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encamp one division inside the intrenchments, and the other between the battle-field and the city.
Sherman was directed to occupy the line of rifle-pits at once, and, on the following day, to destroy effectually the railroad tracks in and about Jackson, and all the property belonging to the enemy.1 He set about his work in the morning, and utterly destroyed the railroads in every direction, north, east, south, and west, for a distance in all, of twenty miles. All the bridges, factories, and arsenals were burned, and whatever could be of use to the rebels, destroyed.2 The importance of Jackson, as a railroad centre and a depot of stores and military factories, was annihilated, and the principal object of its capture attained.
A hotel and a church in Jackson were burned without orders, and there was some pillaging by the soldiers, which their officers sought in every way to restrain.3
1 ‘Designate a brigade from your command to guard the city. Collect stores and forage, and collect all public property of the enemy. The division from which such brigade may be selected will be the last to leave the city. You will direct them, therefore, to commence immediately the effectual destruction of the river railroad bridge, and the road as far east as practicable, as well as north and south. The Fourth Iowa cavalry and a brigade of infantry should be sent east of the river, with instructions for the cavalry to go on east as far as possible. Troops going east of the river should burn all C. S. A. cotton and stores they find.’
2 The owners of a valuable cotton factory protested against its destruction, on the ground that many females and poor families were employed in the workshops; but Sherman decided that the machinery could so easily be converted to hostile purposes, that the buildings must be burned. He offered, however, to take the poor back to the Mississippi, and feed them there, till they could find employment or seek refuge elsewhere.
3 The hotel was called the Confederate Hotel, and the men who burned it had been led prisoners through the streets of Jackson some months before. The cattle-cars on which prisoners were transported were halted in front of this building, and the captives asked for a cup of cold water only. This was refused them, with scurrilous taunts, by the inmates of the hotel. The prisoners were soon afterwards exchanged; and returning to Jackson as conquerors, they remembered the house where this indignity had been offered them, and burned it to the ground.
New York Appleton 1885.
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