590 NortH Caro.tina Troops, 1861-’65.

Sumpter, on Morris Island near Battery Wagner. For
month and months he and his fellow prisoners were almost
starved to death, his only rations being one pint of spoiled
meal and one pickle per day by orders of one Col. Holiday.
And thus, by his imprisonment, he suffered for the South
far more than many in our ranks.

At Jack’s Shop, Lemuel Johnston Bailey, of Company
H, was also captured and died of typhoid fever at Point Look-
out, 7 January, 1864. He was a school boy soldier, bright
and beautiful, brother of Thos. B. Bailey, of Mocksville. Of
all the young lives willingly laid as sacrifices of love on the
altar of the South, none was better, or braver, or purer than
Lem. Bailey’s.

One long night and the following day in December, 1863,
a boy picket stood out in the bitter. cold watching Jacob’s
ford on the Rapidan. There was near to his right a house
on the overlooking hill, evidently once a prosperous, happy
home, but now a very “bleak house,” all desolate and shorn
by war of every comfort, only the bare necessaries of life
left. In the afternoon of that day, a woman, most
plainly dressed in deep mourning, with all the tender-
ness and refinement of the best Southern womanhood
about her, came from that house to that picket, and, after
being halted and readily allowed to approach, she took from
its cover a plate on which was only a small bit of corn bread,
a little piece of fat bacon, just about the size of the first two
fingers together of a man’s hand, and some parsnips, all beau-
tifully neat and perfectly cooked, and then said: “I have
been noticing you down here all day; you made me think of
my boy, who is in our army, and to whom some other
mother will be kind, as we all love to be to our soldiers, and I
came to bring you a part of our little dinner.” With a royal
sense of true propriety and politeness, she uttered not a word
of apology for the “little dinner,” not a word of explanation
about the war’s ravages, but all was said and done with the
sublime grace of a Southern mother courageously confronting
cruel calamity. This little incident is recorded here that
it may be known that, way off on the outposts, in the en-
emy’s pitiless presence, the Southern woman never abated her

 

Srxty-Tuirp REGIMENT. 591

love and loyalty to the South and the Southern soldier, which
fact, all through the war, was the truest and strongest inspira-
tion of that soldier’s valor and virtue.

“God bless the Women of the South.”

CAMPAIGN OF 1864.—nrEASSEMBLING AND RETURN TO RICH-
MOND.

The regiment temporarily disbanded at Henderson, N. C.,
in March, 1864, that each man might go to his home for a
new horse, or the recuperation of the one he had and himself.
This was a wise and economical act on the part of our pov-
erty-stricken and staggering Confederate Government. It
was a great and helpful blessing to our war-wearied men and
animals. It must be borne in mind and always remembered
that the Confederate cavalryman furnished his own horse
and never received nor expected pay for his loss, unless he
was “actually killed in battle or died of wounds” received in
battle. It was so written in the bond of our agreement of
love.

After a stay, all too short, at our respective homes until
about 15 April, each man of the regiment reported in person
with his horse to his own Captain at some place designated,
when we parted at Henderson, and from that place we
marched, by companies, to Richmond, Va., and reunited as a
regiment in splendid condition and numbering over 500 ef-
fective mounted men and officers.

ORDERS TO REPORT.

At Richmond we received the following “orders,” and im-
mediately acted thereon:

“AysUTANT AND INSPECTOR GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Richmond, 2 May, 1864.
Special Orders No. 102.

The Fifth Regiment, North Carolina Cavalry, now in tem-
porary service near this city, will immediately proceed to
the headquarters Army of Northern Virginia and report to
General R. E. Lee, commanding, etc., for assignment to duty
with Brigadier-General Gordon’s Brigade.” Vol. 68, p. 940.

General Lee’s headquarters, when we reported, were near