diameter. Rice is raised here in great abundance. It grows like oats and the grain resembles barley. We have captured two large rice mills for hulling rice all in good order. And we have captured several thousand bushels of threshed rice and an immense quantity of it in the sheaf. Sheaf rice makes excellent feed for our horses and mules. Corn will not grow here to do any good, but the country between here and Atlanta beats all for sweet potatoes – and the largest and best ones I ever saw or heard of. Some plantations had as high as three and four thousand bushels holed up. Sweet potatoes keep here all winter buried like Irish potatoes do at home. Peanuts are raised here in great abundance. They raise them to fatten hogs on.
I will sum up in short what we have done on this raid. We burnt Kingston and all the towns to Atlanta. We burned Atlanta complete. We tore up and destroyed all the Railroads from Kingston to Atlanta. We tore up and destroyed the road from Atlanta to within 30 mls of Augusta and destroyed all the Railroad from Atlanta via Macon to Savanah and the entire road leading from the Macon Road through Milledgeville and the road from Millon to Waynesboro and 20 mls of the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. We destroyed all cotton and cotton gins and all corn, oats, and other produce that we could not use throughout that whole section of country over which we came. We also took all the able bodied slaves, all the horses and mules, and burned every town and house where any resistance was offered. We destroyed Louisville and Waynseboro and I don’t know what other corps done to towns South of that.
Please send me some stamps and oblige yours,
Jacob Shively
A Thousand Thunders 