I concluded to give them the option to remain or to join their friends in Charleston or Augusta, and so announced in general orders.

The mayor, Dr.Arnold, was completely "subjugated," and, after consulting with him, I authorized him to assemble his City Council to take charge generally of the interests of the people; but warned all who remained that they must be strictly subordinate to the military law, and to the interests of the General Government.
About two hundred persona, mostly the families of men in the Confederate army, prepared to follow the fortunes of their husbands and fathers, and these were sent in a steamboat under a flag of truce, in charge of my aide Captain Audenried, to Charleston harbor, and there delivered to an officer of the Confederate army.
But the great bulk of the inhabitants chose to remain in Savannah, generally behaved with propriety, and good social relations at once arose between them and the army.

Shortly after our occupation of Savannah, a lady was announced at my headquarters by the orderly or sentinel at the front-door, who was ushered into the parlor, and proved to be the wife of General G.W.Smith, whom I had known about 1850, when Smith was on duty at West Point.

She was a native of New London, Connecticut, and very handsome.

She began her interview by presenting me a letter from her husband, who then commanded a division of the Georgia militia in the rebel army, which had just quitted Savannah, which letter began, "DEAR SHERMAN: The fortunes of war, etc-., compel me to leave my wife in Savannah, and I beg for her your courteous protection," etc., etc.