In Atlanta,there were machine factories tediously turning out machinery to manufacture war materials—tediously,because there were few machines in the South from which they could model and nearly every wheel and cog had to be made from drawings that came through the blockade from England.There were strange faces on the streets of Atlanta now,and citizens who a year ago would have pricked up their ears at the sound of even a Western accent paid no heed to the foreign tongues of Europeans who had run the blockade to build machines and turn out Confederate munitions.
Skilled men these,without whom the Confederacy would have been hard put to make pistols,rifles,cannon and powder.
Almost the pulsing of the town's heart could be felt as the work went forward night and day,pumping the materials of war up the railway arteries to the two battle fronts.Trains roared in and out of the town at all hours.Soot from the newly erected factories fell in showers on the white houses.By night,the furnaces glowed and the hammers clanged long after townsfolk were abed.Where vacant lots had been a year before,there were now factories turning out harness,saddles and shoes,ordnance-supply plants making rifles and cannon,rolling mills and foundries producing iron rails and freight cars to replace those destroyed by the Yankees,and a variety of industries manufacturing spurs,bridle bits,buckles,tents,buttons,pistols and swords.Already the foundries were beginning to feel the lack of iron,for little or none came through the blockade,and the mines in Alabama were standing almost idle while the miners were at the front.There were no iron picket fences,iron summerhouses,iron gates or en iron statuary on the lawns of Atlanta now,for they had early found their way into the melting pots of the rolling mills.
Here along Peachtree Street and near-by streets were the headquarters of the various army departments,each office swarming with uniformed men,the commissary,the signal corps,the mail service,the railway transport,the provost marshal.On the outskirts of town were the remount depots where horses and mules milled about in large corrals,and along side streets were the hospitals.As Uncle Peter told her about them,Scarlett felt that Atlanta must be a city of the wounded,for there were general hospitals,contagious hospitals,convalescent hospitals without number.And every day the trains just below Five Points disgorged more sick and more wounded.
The little town was gone and the face of the rapidly growing city was animated with never-ceasing energy and bustle.The sight of so much hurrying made Scarlett,fresh from rural leisure and quiet,almost breathless,but she liked it.There was an exciting atmosphere about the place that uplifted her.It was as if she could actually feel the accelerated steady pulse of the town's heart beating in time with her own.
As they slowly made their way through the mudholes of the town's chief street,she noted with interest all the new buildings and the new faces.The sidewalks were crowded with men in uniform,bearing the insignia of all ranks and all service branches;the narrow street was jammed with vehicles—carriages,buggies,ambulances,covered army wagons with profane drivers swearing as the mules struggled through the ruts;gray-clad couriers dashed spattering through the streets from one headquarters to another,bearing orders and telegraphic dispatches;convalescents limped about on crutches,usually with a solicitous lady at either elbow;bugle and drum and barked orders sounded from the drill fields where the recruits were being turned into soldiers;and with her heart in her throat,Scarlett had her first sight of Yankee uniforms,as Uncle Peter pointed with his whip to a detachment of dejected-looking bluecoats being shepherded toward the depot by a squad of Confederates with fixed bayonets,to entrain for the prison camp.
“Oh,”thought Scarlett,with the first feeling of real pleasure she had experienced since the day of the barbecue,“I'm going to like it here!It's so alive and exciting!”
The town was even more alive than she realized,for there were new barrooms by the dozens;prostitutes,following the army,swarmed the town and bawdy houses were blossoming with women to the consternation of the church people.Every hotel,boarding house and private residence was crammed with visitors who had come to be near wounded relatives in the big Atlanta hospitals.There were parties and balls and bazaars every week and war weddings without number,with the grooms on furlough in bright gray and gold braid and the brides in blockade-run finery,aisles of crossed swords,toasts drunk in blockaded champagne and tearful farewells.
Nightly the dark tree-lined streets resounded with dancing feet,and from parlors tinkled pianos where soprano voices blended with those of soldier guests in the pleasing melancholy of “The Bugles Sang Truce”and “Your Letter Came,but Came Too Late”—plaintive ballads that brought exciting tears to soft eyes which had never known the tears of real grief.
As they progressed down the street,through the sucking mud,Scarlett bubbled over with questions and Peter answered them,pointing here and there with his whip,proud to display his knowledge.
“Dat air de arsenal.Yas'm,dey keeps guns an'sech lak dar.
