Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1913 — STORIES of CAMP AND WAR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES of CAMP AND WAR

WHILE MARCHING TO THE SEA

S'-' Southern Planter Telle General Sherman Had Never Heard of Wisconsin or Minnesota, There was at the time of the Civil war a lack of Information in the south relative to the strength and resources! of the north. George Haven Putnam in his new book, "Abraham Lincoln," tells of a conversation General Sherman had with a courtly old planter at whose fine mansion the general and some of his staff bad stopped one rioon on the march to the sea. The old planter talked with Sherman about the causes of the war, and finally, pointing to some of the passing union troops, asked what state they came frtpn. Sherman leaned over the porch and-told the men to throw out their flag. They did so, and Sherman, turning to his venerable host, remarked: "They are the Thirtieth Wisconsin.” "Wisconsin?” said the planter. "Wisconsin? Where is Wisconsin?” “It la one of the states of the northwest,” s|id Sherman. "When I was studying geography,” said the planter, "I knew of W|scon-__ sin simply as the name of a tribe of Indians. How many men are there in that regiment?” “Well, there were a thousand when they started,” said Sherman. “Do you mean,” asked the planter, “that there is a state called Wisconsin thqt has sent 30,000 men into your armies?" “Oh, probably 40,000,” answered Sherman. ' , f -i; With the next body of troops the questions and answers were reputedThe flag was that of the Thirty-second Minnesota. The old planter had never heard that there was such a state. “My God!" he exclaimed when he had figured out the thousands of men who had come to the front from those so called Indian territories to maintain the existence of the nation, “if we in the south had known that you had turned those Indian territories into states we never would have gone into this war." "The incident,” remarks the author, “throws a light upon the state of ndnd of men, even of well educated men in the south, at the outbreak of the war. . . . It was their feeling that in the coming contest they would have to deal only with New England and the middle states.”