The Seventeenth Corps did not enter the city at all, but crossed directly over to the Winnsboro' road from the pontoon bridge at Broad River, which was about four miles above the city.
After we had got, as it were, settled in Blanton Duncan's house, say about 2 p.m., I overhauled my pocket according to custom, to read more carefully the various notes and memoranda received during the day, and found the paper which had been given me, as described, by one of our escaped prisoners.

It proved to be the song of "Sherman's March to the Sea," which had been composed by Adjutant S.H.M.Byers, of the Fifth Iowa Infantry, when a prisoner in the asylum at Columbia, which had been beautifully written off by a fellow-prisoner, and handed to me in person.

This appeared to me so good that I at once sent for Byers, attached him to my staff, provided him with horse and equipment, and took him as far as Fayetteville, North Carolina, whence he was sent to Washington as bearer of dispatches.

He is now United States consul at Zurich, Switzerland, where I have since been his guest.

I insert the song here for convenient reference and preservation.