Steele's division started immediately, and later in the day I followed with the other division (Tuttle's).

Just as I was leaving Jackson, a very fat man came to see me, to inquire if his hotel, a large, frame building near the depot, were doomed to be burned.

I told him we had no intention to burn it, or any other house, except the machine-shops, and such buildings as could easily be converted to hostile uses.

He professed to be a law-abiding Union man, and I remember to have said that this fact was manifest from the sign of his hotel, which was the "Confederate Hotel;" the sign "United States" being faintly painted out, and "Confederate" painted over it! I remembered that hotel, as it was the supper-station for the New Orleans trains when I used to travel the road before the war.

I had not the least purpose, however, of burning it, but, just as we were leaving the town, it burst out in flames and was burned to the ground.