MARCHING ACROSS CAROLINA 
 
 
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THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF 
 NORTH CAROLINIANA 
 
 ENDOWED BY 
 
 JOHN SPRUNT HILL 
 
 CLASS OF 1889 
 
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 READ BEFORE THE 
 
 Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion 
 
 MAY 2D, 1883 
 
 M. F. FORCE 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 
 Eobert Clarke & Co., Printers 
 
 1883 
 
— 
 
 CINCINNA'J* 
 
 
 — 
 
MARCHING ACROSS CAROLINA. 
 
 The commander, in assigning to me the duty of prepar- 
 ing a paper for this evening, said : "We want personal 
 reminiscences ; we want each man who writes to tell what 
 he himself saw, and to use the pronoun I freely.''" 
 
 I marched across the Carolinas, commanding the Third 
 Division, Seventeenth Corps (General Leggett having been 
 sent home from Pocotaligo by the surgeons, too ill to go 
 on), and can tell somewhat about that. The two striking 
 features of the campaign were, the way the army marched 
 and the way it was supplied. I will not attempt to give a 
 narrative of the campaign, but only some notes of marching 
 and foraging. 
 
 Though there was not much fighting in the campaign, 
 General Sherman considered it in some respects his most 
 notable achievement. He told me that General Joseph 
 Johnston had said to him, " My engineer officers all re- 
 ported that it was absolutely impossible for an arrnj' to 
 march across the lower portions of the state in winter, and 
 I took it for granted that you would not attempt to ad- 
 vance, unless across the upper hill section of the state." 
 
 The soil melts away under rain. Even where the sur- 
 face looks firm and solid, as in a forest, wagon-wheels 
 would sometimes break through and sink to the hubs. The 
 sluggish rivers, swollen with winter rains, spread far beyond 
 their borders, branching into several, sometimes into a 
 dozen channels, creeping through a wide belt of swamp. 
 
 Instead of finding streams with well defined, solid banks, 
 we came upon tangled swamps, miles across, dense with 
 
 3 
 
trees, vines and thickets, and meandering through them 
 the many channels of icy water. The regular crossing over 
 them is by roads, at long intervals, built through the swamp 
 on a raised causeway, with bridges over the streams. As 
 every crossing was defended by batteries which swept it, 
 advance over the causeway was impossible. Sometimes a 
 place above or below could be found where the streams 
 were all fordable, and the troops could wade through them 
 as well as the swamp. Sometimes the men waded the' 
 swamp and bridged the streams. Sometimes we were for- 
 tunate enough to find a place where all the streams united 
 in one channel,. with a firm bank on our side and swamp 
 beyond. There we could lay pontoons and cross. Always, 
 to the very last, we crossed unobserved, and the enemy, 
 surprised to see a line of battle emerge from the woods on 
 their flank, abandoned their works precipitately and fell 
 hack behind the next river. We would rebuild the burned 
 bridges, move the trains over the regular road, and pursue. 
 Pursuit, though steady and unremitting, could not be 
 swift. The four army corps had together 2,000 wagons in 
 their trains, and batteries and ambulances equal to 500 
 more. These, on good roads, would take up twenty-five 
 miles. It was necessary, and it was the practice, for each 
 corps to march upon a separate road. Even 500 wagons, 
 with batteries and ambulances, struggling through a quag- 
 mire, will stretch out over the length of a day's march. To 
 still shorten each corps columu, roads were reserved exclus- 
 ively for wheels, troops marched along side, but outside, of 
 the road. It rained most of the time, day and night. The soft 
 soil was cut and churned by the trains till the wagon beds 
 would rest on the surface, finding no support from the 
 buried wheels ; even the mules became discouraged. We 
 had to build roads to travel over. Every division had a reg- 
 ularly organized pioneer corps, which toiled all day build- 
 ing road and bridges. Every brigade had au organized 
 pioneer party to clear a way for the troops and help at 
 
times in repairing the road. Parties were detailed every 
 day to lift wagons up out of the mud, when the teams 
 could not pull them through. Sometimes a regiment, some- 
 times a brigade, was turned into a pioneer detail to aid in 
 building road and causeway. 
 
 With all this toil, the column was late in getting into 
 camp. Often it was on the road all night, and the rear 
 would arrive in the morning to see the front moving off 
 on the next day's march. To insure the posting of the 
 camp picket guard, and allow the men to go to sleep at 
 once on reaching camp undisturbed by apprehension of de- 
 tail, I had the picket for the coming night detailed to re- 
 port every morning before leaving camp. The detail of 
 each brigade marched at the head of the brigade, served as 
 advance party and skirmishers through the day; and, in 
 the afternoon, when word came for the proper staff officers 
 to report to the corps officers at the head of the column, to 
 ride foi'ward and lay out the ground for camp, the picket 
 details were detached, moved forward, passing the col- 
 umn, and reached the camp ground in time to be posted by 
 daylight. 
 
 While wagon roads were repaired, railroads were de- 
 stroyed. It had been found in Georgia that rails merely 
 bent could be straightened in rolling mills. Hence, in 
 Carolina, General Sherman required every rail to be spi- 
 rally twisted. 
 
 There was an engineer regiment provided with imple- 
 ments for the purpose. Other troops would bind a railroad 
 chair to the end of a telegraph pole, with telegraph wire. 
 When a rail was softened with heat, one such chair was 
 clamped to each end of the rail; and parties, pulling at the 
 poles as levers in opposite directions, twisted the rails to the 
 semblance of great sticks of taffy. One day, a detachment 
 — regiment or brigade — shirked this work, simply bending 
 the rails in the old way. When this was discovered, they 
 were sent back to do the work over again. The railroad 
 
ties being already burned, and the cooled rails bent into 
 chaotic shapes, this task was much more difficult than it 
 had been in the beginning. 
 
 Perhaps a few details will aid this general statement. 
 On the 5th of January the First Brigade of the Third Di- 
 vision, then encamped outside of Savannah, received unex- 
 pectedly an order at 2J p. m. to march -to Thunderbolt and 
 take transports for Port lioyal Island. At five minutes 
 before 3 camps were struck and troops in line, awaiting the 
 order to march. "We reached Beaufort, and marched out 
 of town and bivouacked by the shore. As no baggage was 
 taken along, officers had no shelter. There was no fire- 
 wood. A chill wind from the ocean reached our very mar- 
 row. When night came my servant found a hole in the 
 ground, like a shallow grave. Hungry and cold, I was glad 
 to find in this hole a bed sheltered from the wind ; but be- 
 fore morning I awoke to find a rain had come on, and 1 was 
 wallowing in water. 
 
 On the 6th, the entire division being in bivouac with- 
 out wagons, order to move was received at 2 p. M., and in 
 fifteen minutes both brigades were packed, formed and 
 moving. 
 
 The Seventeenth Corps moved to the main land by 
 pontoons and pushed out to Pocotaligo, skirmishing on the 
 w r ay and pushing the enemy out of the massive entrench- 
 ments and redoubts that blocked the road in places. Here 
 the Seventeenth Corps lay till the 30th of January, filling 
 trains, receiving recruits, sending home the sick, etc., while 
 the other three corps, near the Savannah river, were strung 
 on dykes or huddled on knobs of earth, amid a waste of 
 water, waiting for land to become visible. 
 
 February 9th, it froze all day. The corps reached Bin- 
 naker's Bridge over the South Fork of the Edisto, to find 
 it burned and the crossing defended by earthworks. Mow- 
 er's division being in front, crossed below in boats and found 
 the farther side of the river was an extensive swamp, where 
 
the water was waist deep. The Third Division arrived and 
 went into camp a little before midnight. While the men 
 were cooking supper, order came to me to go to the support 
 of Mower. Coffee was poured out of the tins and the col- 
 umn was in march in a few minutes. Near the river I met 
 General Mower returning in person to report. His frozen 
 overcoat crackled as he rode. He had marched half a mile 
 through the swamp to firm land, and the lines of steel 
 gleaming in the moonlight, as they emerged from the forest, 
 was the first warning to the enemy that their position was 
 turned. 
 
 On the 23d of February, the Third Division, forming 
 rear of the corps, came to halt two miles from the Wateree. 
 The river was so swollen from the rains that the pontoons 
 of a single corps could not bridge it. The Fifteenth Corps 
 joined its pontoons to those of the Seventeenth and crossed 
 over first. Rains came on, when I halted. I had to keep 
 the division deployed as rear guard to cover the crossing 
 .against possible attack. 
 
 The pontoon bridge became slippery with accumulating 
 mud. The column of troops and trains kept passing on. I 
 kept on contracting my line nearer to the river, till, at 11 
 p. M., the Third Division began to cross. A wagon slipped 
 off the bridge, broke a boat, and made a delay of two 
 hours. At 4:30 a. m. I rode over and floundered one or two 
 miles through the mud to where the flies of Division Head- 
 quarters (no tents were allowed on the march) were pitched. 
 It was daylight. Cramped with sitting in the saddle nearly 
 twenty-four hours, most of the time in rain, I dismounted, 
 roused the pioneers, and sent them forward to repair the 
 road, and dozed in a chair while breakfast was making. 
 The rear of the division was over by 9 a. m.; the bridge 
 taken up by 11 a. m. 
 
 Being charged with the safety of the pontoon train, I 
 went into camp at night, eight miles in the rear of the rest 
 of the corps, and the pontoon train camped three miles in 
 
8 
 
 my rear. It rained all night and all next day. The coun- 
 try was swimming with water. Brooks had become tor- 
 rents scarcely fordable. The road floated off wood laid on 
 it for corduroy. The entire Second Brigade was turned 
 into a pioneer party to build a new road, and the First 
 Brigade to lift wagons out of the mud. Four solid miles 
 of corduroy were laid, and after a march of twelve miles I 
 crossed Flatrock creek, and went into camp ten miles in the 
 rear of the rest of the corps, and sent back two regiments 
 to guard the pontoon train, which had to halt Ave miles in 
 my rear. 
 
 It rained all night; but, favored next day with good 
 road aud good weather, we came upon the rear of the other 
 divisions of the corps in the afternoon. They had been all 
 day getting their traius over Little Lynch's creek, at 
 Hough's bridge. The creek had spread far beyond its 
 banks. The bridge stood apparently in the middle of a 
 lake. Great care was required to move over the submerged 
 road and strike the bridge. The trains in front were out 
 of my way by 6 p. m. The water was subsiding, but it was 
 not safe to urge the trains, in the blackness of the night, 
 one hundred aud fifty yards through the water to strike the 
 bridge over a roaring torrent. The night was spent in 
 building a causeway out to the bridge, and before daylight 
 the march was resumed. 
 
 JSText day at 2 p. m. we overtook the other division at 
 Young's bridge, over Lynch's creek. Here was such an 
 overflow that 1,500 officers and men, so it was reported to 
 me at the time, spent the day in the water, building one and 
 a half mile of causeway aud bridges over the overflowed 
 land. I started my trains over this bridge at 11 p. m. and 
 moved the troops across next morning at 6:30 a. m. On the 
 8th of March the Third Division was the head of the col- 
 umn, and marched seventeen miles, and was quick enough 
 to save Campbell's bridge, over Lumber river, which tbe 
 enemy tried to destroy. The entries in my diary are: 
 
"Kainecl all day. Road through swamps half the way. 
 Worst marching for troops I ever saw ; had to wade much 
 of the time, aud scramble through wet trees nearly all the 
 time, and tread narrow passages mixed with wagons." 
 
 On the 9th the division marched twelve miles, crossing 
 Long swamp, Richland creek, Mill swamp and Raft swamp. 
 Began to rain at 2 p. m. and poured till in the night. 
 
 The head of the division reached camp at 4 p. M.; the 
 rear of the train got in at 2:30 next morning. "By that 
 time," says my journal, "the roads were running and the 
 corduroy laid, all floating. Men had to wade up to their 
 hips and waists." 
 
 On the 15th it was again the turn of the Third Divis- 
 ion to be in front. On the preceding night I obtained Gen- 
 eral Blair's permission to send all the division but two regi- 
 ments forward, passing by the train of the division in front 
 of me, so that they reached camp by 11 p. M. I brought 
 those two regiments forward to the head of my train, with 
 which they reached camp at 1 A. M. Finding the greater 
 part of the train in at 2:30 a. m., I went to bed. The rear, 
 however, came into camp just as I was moving out in the 
 morning. 
 
 I read from my journal of the 15th and 16th of March 
 — 15th: "Thunder-storm at noon ; killed one and severely 
 injured two men of the Seventy-eighth Ohio in an open 
 field. Rained after that all day and all night. Soil melted 
 like sugar. Laid three miles of corduroy ; much floated off 
 and had toberelaid; men had to staud on it to keep it in 
 place; wagons kept sticking; men toiled terribly. At 2 
 A. M. a detail was trying at a wagon; as they by main 
 strength lifted it up the mules drew it away, and left the 
 two rows of men pressed down, sticking in the mud. They 
 shouted, ' Send a detail to pull these mules out.' I came to 
 camp at 3 A. M. to go to bed. None of the Second Brigade 
 in yet. Sixteenth : At 5 a. m. sent two regiments that had 
 had some sleep to the help of the Second Brigade, still 
 
10 
 
 struggling with their section of the train ; the ranles all dis- 
 pirited ; all in by 9 a. m. Sent the Twelfth "Wisconsin to 
 help pontoon train over South river. Fourth Division 
 worked all night building a bridge over South river. It 
 rained all day. 'Crossed the bridge at 7p.m. The country 
 was one sheet of water ; the road a canal. Marched six miles, 
 crossed a bridge not burned, and went into camp. Went 
 to bed at 3 a. m. Half the rear section of the train, guarded 
 by the First Brigade, was not yet in. This night I slept 
 in a house. Seventeenth : The Twelfth Wisconsin brought 
 in the rear of the train at 6 a. m., and moved at 7 a. m." 
 
 Ou the 18th the day was fine and the first part of the 
 road good. The last half of the road had to be corduroyed 
 almost without a break. Fortunately the pioneer battalion 
 of the army happened to be with the Seventeenth Corps, 
 and the entire battalion, five hundred men, with fit tools, 
 was set to work to aid the division and brigade pioneers. 
 Then regiments were detailed till five regiments were at 
 work. This happy day the entire division was in camp by 
 sunset ; a camp in clean, fine woods, with streams of water 
 in front and forage at hand. This happy day I issued in 
 the morning an entire day's ration of hard bread. 
 
 On this march, 432 miles, ending at Goldsboro, and 
 made in fifty-four days, the Third Division, according to 
 report of the Division Engineer, constructed 15 miles and 
 1,353 yards corduroy road for wagons ; 122 miles 627 yards 
 of side road for troops; 303 yards of small bridges where 
 pontoons could not be used ; 1 mile and 520 yards of in- 
 fantry intrenchment ; one battery for 2 guns, another for 
 3 guns ; and destroyed 14 miles 800 yards of railway, heat- 
 ing and twisting spirally every rail. Wading and pushing 
 through thickets, night and day, wore out the shoes, tore 
 away clothing, and carried off hats. On the 19th of March, 
 wagons left behind at Fayetteville for supplies expected up 
 the river, overtook us. That day I issued to the division 494 
 pairs of shoes, yet 172 men were still left entirely barefoot. 
 
11 
 
 When we approached Goldsboro, General Sherman 
 sent word out to move wagons out of the road, close up 
 the troops, and pass in column before him. General Scho- 
 field, I think, also General Cox, stood with General Sherman 
 and General Blair as the Seventeenth Corps passed. The 
 men were in motley garb — bare feet, bare legs, tattered coats, 
 felt hats, beavers, straw hats — every known style of head 
 covering was seen. But they marched buoyantly, with 
 precise ranks, and elastic tread. General Blair said : " See 
 those poor fellows with bare legs." General Sherman said : 
 "Splendid legs! splendid legs! I would give both mine 
 for any one of them ! " 
 
 Foraging ' was a vital necessity in this campaign. 
 The foragers, called " Sherman's Bummers," performed 
 a service without which the army could not have ad- 
 vanced. The march from Pocotaligo to Goldsboro took 
 fifty-four days. The Third Division had, at starting, 
 in wagons and haversacks, twenty-five days' rations of 
 hard bread, thirty days of coffee, and some sugar and 
 salt. Wagous and haversacks together could carry no 
 more. Not a pound of meat was carried in the wagons. 
 Some cattle were taken along on the hoof, but their meat 
 was poor sustenance. I believe every other division took 
 some cured meat in their trains. But my train was a small 
 one, and I preferred to take all the hard bread and coffee 
 possible, trusting to the country for meat. In my diary I 
 find an entry 6th February : " Men to-day carry ten clays' 
 rations on their persons, i.e., all they will get for ten days, 
 except what they forage." These ten days' rations con- 
 sisted of three days' hard bread and a larger proportion of 
 coffee and sugar, with notice that no more would be issued 
 for ten days. 
 
 Napoleon discusses the relative merits of drawing 
 subsistence from the country by requisition and draw- 
 ing it by direct seizure. In the thickly inhabited countries 
 of Europe, where the roads are studded with cities, requi- 
 
12 
 
 sition is practicable and preferable. But in a sparsely set- 
 tled region, where towns are few and small and scantily 
 supplied, and provisions are mainly found on scattered 
 plantations, there is no alternative : there is no means of 
 obtaining subsistence but by direct seizure. In the Third 
 Division the forage detail for each regiment consisted of 
 one officer and about a dozen enlisted men; the number of 
 enlisted men varying with the size of the regiment. In 
 the morning every detail reported to the Provost Marshal 
 of the division before leaving camp. They went in advance 
 of the column and scoured the country ten miles out from 
 the flanks; often went farther out. Visiting plantations, 
 they gathered supplies, and when necessary captured wag- 
 ons to bring supplies into camp. At first they went out on 
 foot, but before long they were all mounted. They ac- 
 quired experience which seemed like instinct in finding 
 their way about the country, and to the ground selected for 
 the night camp. Arriving at the camp-ground, sometimes 
 being the first on the ground, they observed the corps staA' 
 allot ground to each division, and then the division officers 
 allot ground to each brigade. The ground for each brigade 
 being designated, they knew where each regiment would 
 bivouac. At once every party would repair to the ground 
 where its regiment on arrival would camp, and the troops 
 coming in through the night would find, not only pickets 
 posted, but camp-fires burning and bacon, sweet potatoes, 
 and corn meal, read}' for them. Sometimes a party would 
 find a grist mill, and instead of going to camp would set 
 to work grinding meal and send to camp for wagons, and 
 would spend the night grinding if the supply of corn held 
 out. It was a common practice with planters to bury their 
 provisions and hide their stock in the swamps, for both ar- 
 mies, National and Confederate, foraged alike. But the 
 men soon gained a wonderful facility in discovering the 
 hidden stores. From the general appearance of the barns 
 and smoke-houses they quickly and unerringly made up 
 
13 
 
 their minds where something was hidden. By indica- 
 tions which themselves would find it hard to explain, they 
 determined the general locality where the cache was made. 
 Advancing in line in open order, driving their ramrods into 
 the ground, a few minutes would reveal the hidden stores. 
 A negro one day said to General Leggett, in Georgia : 
 " Dese Yankee soldiers have noses like hounds. Massa 
 hid all his horses way out dar in de swamp. Some soldiers 
 come along. All at once dey held up dere noses and sniffed 
 and sniffed, and stopped still and sniffed, and turned into 
 de swamp and held up dere noses and sniffed, and, Lord a' 
 Massy, went right straight to where de horses was tied in 
 de swamp." One day a sergeant went into a country house. 
 The planter and his wife were there. After a little talk the 
 sergeant, with great solemnity, asked : " Has any one died 
 here lately?" The planter quickly said: "No, nobody." 
 The sergeant gravely said : "I thought somebody had died 
 here." The planter said : " No, sir." His wife said : " Oh, 
 yes; don't you remember, my dear, don't you remember 
 that colored boy that was huried yesterday." The planter 
 added: "Ah, yes; there was a colored boy buried yester- 
 day." The sergeant, with increased solemnity, said: "I 
 only wanted to let you know that I have opened that grave 
 and taken out the corpse." There was loud expostulations 
 then, for this corpse, so-called, was the plantation supply of 
 ham. At Goldsboro, General Blair required a report of 
 captured stores. As no account had been kept, the reports 
 could be only a rough estimate. The report of the Third 
 Division was: 
 
 SUBSISTENCE OBTAINED. 
 
 Sweet potatoes, lbs 60,000 
 
 Corn meal, lbs 100,000 
 
 Cured meat, lbs 200,000 
 
 Molasses, galls 150 
 
 Sugar, b bis 8 
 
14 
 
 Salt, bbls 15 
 
 Coffee, bbls 1 
 
 Corn, bush , 7,000 
 
 EXPENDED. 
 
 Issued to stock — 
 
 Salt, bbls 10 
 
 Coru, busb 7,000 
 
 Issued to refugees and indigent citizens — 
 
 Corn meal, lbs 5,000 
 
 Cured meat 1,000 
 
 The rest of the above was issued to the troops. 
 
 OTHER CAPTURED SUPPLIES. 
 
 Horses 350 
 
 Mules 230 
 
 Killed— 
 
 Horses 180 
 
 Mules 130 
 
 Issued and turned over — 
 
 Horses 170 
 
 Mules 100 
 
 Also, LOO wagons and other vehicles were captured, all 
 of which were turned over or destroyed. At Fayetteville 
 the foragers captured a steamboat which was of utmost 
 value, being sent down the river with dispatches and sick 
 meu. 
 
 Gathering subsistence was not the only service ren- 
 dered by the foragers. They enveloped the marching col- 
 umn with a wide-spread cloud of skirmishers, which the 
 enemy could not push through. They were thoroughly 
 imbued with confidence in the invincibility of Sherman's 
 army. When a squad came upon hostile cavalry, in what- 
 ever numbers, and at whatever distance from the army, it 
 gave fight. Any other squad within hearing of the firing 
 hastened to take part. If forced back they retired fightiug 
 and other detachments drawn by the sound swarmed to 
 the rescue, till the time came, always sooner or later, that 
 
15 
 
 they gathered in numbers sufficient to drive back in 
 turn any cavalry that they encountered. Sometimes these 
 enterprising Uhlans, dashing on in advance, seized an im- 
 portant point and held it till the head of the column ap- 
 proached. General Sherman told me that General John- 
 ston said to him: ."Your foragers were the most efficient 
 cavalry ever known. They covered your flanks so com- 
 pletely that I never could penetrate through them far 
 enough to feel your column. And the fact that they could 
 be sent so far off from the eyes of the commanding of- 
 ficers and return regularly at night, is proof of the highest 
 state of discipline of your army." When the army reached 
 Goldsboro and went into camp to refit, the function of the 
 foragers ceased. They surrendered their horses to the Pro- 
 vost Marshals, returned to their regular duty in the ranks, 
 and were seen no more. 
 
 The march across South Carolina was devastating. 
 There was much burning and destruction; and there was 
 pillage, undoubtedly, of small, portable articles. But sol- 
 diers who were so exact about their burden that they cut 
 off and threw away every unnecessary inch of blanket in 
 order to save the weight, would not encumber themselves 
 with plunder. At a place where we halted for a day, 
 just after leaving South Carolina, the Provost Marshals of 
 the Seventeenth Corps, without warning, inspected the 
 camps, searching men and knapsacks to find stolen articles. 
 The result of the raid was a little clothing and some tobacco. 
 Even in South Carolina I never heard of any case of per- 
 sonal abuse. The people said both armies, the National 
 and the Confederate, were alike in taking their property; 
 that the difference was we also burned their houses, while 
 their own soldiers abused and insulted them. 
 
 When we crossed the boundary line into North Caro- 
 lina, destruction ceased. Not a house was burned, and the 
 army gave to the people more than it took from them. On 
 the march from Raleigh to Washington, after the surren- 
 
16 
 
 der of Lee and Johnston, not a man strayed from the ranks, 
 not. so much as a chicken was taken, not a fence-rail was 
 burned. 
 
 The character of the country gave some features to 
 what fighting there was in the Carolina campaign, but the 
 marching and foraging were its special features. I will not 
 extend this paper by any description of the forcing of the 
 passage of defended rivers, but will close by reading from 
 the Charleston Mercury, of the 14th of January, 1865, a 
 South Carolinian's account of depredations by Confederate 
 troops, and a letter from General Charles "Woods to me, 
 about the burning of Columbia : 
 
 [From Charleston Mercury.] 
 
 Lower Three Runs, \ 
 
 Barnwell District, S. C, December 31st. J 
 
 To Bon. J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War, Richmond, Va.: 
 
 I can not forbear appealing to you in behalf of the pro- 
 ducing population of the etates of Georgia and South Car- 
 olina for protection against the destructive lawlessness of 
 members of General Wheeler's command. From Augusta 
 to Hardeeville the road is now strewn w T ith corn left on the 
 ground unconsumed. Beeves have beeu shot down iu the 
 fields, one-quarter taken off and the balance left for buz- 
 zards. Horses are stolen out of wagons on the road and by 
 wholesale out of stables at night. 
 
 The writer saw an order from General Wheeler author- 
 izing search to be made in his command for thirty-seven 
 animals stolen from Mr. Fitzpatrick's plantation in Twiggs 
 county, Georgia, only four of which had up to a few days 
 ago been recovered. Within a few miles of this neighbor- 
 hood Wheeler's men tried to rob a young lady of a horse 
 while she was on a visit to a neighbor's, but for the timely 
 arrival of a citizen who prevented the outrage being perpe- 
 trated. It is uo unusual thing to see these men ride into 
 camp with all sorts of plunder. Private houses are visited, 
 
17 
 
 carpets, blankets and other furniture they can lay their 
 hands on are taken by force, in the presence of the owners. 
 
 Fort Wallace, Kan., June 17th, 1870. 
 General 31. F. Force, Cincinnati, 0.: 
 
 Dear General^— I send the following statement rela- 
 tive to the taking of Columbia, S. C, as requested. The 
 night before our troops entered Columbia, S. C, I was en- 
 gaged throwing Colonel Charles Stone's brigade of Iowa 
 troops across Broad river in pontoou boats. The last men 
 were landed just after daylight, and after clearing away the 
 rebel pickets that lined the stream near where the pontoon 
 bridge was laid, this brigade pushed forward toward Co-, 
 lumbia and met the mayor of the city about a mile from the 
 crossing, who turned over the city to Colonel Stone. This 
 brigade pushed on into the city, and, finding it still occu- 
 pied by Wade Hampton's rear guard, drove them from the 
 city and took possession ; posting guards so as to protect 
 the city from pillage. I entered the city about an hour 
 after Colonel Stone, with the remainder of my division, and 
 found the streets piled full of cotton, many of the piles on 
 tire. This cotton was .fired by Wade Hampton's men. I 
 led the remainder of my division through the city, and took 
 position in a north-east direction, just outside the city 
 limits. 
 
 About 3 o'clock in the afternoon a heavy wind storm 
 came up, which lasted all night, and about 8 o'clock it was 
 reported to me that the city was on fire. I immediately or- 
 dered another brigade into the city to assist in putting out 
 the fire, but without effect until it reached State House 
 Square, having burned the greater portion of the city. The 
 fire started from the burning piles of cotton blown by the 
 wind upon the roofs'of the houses. I burned the next day, 
 after the wind subsided, twelve hundred bales of cotton, 
 which I found piled in the streets outside of the burned 
 district. 
 
18 
 
 Not having access to my papers, I can not make this 
 statement so full as I could wish. I will make you a full 
 statement of the affair as soon as lean get to my papers. 
 I am, General, yours truly, 
 
 Chas. R. Woods, 
 Brevet Major General, U. S. A. 
 

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