6th. Another clear, beautiful day. 1st Div. in yesterday. Saddled up at 4 A. M. Moved out to guard train at 6. Moved in rear of brigade at 9. Marched through a passage underneath the Virginia University. Rear guard. Marched all night. Halted every five minutes–burned many rails. Rather poor country.

March 6th.–A bright frosty morning. This day I am fifty-five years of age.

It is now reported that Gen. Early made his escape, and that most of his men have straggled into this city.

One body of Sheridan’s men are said to have been at Gordonsville yesterday, coming hitherward, while another were near Scottsville, aiming for the South Side Railroad.

The Adjutant-General, having granted furloughs to the returned prisoners two days ago, to-day revokes them. Will such vacillating policy conciliate the troops, and incite them to heroic deeds?

The President and his wife were at church yesterday; so they have not left the city; but Gen. Lee’s family, it is rumored, are packing up to leave.

I bought a quarter of a cord of oak wood this morning to mix with the green pine, and paid $55 for it.

Gen. Early’s cavalry, being mostly men of property, were two-thirds of them on furlough or detail, when the enemy advanced on Charlottesville; and the infantry, being poor, with no means either to bribe the authorities, to fee members of Congress, or to aid their suffering families, declined to fight in defense of the property of their rich and absent neighbors! We lost four guns beyond Charlottesville, and our forces were completely routed. [continue reading…]

March 6th, 1865.—The battle is on and since daylight we have been listening to the booming of cannon. Natural Bridge, where the two armies met, is only eighteen miles (as the crow flies) from Tallahassee and these big guns can be heard plainly. This is our first experience in warfare at first hand and I do not feel quite as bad as I expected. I am so hot with anger, I would like to take part in the fighting myself. Now, while I am scribbling this, we are waiting at the depot, for there are no telegraph lines, no way to hear from the battle except by courier or by train.

Mother has been sending the nicest lunches to us to be sent down to Natural Bridge, for distribution among the soldiers; others are doing this same thing and I hope none will go hungry. Dick Long rode in a few minutes ago with a dispatch for the Governor. Of course we do not know what it is but we will waylay the messenger on the return and, if possible, stop him long enough to hear the news. There he comes now. It was impossible to get anything out of Dick. He positively would not tell us one thing, except how well “Yannie” behaved in the fight. Then he and Yannie were off like a flash. Well, I suppose that is the way for a courier to do his part.

It is night, the battle is over and we have some news at last. God has been good to us and the enemy was completely routed, though we were outnumbered four to one. All the troops were negroes but the officers were white, if we had not been reinforced at the critical moment, things might have been different but a Regiment of Georgians rushed in and the enemy fled, not knowing how many more might be coming. We lost two men, Captain Simmons and a private whose name I have not yet ascertained. Poor Mrs. Simmons, she has a little two weeks’ old baby and has been very ill. After the terrible excitement of the last forty-eight hours Tallahassee should sleep well tonight.

We have a ten-mile ride before us but it would not be right to stay in town when Father and Mother will be anxious to hear the full account of the battle, before they sleep.

Susan Bradford is nearly 18 years old when this entry was made.

March 6th.–To-day came a godsend. Even a small piece of bread and the molasses had become things of the past. My larder was empty, when a tall mulatto woman brought a tray covered by a huge white serviette. Ellen ushered her in with a flourish, saying, “Mrs. McDaniel’s maid.” The maid set down the tray upon my bare table, and uncovered it with conscious pride. There were fowls ready for roasting, sausages, butter, bread, eggs, and preserves. I was dumb with delight. After silent thanks to heaven my powers of speech returned, and I exhausted myself in messages of gratitude to Mrs. McDaniel.

“Missis, you oughtn’t to let her see how glad you was,” said Ellen. “It was a lettin’ of yo’sef down.”

Mrs. Glover gave me some yarn, and I bought five dozen eggs with it from a wagon–eggs for Lent. To show that I have faith yet in humanity, I paid in advance in yarn for something to eat, which they promised to bring to-morrow. Had they rated their eggs at $100 a dozen in “Confederick” money, I would have paid it as readily as $10. But I haggle in yarn for the millionth part of a thread.

Two weeks have passed and the rumors from Columbia are still of the vaguest. No letter has come from there, no direct message, or messenger. “My God!” cried Dr. Frank Miles, “but it is strange. Can it be anything so dreadful they dare not tell us?” Dr. St. Julien Ravenel has grown pale and haggard with care. His wife and children were left there.

Dr. Brumby has at last been coaxed into selling me enough leather for the making of a pair of shoes, else I should have had to give up walking. He knew my father well. He intimated that in some way my father helped him through college. His own money had not sufficed, and so William C. Preston and my father advanced funds sufficient to let him be graduated. Then my uncle, Charles Miller, married his aunt. I listened in rapture, for all this tended to leniency in the leather business, and I bore off the leather gladly. When asked for Confederate money in trade I never stop to bargain. I give them $20 or $50 cheerfully for anything–either sum.

March 5, 1865.

The 17th and all our corps, except our division, have crossed the river. We follow in the morning. The enemy did not attempt to oppose us. The boys say that an intercepted dispatch from Hampton to General Butler reads: “Do not attempt to delay Sherman’s march by destroying bridges, or any other means. For God’s sake let him get out of the country as quickly as possible.” Were I one of the S. C. chivalry I’d be in favor of turning out en masse and building up roads for him.

We will get out of S. C. to-morrow. I have not been in a house in the State occupied by a citizen. Everything in Cheraw of any value to the enemy, including cotton and business houses, is going up in smoke. Hear to-day that Schofield is in Goldsboro or Fayetteville, N. C.

General Wood says we have 120 miles yet to make. You may give the credit of Wilmington, Charleston and Georgetown to whom you please, we know Sherman deserves it. We hear that that miserable Foster is claiming the glory over his capture of Charleston. We are yet pretty short of breadstuffs, but have plenty of meat. Sherman has been heard to say that this army can live on fresh meat alone for 30 days. I’d like to see it tried on him. We think to-day that Goldsboro is our resting place. You must understand that we don’t know anything at all about anything. Our foragers all went across the river this morning and got plenty of flour, meal and meat. They were out 11 miles and saw a few Rebels. The Rebels left seven cannon on the other side of the river, and burned a very large amount of commissary and ordnance stores.

Sunday, 5th–The First Division of the Seventeenth Corps crossed the river last evening after dark and drove the rebels back. Our engineers then laid the pontoons and the troops began crossing at once. Our brigade passed through the town and crossed the river at noon and then continued our march for seven miles, when we went into bivouac for the night. Cheraw was nearly all burned to the ground before our men left it. The rebels burned the bridge across the river and upon evacuating the town set fire to it, and our men burned what remained. We are in a rich country again and forage is plentiful.

March 5th. While on duty out in the lots and woods, we see many wild animals such as foxes, fox and gray squirrels. Some of the boys cannot resist the temptation to shoot them, which they dress and boil and eat. Our routine of duty is kept up.

5th. Sunday. Saddled up early but did not move out. One hundred men pulled down the burned bridges. More destruction of R. R. Went out with forage detail. Camped under the hill on which is the home of Thomas Jefferson. Rations and ammunition.

March 5. – I have just read President Lincoln’s second inaugural address. It only takes five minutes to read it but, oh, how much it contains.

The tender words with which President Lincoln closed this inaugural address were as follows:–

“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which in the Providence of God must needs come, but which having continued through the appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’

“With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right–let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation’s wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all the nations.”

March 5th.–Bright and cool; some frost this morning.

I saw an officer yesterday from Early’s command. He said the enemy entered Charlottesville on Friday at half-past two o’clock P.M., between 2000 and 3000 strong, cavalry, and had made no advance at the latest accounts. He says Gen. Early, when last seen, was flying, and pursued by some fifteen well-mounted Federals, only fifty paces in his rear. The general being a large heavy man, and badly mounted, was undoubtedly captured. He intimated that Early’s army consisted of only about 1000 men! Whether he had more elsewhere, I was unable to learn. I have not heard of any destruction of property by the enemy.

There is still an accredited rumor of the defeat of Sherman. Perhaps he may have been checked, and turned toward his supplies on the coast.

I learn by a paper from Gen. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance, that the machinery of the workshops here is being moved to Danville, Salisbury, and other places in North Carolina. He recommends that transportation be given the families of the operatives; and that houses be built for them, with permission to buy subsistence at government prices, for twelve months, that the mechanics may be contented and kept from deserting. This would rid the city of some thousands of its population, and be some measure of relief to those that remain. But how long will we be allowed to remain? All depends upon the operations in the field during the next few weeks–and these may depend upon the wisdom of those in possession of the government, which is now at a discount.

The Secretary of the Treasury is selling gold for Confederate States notes for reissue to meet pressing demands; the machinery for manufacturing paper money having just at present no certain abiding place. The government gives $1 of gold for sixty of its own paper; but were it to cease selling gold, it would command $100 for $1.

March 5th, 1865.—It seems we are not to be captured by McCook after all. Over the signal stations between the Light House and Tallahassee a message came this morning. Gunboats are around the light house and colored troops are landing and are now on the way to Tallahassee via Newport. Such excitement I never saw; Captain Brokaw called in the Home Guards and they came, from the farm, the stores, from all places, where old men were employed, they came hurrying in. Soldiers at home on furlough, (there are very few of these) came forward to take their places in the ranks of Tallahassee’s defenders. The cadets from the seminary, west of the Suwanee, offered their services and there was even some talk of a company of women, to organize and help to hold the enemy at bay. It is four o’clock now and these hastily marshalled troops are gone. Tallahassee waits, waits for news of the morrow.

Susan Bradford is nearly 18 years old when this entry was made.

March 5th.–Is the sea drying up? Is it going up into mist and coming down on us in a water-spout? The rain, it raineth every day. The weather typifies our tearful despair, on a large scale. It is also Lent now–a quite convenient custom, for we, in truth, have nothing to eat. So we fast and pray, and go dragging to church like drowned rats to be preached at.

My letter from my husband was so–well, what in a woman you would call heart-broken, that I began to get ready for a run up to Charlotte. My hat was on my head, my traveling-bag in my hand, and Ellen was saying “Which umbrella, ma’am?” “Stop, Ellen,” said I, “someone is speaking out there.” A tap came at the door, and Miss McLean threw the door wide open as she said in a triumphant voice: “Permit me to announce General Chesnut.” As she went off she sang out, “Oh, does not a meeting like this make amends?”

We went after luncheon to see Mrs. Munroe. My husband wanted to thank her for all her kindness to me. I was awfully proud of him. I used to think that everybody had the air and manners of a gentleman. I know now that these accomplishments are things to thank God for. Father O’Connell came in, fresh from Columbia, and with news at last. Sherman’s men had burned the convent. Mrs. Munroe had pinned her faith to Sherman because he was a Roman Catholic, but Father O’Connell was there and saw it. The nuns and girls marched to the old Hampton house (Mrs. Preston’s now), and so saved it. They walked between files of soldiers. Men were rolling tar barrels and lighting torches to fling on the house when the nuns came. Columbia is but dust and ashes, burned to the ground. Men, women, and children have been left there homeless, houseless, and without one particle of food–reduced to picking up corn that was left by Sherman’s horses on picket grounds and parching it to stay their hunger.

How kind my friends were on this, my fête day! Mrs. Rutledge sent me a plate of biscuit; Mrs. Munroe, nearly enough food supplies for an entire dinner; Miss McLean a cake for dessert. Ellen cooked and served up the material happily at hand very nicely, indeed. There never was a more successful dinner. My heart was too full to eat, but I was quiet and calm; at least I spared my husband the trial of a broken voice and tears. As he stood at the window, with his back to the room, he said: “Where are they now– my old blind father and my sister? Day and night I see her leading him out from under his own rooftree. That picture pursues me persistently. But come, let us talk of pleasanter things.” To which I answered, “Where will you find them?”

He took off his heavy cavalry boots and Ellen carried them away to wash the mud off and dry them. She brought them back just as Miss Middleton walked in. In his agony, while struggling with those huge boots and trying to get them on, he spoke to her volubly in French. She turned away from him instantly, as she saw his shoeless plight, and said to me, “I had not heard of your happiness. I did not know the General was here.” Not until next day did we have time to remember and laugh at that outbreak of French. Miss Middleton answered him in the same language. He told her how charmed he was with my surroundings, and that he would go away with a much lighter heart since he had seen the kind people with whom he would leave me.

I asked my husband what that correspondence between Sherman and Hampton meant–this while I was preparing something for our dinner. His back was still turned as he gazed out of the window. He spoke in the low and steady [continue reading…]

Cheraw, S. C., March 4, 1865.

We were from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on this little five miles. The 17th have their pontoons down and have a division across. Hear that the enemy is fortified a short distance back from the river. Can hear no firing. Our foragers took Society Hill last night.

This is a very pretty place, about the size of Canton.

The river, Great Peedee, is navigable for boats drawing five feet. The left wing is at Chesterfield 12 miles above. There is an immense amount of cotton here. Noticed guards on it, and some think it is to be sent down the river. A thousand mounted men are to start from here to-morrow (from our corps, and it is said the same number from each corps) for—somewhere—rumor says, to release 8,000 of our prisoners at Florence. Our wounded men are all doing splendidly.

Saturday, 4th–We remained in bivouac all day. The Fifteenth Corps just came in on a road to our left and is to cross the Pedee ahead of the Seventeenth. The rebel skirmishers are just across the river and our skirmishers are keeping up a lively fusillade. Our engineers cannot lay the pontoons so long as the rebels are on the opposite bank of the river and the plan is to send a detachment above or below and cross the river after dark, and flank them. The foragers of the Seventeenth Corps were put in command of the colonel of the Ninth Illinois today and sent out on a raid to Society Hill, fifteen miles south of Cheraw on the railroad. They captured and destroyed two trains of cars loaded with ammunition and provisions, and then tore up the tracks for some miles and burned everything in town that would burn.

March 4th. A camp has been located a short distance north of ours. Reported that General Hancock will organize a veterans’ corps at this point. It will be composed of men who have been in the service and wish to re-enlist. All is quiet in our camp.

4th. Yesterday moved on to Charlottesville and burned three heavy bridges on Va. Central. Awful roads. Rainy still. Camped at C. Nice place. Burned bridges. Went out on Lynchburg road and tore up track. Clear and pleasant. Worked hard. Went back to old camp. Plenty of forage. Slept well.

March 4th.–Raining hard, and warm. We have vague reports of Early’s defeat in the Valley by an overwhelming force; and the gloom and despondency among the people are in accordance with the hue of the constantly-occurring disasters.

Brig.-Gen. J. Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance, has been rebuked by Gen. Lee for constantly striving to get mechanics out of the service. Gen. Lee says the time has arrived when the necessity of having able-bodied men in the field is paramount to all other considerations.

Brig.-Gen. Preston (Bureau of Conscription) takes issue with Gen. Lee on the best mode of sending back deserters to the field. He says there are at this time 100,000 deserters!

C. Lamar, Bath, S. C., writes to the President that ––, a bonded farmer, secretly removed his meat and then burnt his smoke-house, conveying the impression that all his meat was destroyed. The President sends this to the Secretary of War with the following indorsement: “For attention–this example shows the vice of class exemption, as well as the practices resorted to to avoid yielding supplies to the government.” [continue reading…]

March 4th, 1865.—We went yesterday and it was just too funny. Jordan came to the door at eight o’clock and sent Robert in, to tell us he was ready to take us to town. We were sitting at breakfast table but made haste to go and when we reached the carriage, Sister Mart declared she would not ride behind such a team. She was willing to ride behind mules, but not such mules as those which had been selected. Father said these were the only perfectly safe ones and we must use them. It was fun enough to watch those mules. One is a large yellow mule, quite the largest I have ever seen, the other is a very small one, rejoicing in the name of “Kits.” She is of a shiny black contrasting well with Robert’s dirt-colored sides. “Kits” and “Robert,” in place of the sleek, satiny steeds of two days ago. Kits has a striking peculiarity, she has unusually long ears and they always point in opposite directions. Jordan had attempted to make the harness fit but it did not speak well for his skill. At last Sister Mart was induced to get in the carriage and off we went. Our team traveled well and we were becoming somewhat reconciled, when we reached town and were opposite the postoffice. Here our new horses (?) met a wagon from Horse-shoe Plantation, drawn by some of their acquaintances. Such a greeting as they gave them, such braying, such rapid movements of Kit’s long ears and the answer from the plantation team, woke the echoes. By this time a crowd had collected and Sister Mart burst into tears. I was sorry for her but my sympathies are mostly for Mother. She, for the first time in her life has no horses. I understand that Mother’s pets are to serve in Houstoun’s Battery.
Every day brings us news of fresh atrocities in Georgia. We come next, what our fate will be none may know. Last week, near La Grange, an old gentleman, over eighty, was taken from his home and carried miles away to a swamp. Here he was found two days later, bound hand and foot to a sapling, which had been bent and allowed to spring back. The poor old man was almost dead when he was cut down and died before they reached a place where a doctor could be had. This gentleman’s only offense was, that he would not tell where his daughter’s jewels were hidden, she was not at home and when she returned she found her house in ashes and her father dead. Why cannot the Yankees act in an honorable manner as General Lee’s men do?

Susan Bradford is nearly 18 years old when this entry was made.

Five miles south of Cheraw, S. C, March 3, 1865.

General Wood says we have made 24 miles to-day. Our whole corps on one road and hardly a check all day. This is Thompson’s Creek, and the Rebels under Hardee thoroughly fortified it. Logan’s orders are to carry the works to-morrow, but as usual the Rebels have left. The 17th A. C. took Cheraw this p.m. without a fight, getting 27 pieces of field artillery, 3,000 stands of small arms, besides a great deal of forage.

There were only two or three small farms on the road today. Poorest country I have seen yet. An intelligent prisoner captured to-day says that Kilpatrick has taken Charlotte, N. C., and that Lee is evacuating Richmond. Saw the sun to-day; had almost forgotten there was such a luminary.

Friday, 3rd–It is still raining. We left our dismal camp at 7 a. m. and marched eleven miles, going into bivouac near Cheraw. The First Division of the Seventeenth Corps drove the rebels out of their works on Thompson creek and on through Cheraw and across the Great Pedee river. They captured seventeen cannon, three thousand stand of small arms and a number of prisoners. Cheraw is quite a business town and had been a manufacturing center for the rebel army. It is at the head of navigation on the Great Pedee river and has a railroad running to Charleston, South Carolina.

March 3d.–Raining and cold. This morning there was another arrival of our prisoners on parol, and not yet exchanged. Many thousands have arrived this week, and many more are on the way. How shall we feed them? Will they compel the evacuation of the city? I hope not. Capt. Warner, Commissary-General, is here again; and if assigned to duty, has sufficient business qualifications to collect supplies.

Thank God, I have some 300 pounds of flour and half that amount of meal–bread rations for my family, seven in number, for more than two months! I have but 7 ½ pounds of meat; but we can live without it, as we have often done. I have a bushel of peas also, and coal and wood for a month. This is a guarantee against immediate starvation, should the famine become more rigorous, upon which we may felicitate ourselves.

Our nominal income has been increased; amounting now to some $16,000 in paper–less than $300 in specie. But, for the next six months (if we can stay here), our rent will be only $75 per month–a little over one dollar; and servant hire, $40–less than eighty cents.

It is rumored that Gen. Early has been beaten again at Waynesborough, and that the enemy have reached Charlottesville for the first time. Thus it seems our downward career continues. We must have a victory soon, else Virginia is irretrievably lost.

Two P.M. The wind has shifted to the south; warm showers.

Three P.M. It is said they are fighting at Gordonsville; whether or not the enemy have Charlottesville is therefore uncertain. I presume it is an advance of Sheridan’s cavalry whom our troops have engaged at Gordonsville.

New Market, S. C., March 2, 1865.

A disagreeable, half drizzle, half sprinkle, all last night and to-day. Our brigade in advance and made 10 miles. Poor country, but pretty well settled. Many of the men have had no breadstuffs for three days. They drew two days of hardbread February 18th, and have foraged everything else we have had since. Don’t know when we draw again. Still have our 8 days of “tack” in the wagons. We will get plenty of forage again to-morrow. Can hear nothing of the enemy. We left Darlington 20 miles on our right to-day and will probably strike the Peedee near Society Hill.

Thursday, 2d–Still in camp. It was misty all day. One of our rebel prisoners was shot today at corps headquarters. He had to pay the penalty for the rebels’ treatment of one of our men, from Company H, Thirty-fourth Illinois, whom they held as a prisoner and shot without provocation. When the prisoners at our headquarters were told that one of them had to pay the penalty, they drew lots, and it fell to a middle-aged man to die. The man was given time to write a letter to his family and then after bidding his comrades farewell, he was led out and shot.

2nd. Thursday. Commenced to rain early. Our div. in advance. Massed just before reaching S. Reached our old camp at Waynesboro at 3 P. M. The Va. Brigade formed mounted. We formed dismounted. Went out where we could see the rebel line on a hill and in the woods, running almost around W. 2nd Ohio in advance as skirmishers. Forward was given and the 2nd went forward until it carried the woods and the hill, driving the Johnnies pell-mell. I was mounted and went in on the muscle, when the rebs gave way. Took a great many prisoners myself. Captured 1,300 prisoners, 10 guns and 150 wagons and 10 stands of colors. Advance charged through the gap and burned a heavy amount of supplies at Greenville. Gen. Early barely escaped capture. It is a wonder to me how the boys stood it so well. Gen. Custer gave us great credit. Camped just through the gap. Raining.