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(Previous Page) which it traverses. HOWARD moved against the enemy's line nearer the coast on the lower Combahee ; and while SLOCUM crossed the Edisto west of Branchville to Orangeburg on the road to Columbia, HOWARD with the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps isolated the rebel position on the south side. We illustrate on page 136 the burning of M 'Phersonville by our forces. This place was five miles west of Pocotaligo. A dispatch from the rebel General WHEELER, dated the 7th, claims to have driven back a portion of KILPATRICK'S cavalry. In the mean time General GILMORE superseded General FOSTER in the command of the army operating directly against Charleston. Our forces gained a foothold on Little Britain, an island at the upper end of the North Edisto. On the 10th a force from two to four thousand strong landed at Grimball's, on James Island, in Charleston Harbor, about two miles west of the city. On the 18th Charleston was evacuated by General HARDEE, and Admiral DAHLGREN took possession. In this connection the illustration of Fort Sumter, which we have engraved on pages 136 and 137, possesses great interest. The fort, which has been transformed into an earth work, and is much more formidable than at the beginning of the war, is now in our possession. The old Union flag again waves over the fort. It was raised at 9 A.M. on the 18th. In the mean while the city of Charleston was in flames. As WHEELER'S cavalry had plundered Columbia before leaving it, so the rebel officers, regardless of all motives of humanity toward the thousands of helpless citizens they were about to leave behind them in Charleston, had, previous to their evacuation, prepared for the destruction of the city. The first explosion took place at 3 o'clock in the morning. Simultaneously with the explosion flames broke out in different parts of the city. While the unfortunate citizens were trying to extinguish the flames, a second explosion took place, causing a terrible loss of life. Our forces took possession at about 6 A.M. The citizens were frantic with horror at the loss of their homes and the mutilation of their friends. Our brave soldiers did their best to arrest the progress of the flames, but it is estimated that two thirds of the city must have been destroyed. A great amount of artillery was captured with the city. On the 17th SHERMAN took possession of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, situated upon the Santee River. The movement of the left wing on Orangeburg compelled BEAUREGARD to fall back on Columbia. He has now withdrawn toward Charlotte, in North Carolina. SHERMAN has advanced in the same direction. We give on page 140 a map of Columbia. While SHERMAN is making such rapid progress in South Carolina our armies are not standing idle in the old North State. General SCHOFIELD has been assigned to the command of the Department of North Carolina, and a good portion of his corps has united with TERRY'S victorious army in the operations against Wilmington. TERRY made an advance on the 11th with AMES'S and PAYNE'S divisions, moving up the peninsula. Admiral PORTER'S fleet co-operated. The Montgomery and Quaker City covered the advance of the army. The double-enders Mackinaw and Unadilla, the gun-boat Huron and the Monitor Montauk engaged Fort Anderson on the west side. We illustrate this bombardment on page 140. Our correspondent says that the object of the action was to ascertain the strength of the work and the number of guns, and having accomplished this the vessels withdrew. AT A VENTURE.STEAM was up, the train was off, and Tom Graham in it en route for Chattanooga ; fairly in stream, as it were, and knowing no more what was to happen next than you do, only bobbing about in the tide of events and looking out sharp to see if Fortune was going to toss him a life preserver, or if her ladyship intended to let him drown. Beside him sat a lady, the only one in the car; ten years older than himself that is, thirty-five with an audacious turned up nose, sarcastic lips, a square, determined chin too determined for a women brilliant brown eyes, and an abundance of hair, thickly sown with gray; not pretty, but not a nonentity. Many a nonentity contrives to have a mouth, nose, and eyes without as much expression as went to the making of her back. Moreover, she had met Graham on his entrance with one of those flitting, scanning glances with which women take their mental measures; and at sight of his uniform, and the M. S. on his cap, there had been a sudden dropping of the lashes, a darkening quicker than a cloud flitting, too slight indeed for thought, had not Tom been desperate; but drowning men catch at straws. As the train jogged on they fell into conversation about the war, of course and, not to put too fine a point on it, they talked "bosh," but with the caution of people sounding boggy ground before stepping on it, you heard the tapping of the sticks all the way; and after a little of the customary vituperation concerning the Yankees each turned and searched the other's face. Steady blue eyes looking keenly into bright brown ones, for an honest hate rings out as heartily as an honest love, and theirs sounded but hollowly ; but neither could get behind the other's eyes; and the talk veered about to Northern journals and their account of themselves; and here the cool, watchful lady warmed apace, and at last flamed out at the "Northern dolls, whom she would like to lecture if she were only a Mrs. Adams or a Martha Washington, and cared about them, which she didn't ; and she would tell them that Southern women turned their diamonds into gun boats, and robbed the very doors and kitchens of their houses to make arms; and how the Yankee ladies could let their soldiers go hungry through their great cities, and their families--" " But don't you see all this is so much the better for us?" cut in Graham, ice on the surface, but hugging himself mentally. And the retort brought her fire, as he lied anticipated; for the indignant little hypocrite, professing rebel sentiments, quite forgot herself, and bestowed on the rebel officer advancing rebel sentiments a look of genuine " Union" scorn, blushed the next instant over her mistake, and, grown suddenly conciliatory and pussy cattish, switched off the conversation on another track ; to which Tom offered no objection, but believed all the more firmly in the honesty of that one unguarded look. " I see you are in the service. You volunteered, I presume," said the lady. "Volunteered," repeated Tom, with a singular intonation. "Well, you can call it so. I entered the army on a conviction of bayonets (Tossed at the door as my only way of getting out of the provost marshal's office." Ah!" his companion bad opened her lips to say more, but seemed unable or afraid to get out the words. She was startled entirely out of her highbred repose; her quiet hands twitched nervously, her color came and went uneasily ; and all the while sat Tom, not tense and self controlled, but as if self control were not needed ; muscles lax in his easy indifferent pose; eyes cool, bright, and resting carelessly on things nearest him ; not the quiver of an eyelash to tell how high leaped his heart, or how low it sank, as he said to himself, "Tom, old boy, if that woman's face is a lie you have your pass to ' kingdom come.'" The lady drew a long breath. "Apparently, Sir, you are in the Medical Department." " Yes. Surgeon at hospital." The dash represents the mumble which Graham substituted for the name. And were the people of " (with a ludicrous imitation of the mumble) "patriotic?" "Rather;' say about boiling point. The hospital was a sort of Levite among them, and got its dues not only of corn, wine, and oil, but of fruit, flowers, and jellies; and the girls there had an excellent habit of being pretty and visiting the wards in person. "You were in clover then?" " Exactly." " I could understand scrambling out of a thistle bed," remarked the lady, with an affectation of being puzzled, "but considering the scarcity of the other growth along life's highway, it is odd that you were willing to leave it." "Ah, madam, I appreciate clover as keenly as you can, but the calls of business have no respect for clover." |
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