388 NortH CaroLina Troops, 1861-’65.

bers and resources of General Grant, or add to the depleted
ranks and supplies of General Lee. Mr. Blair, who opened
the matter on the Federal side, gave no encouragement to in-
sert in the Confederate commission the clause: “and to secure
peace to the two countries,” and Mr. Lincoln’s surprise at
finding it there is manifest in his special message to Con-
gress.

Through January and February there was bitter weather,
with rain, sleet and snow. There was some comfort in the
bomb-proofs with a coal fire, which often had to be started
with nothing but a match and freshly cut green pine wood.
With pocket knives we would whittle a lot of shavings, very
thin, perseveringly dry these in the blaze until they would
ignite, and thus eventually get a starter upon which to put
the coal, occasionally at last to have the chimney knocked in
by a shrapnel shell, if it protruded at all, after becoming a
better target with its smoke.

Furloughs were cut off unusually early by the failure of
the Peace Commission, if such it can be called. And even
before that any officer returning after the expiration of his
leave, must report in person to General Lee. Means of
transportation were limited. On some lines there were tri-
weekly trains, which the ever ready Vance facetiously said,
meant that the train went up the road one week, and tried to
get back the next. At Greensboro the writer returning with
two Virginia ladies, managed to get them on a train exclu-
sively for the Confederate Treasury girls fleeing before Sher-
man from Columbia for Richmond; but the guard was inex-
orable against their escort. His time was up next day, and
this the last chance to make it. The ladies kindly smuggled
him in at a window about the centre of the car, and thus he
kept his record.

The crisis was evidently approaching. In the army op-
posed to us were not only white men from this and other coun-
tries, but the colored troops alone within the call of its com-
manding officer for the next campaign, were not less than 150
regiments; more than our effective present, as given above.
The States claimed by us as Confederate had contributed to
the Union armies 350,000 men. First and last, the Confeder-

Firty-Sixta REGIMENT. 389

ate soldiers actually in the field were hardly more than dou-
ble that; while the other soldiers brought out from the North
and West, were six times as many. Truly the North was in
earnest at last, and many men whovhad admitted the Consti-
tutional right of a dissatisfied State to secede, were in the
front fighting for the Union, just as on the Southern side the
strongest original Union men, with the old cry: “Blood is
thicker than water,’ were now in to the finish to help their
neighbors out of a difficulty with “the last man and the last
dollar.” These had been Mr. Holden’s pledge, when he
signed the Ordinance of Secession 20 May, 1761, and our in-
imitable Vance alluded to it when taken to Washington by
his captors; saying: ‘We have spent the last dollar, and I
have come on as the last man.”

Some idea of the status of our money is shown when it is
stated that at Christmas, 1864, the writer obtained as a spe-
cial favor, at $125.00 a side of calf-skin out of which to have
a pair of boots made. The lowest water-mark reached by
Federal currency was $2.56 for $1.00, some time prior to
Gettysburg and Vicksburg, occurring the first week in July,
1863. Meal was now $50 per bushel and flour $700 per bar-
rel, reported by Mr. Davis as prices then paid by the Govern-
ment. He thereupon submitted a proposition to try to bor-
row gold, and make specie payments.

RELIEF ON HATCHER’S RUN.

15 March. We were relieved by Gordon’s Corps, and
Ransom’s Brigade (probably with the rest of Johnson’s Divis-
ion in their vicinity,) moved out to the extreme right on
Hatcher’s Run. The change from living in the ditches
and sleeping in bomb-proofs, is very much enjoyed. The
days are occupied by guard-mounts, company and squad
drills in the forenoon, and battalion drill and dress parade
in the afternoon. Nine days pass without the enemy’s front
persistently protruding beyond our right flank. We must
go back and wake him up.

24 March. While in the execution of battalion evolutions
on the drill grounds, a courier rides up and delivers a dis-
patch to the commanding officer, Major John W. Graham.