190 Norto Carotina Troops, 1861-’65.

young lad came riding into our camp with the news that
General McLaws’ lines had been broken and our entire forces
driven back that morning. Te stated that General McLaws
started a courier with the information that we were entirely
cut off from the command and to take care of ourselves the
best we could, but that he was captured. This boy made his
way through the lines and found us at this late hour. He was
not a moment too soon, for as we hurriedly marched out on
one side of the little village, the enemy’s cavalry was enter-
ing the other side. We were favored by the dark night and a
succession of impassable swamps through which the single
road had been constructed which made it possible, with a
small force to guard the passes against cavalry. A Lieutenant
and about ten men belonging to General Wheeler’s command
were with us doing courier and picket duty. When we com-
menced the retreat this officer told us to keep moving and he
would guarantee to hold them in check and allow us to escape
during the night. Tle was able to do this by taking advantage
of the narrow ridges between the succession of swamps. On
reaching one of these he would dismount his men, and when
the head of the column approached in the road, open fire. This
would check their movement, as the character of the country
was such that they could not leave the road. After remain-
ing as long as he deemed it safe and expedient, he would
mount his men and select another stand. The gallant young
Tennesseean faithfully carried out his pledge to us, but at the
cost of his own life, for at a late hour during the night, he was
shot dead in the saddle and his horse overtook us on the road
with rider lying upon his neck dead. He was taken off and
buried beside the road some distance from where he received
the fatal shot. After marching all night and the next day,
we struck the railroad at Bamburg. We found the station
deserted, but the telegraph office was open and the instru
ments in place. We tried the wires to Charleston and found
that the line had not yet been cut. General Hardee informed
us that the last train was expected over the road that night
with the remnant of Hood’s army, and if it succeeded in
reaching our station, to take possession of the train and run
through to Charleston if possible. We had only a short while

Firtreta REGIMENT. 191

to wait, but instead of going through to Charleston, on reach-
ing Branchville, we found our command, McLaws’ division,
camped beside the railroad, and we dismounted and were once
more at home, much to their surprise, as we had been reported
and given up as lost.

We now made a stand and fortified our position on the
Edisto river, but as usual the enemy, with his overwhelming
force of both infantry and cavalry, flanked our position, fore-
ing us to retire. We moved by way of Ridgeville, and on the
25th the Fiftieth North Carolina Regiment and Tenth North
Carolina Battalion, under Colonel Hardy, occupied Florence,
where all the rolling stock of the railroad south had been
collected, and also a large quantity of cotton stored. The
other portion of Hardee’s army was now concentrated at
Cheraw. Our brigade reached this place on 3 March as it
was being evacuated by General Hardee, and just in time to
eross the river. General Sherman writing to General Gil-
more: in reference to the destruction of the vast amount of
rolling stock between Sumterville and Florence, uses the fol-
lowing language: “I don’t feel disposed to be over-generous.
and should not hesitate to burn Charleston, Savannah and
Wilmington, or either of them, if the garrison were needed.
Those cars and locomotives should be destroyed, if to do it
costs you 500 men.”

This language, coupled with that used in his letter to Gen-
eral Grant, written from Savannah 28 December, 1864, in
which he expresses the desire “to have this army turned loose
on the State of South Carolina to devastate that State as it
has the State of Georgia,” reveals the character of the man,
and sufficiently accounts for the wanton destruction of prop-

erty, devastation and ruin which followed in the wake of his
army.

The history of this campaign, which ought to go down in
history as a disgrace to the civilization of the American Na-
tion, can be written in few words. The record of each day
from first to last was but the repetition of the day before,
when we could look back and see the homes of helpless women
and children ascending in smoke, while they were turned out
in the cold of mid-winter to starve and freeze. Since time