whom one was the gallant Major Manigault, severely wounded, and 37 men.
The Federals lost 88. Our loss, as is shown, was about 33 per cent, of
our force engaged, and this large mortality shows the heavy fire to
which we were subjected. General Schimmelpfennig was in general command
of the affair, but the assault was led by Colonel Bennett, who, mounted
upon a sorrel horse, was a mark for several shots from our wretched
rifles, but escaped unhurt.
The point where I was, just about the center of our line, at the
causeway, was assaulted by a regiment of negro troops; and as they got
near to us I distinctly heard their officers cursing them. I heard one
officer say, "Keep in line there, you damned scoundrels!" and another,
"Go on, you damned rascals, or I'll chop you down!" I saw the line waver
badly when it got to within fifty yards of us, and on this occasion at
least it did not look to me as if the negroes had the spirit to "fight
nobly." I know it is a catch phrase elsewhere that the colored troops
fought nobly, but I testify to what I saw and heard.
As to these negro troops, there was a sequel, nearly a year later. When
I was peaceably in my office in Charleston one of my family's former
slaves, "Taffy" by name, came in to see me. In former times he had been
a waiter "in the house," and was about my own age; but in 1860, in the
settlement of an estate, he with his parents, aunt, and brother were
sold to Mr. John Ashe, and put on his plantation near Port Royal. Of
course, when the Federals overran that section they took in all these
"contrabands," as they were called, and Taffy became a soldier, and was
in one of the regiments that assaulted us. In reply to a question from
me, he foolishly said he "liked it." I only replied, "Well, I'm sorry I
didn't kill you as you deserved, that's all I have to say." He only
grinned.
On February 17, James Island was evacuated by the Confederates. Captain
Matthews's company, formerly artillery but now infantry, was added to
our two, and the battalion known as Manigault's, or the Eighteenth South
Carolina Battalion. Major Manigault being wounded, and a prisoner, Capt.
B. C. Webb, of Company A, was in command. Our line of march was through
St. Andrew's Parish, across the bridge at Bee's Ferry, and along the old
State road past Otranto across Goose Creek bridge, which was burned as
soon as the last troops had crossed. Our men had started on this march
with as much baggage as they thought they could carry, but they soon
threw aside their impedimenta, and each settled down to his one blanket
and such clothes as he actually wore. This march across the Carolinas
was a very hard one. Our feet soon became blistered and sore, and many
of us had no shoes, but trudged along in the cold and mud bare-footed as
best we could. As I have already said, this was a cold winter, and it
seemed to us that it rained and froze constantly. Not a particle of
shelter did we have day or night. We would march all day, often in more
or less rain, and at nightfall halt, and bivouac in the bushes, with
every particle of food or clothing saturated. Within a few minutes after
a halt, even under a steady rain, fires would be burning and quickly
extend through the bivouac. If a civilian should attempt to kindle a
fire with soaked wood under a steady rain, he would find his patience
sorely tried, but the soldiers seemed to have no trouble.
After the fires were kindled we had to wait for the arrival of the
commissary wagons; and it was not uncommon for a detail of men to be
sent back in the night to help push the wagons through the mud; weary,
footsore, hungry, in the dark, up to the knees in mud, heaving on the
wheels of a stalled wagon! It was often late at night before the wagons
were got up and rations could be obtained.
The men, of course, had to take turns in the use of the two or three
frying-pans carried for each company, and when worn down by marching
from early dawn until dark it was disheartening to have to wait one's
turn, which often did not come until eleven o'clock at night. Frequently
the men, rather than wait for the frying-pan, would fry their scraps of
bacon on the coals, and make the cornmeal into dough, which they would
wrap around the ends of their ramrods and toast in the fire. When the
rations were drawn they consisted of only seven ounces of bacon and one
pint of cornmeal to the man per day; and on several occasions even these
could not be had, and the men went to sleep supperless, and with nothing
to eat during the next day. The commissary department of the corps
seemed to be unequal to the occasion, but this fact is not surprising
when the rapidity of the march and desolation of the country are
considered. Nevertheless, on several occasions the writer's command
passed forty hours without receiving any rations, and once fifty hours,
so that we were glad of an opportunity to beg at any farm-house for an
ear of corn with which to alleviate our hunger.
All along the line of march large numbers of men were constantly
deserting. Nightly, under cover of darkness, many would sneak from their
bivouacs and go off, not to the enemy, but to their homes. But those of
our men who remained were in good spirits.
The most influential cause of desertions was the news that reached the
men of the great suffering of their wives and children at home, caused
by the devastations of Sherman's army. Wherever this army passed from
Atlanta to Savannah, and from Savannah through Columbia, Camden, and
Cheraw, into North Carolina, a tract of country 30 miles wide was
devastated. Farm-houses, barns, mills, etc., were all burned. Farm
animals, poultry, etc., were all ruthlessly killed, and the women and
children left to starve. This was most especially the case in South
Carolina, where Sherman burned every town in his path--Walterboro,
Barnwell, Midway, Bamberg, Blackville, Williston, Orangeburg, Columbia,
Camden, and Cheraw. His cavalry leader, General Kilpatrick, attempted to
burn Aiken, but was quickly beaten off by General Wheeler. When the men
learned of the suffering of their women at home, many of them not
unnaturally deserted, and went to their aid.
This terrible strain on the integrity of the men was the cause of a
pitiable execution that took place on the line of march one day. A
sergeant in the First Regiment Regulars, upon being reproved by his
lieutenant for justifying and advising the desertion of the men, in a
fit of temper attempted to shoot this officer. The line was immediately
halted, the man was carried before a drum-head court martial, tried, and
condemned to be shot on the spot. He was led out, tied with his back
against a tree, and shot to death. It was an awful sight. I recollect
that while awaiting death, the chaplain spoke to him, and offered to
pray with him. His only reply was, "Preacher, I never listened to you in
Fort Sumter, and I won't listen to you now."
All of the Confederate troops in South Carolina were under the command
of Lieut.-Gen. T. J. Hardee, one of the ablest corps commanders in the
Confederate service. He was nicknamed by the men, "Old Reliable." Our
battalion, known also as the Eighteenth, with Major Bonneau's Georgia
battalion, the battalion of Citadel Cadets, and the Second Regiment
South Carolina Heavy Artillery constituted Brig.-Gen. Stephen Elliott's
brigade, which, with Col. Alfred Rhett's brigade, constituted Maj.-Gen.
Taliaferro's division. About March 1 we reached Cheraw, which we left
two days after. As we left the town Sherman's army pressed us closely,
and my recollection is that there was a sharp cavalry skirmish at the
bridge, which we burned as soon as our troops had got across. I think
Gen. M. C. Butler was the last man to cross, and galloped across it
while it was actually in flames. At the State line the Citadel Cadets
left us, and returned to South Carolina.
The route of the army lay through Fayetteville, N. C., where we crossed
the Cape Fear River about a week later. After our men had crossed the
bridge I was detailed from my company as one of a number to guard it,
until all the wagons, etc., and the last of the cavalry had got across
and it was burned, and when the bridge had been burned, one of the
cavalrymen let me ride a led horse until I caught up with my command
some distance in front. I remember his telling me of a very remarkable
scrimmage that had just occurred on the other side in Fayetteville. It
seems that before all of our wagons had got across the bridge, and our
own cavalry had come up, a troop of about 70 Federal cavalry rode into
the town to cut our wagons, etc., off from the bridge. General Hampton,
with two of his staff officers and four couriers, in all only seven men,
instantly dashed themselves against the Federals, and in a hand-to-hand
fight killed eleven of them, captured as many more, and ran the rest out
of town, and all without the loss of a single man. A very remarkable
affair. I also heard that Hampton had caught a spy, who would be hanged
when the army halted. I never heard anything more about it, as I had
other things much more personal to engage my attention, and presumed he
was strung up according to military usage.
But it seems that the man was not hanged. Wells, in "Hampton and His
Cavalry in '64," gives the particulars of this wonderful affair, and
states that the spy's name was David Day, and that he was turned over to
some junior reserves for safe keeping and escaped. And there was an
interesting sequel.
Thirty-one years after this fight, Hampton then being United States
Railway Commissioner, and in Denver, Colorado, a stranger called upon
him and explained that he was the David Day, the spy captured in the
affair, dressed in Confederate uniform. Hampton congratulated him and
said he was "glad the hanging did not come off." "So am I," replied the
other, laughing.
At Fayetteville a few of the men of our company, I among them, procured
Enfield rifles in place of the old Belgians we had, and also got
ammunition to suit. The Enfield was a muzzle loader, but really one of
the best guns of the day of its kind, and fairly accurate at 600 yards.
About half of the company, however, had only the worthless Belgians to
the end.
We were now so closely pursued by Sherman that on March 16 General
Hardee, having about 6,000 men, determined to make a stand near
Averysboro, between the Cape Fear and Black Rivers, where at daylight
Taliaferro's division was attacked full in front by the Fourteenth and
Twentieth Corps of the Federal Army, and Kilpatrick's cavalry,
altogether about 20,000 men, General Sherman being personally on the
field. The fighting was stubborn, at very close quarters, along the
entire line. Twenty men, of whom I was one, were detailed from Elliott's
brigade and attached to the left of Colonel Butler's First Regular
Infantry, of Rhett's brigade, and there I served through the fight. We
held our position in the open woods without protection for about three
hours, and repulsed repeated assaults, until the left of the line,
resting on a swamp along the Black River, which had been thought to be
impassable, was turned by a heavy force of Federals, which had made
their way through the swamp. This force, I afterwards learned, was
Colonel Jones's regiment of Indiana cavalry, fighting as infantry, and
armed with Spencer magazine carbines. Our whole force then fell back
about 400 yards to a line of breastworks manned by McLaws's skeleton
division, and which the Federals later in the day unsuccessfully
assaulted. The Confederate loss in this battle was 500, and the next day
some of Kilpatrick's cavalrymen, who had just been captured, told me
that the Federal loss had been about 2,500. The Confederate forces
engaged in this fight were Rhett's and Elliott's brigades, two artillery
companies, and McLaws's division; and it was not the intention of
General Hardee that Taliaferro's division should make such a stubborn
stand-up fight. It was the intention that they should engage only as
skirmishers, bring on the fight, and then fall back gradually into the
breastworks, where the real fighting was to have been done. But
Elliott's and Rhett's men had previously done only garrison and
artillery duty on the coast, and this was their first experience in
infantry fighting in the open, and they knew no better than to stand up
and fight it out. Sherman in his report to the U. S. War Department of
this affair expressed his surprise at the tenacity with which our men
held their ground.
It was on this occasion that Col. Alfred Rhett was captured. It seems
that a Captain Theo. F. Northrop, of a regiment of New York cavalry, was
scouting with a few men at early dawn on the morning of the battle, and
just in front of our lines came unexpectedly upon Generals Hampton and
Taliaferro, with a group of aids. He and his men promptly made
themselves invisible, and withdrew, and a few moments after Colonel
Rhett rode up on them. He put his pistol in Colonel Rhett's face and
said, "You must come with me." Colonel Rhett replied, "Who the hell are
you?" and drew his pistol to fight. Instantly the men with Captain
Northrop put their carbines to Colonel Rhett's head, and he, seeing how
the case stood, gave up, and was carried to General Slocum, who sent him
to General Sherman's headquarters. Captain Northrop has stated to me
that Colonel Rhett told him that when first accosted he thought he was
dealing with one of General Wheeler's men, and he would have shot him
for his insolence. And he was always satisfied that if Colonel Rhett had
realized at the very first that they were the enemy he met, he would
have fought and tried to get away, although he would have probably been
killed in the attempt.
Captain Northrop took Colonel Rhett's sword and pistol. The sword was
lost some years ago in a railway train, but he has the pistol still,
with Colonel Rhett's name engraved on it.
The fight took place in a piece of pine forest, and there were many
trees that afforded protection to the men on both sides. The lines were
very close together, so close that I could at times clearly observe the
faces of the Federal soldiers opposite. At one time I was protected by a
good pine tree and felt quite comfortable as the bullets thwacked
against the other side of it; but within a few feet, to my left, was an
old stump-hole full of dry leaves, and the bullets striking in those
leaves made a terrible racket. I stood the racket as long as I could,
but finally could stand it no longer, and contrary to common sense
abandoned my friendly tree and stepped a few paces to the right, away
from that noisy stump-hole. There I stood unprotected in the open, but
not many minutes before I was struck full in the middle of my body and
knocked down to a sitting posture. My blanket was rolled in a tight
roll, not over three inches thick, and being of course on my left
shoulder, and across my body downwards to the right, had saved my life.
The ball had passed through the roll, and striking a button on my jacket
had stopped, and as I dropped it fell down, flattened out of all shape.
I lay on the ground for a few moments, paralyzed by the blow, and I
recollect hearing a comrade, who received a bullet through the brain
only a few moments afterwards, call out, "Ford's killed." I gathered
myself back into a sitting posture and replied, "No, I'm not. I think
I'm all right." But the pain was intense, as every boy knows who in a
boxing bout gets a lick in "the short wind." In a few moments I was back
again on my feet, and resumed my place in line, although suffering
considerable pain and nausea. For some time after I carried on my body a
black and blue spot the size of a dollar.
I recollect noticing the conspicuous coolness of Maj. Thos. Huguenin, of
the First Infantry. During the hardest of the fighting he walked slowly
immediately behind the line in which I was, smoking his pipe as calmly
as if he had been at home.
Here an incident occurred that showed how, under the most serious
condition, with death and imminent danger all around, a soldier's mind
is often diverted by the most trivial thing. It is a strange phase of
the mind which I have heard old soldiers, who have seen much hard
fighting, comment upon. During the sharpest of the fighting, a hog
started from the swamp on my left and ran squealing and terrified
directly down the front of our line, presenting quite a ludicrous
spectacle, and I heard a number of men, as he passed along the line,
whoop at him and call out, "Go it, piggy!" "Save your bacon, piggy!"
etc. But piggy had not got more than a hundred feet past me when he
turned a somersault, kicked a moment or two, and lay still. He had
evidently stopped a bullet.
An incident showing the same phase of mind was told me by a member of
the Fourteenth South Carolina Volunteers, as occurring during the great
battle of Gettysburg. As Kershaw's brigade, on the second day, was
advancing to the assault of Little Round Top, a company of the
Fourteenth was among those thrown forward as skirmishers, and as they
advanced across the field toward the Federals, they came to a large
patch of ripe blackberries. The men with one accord immediately turned
their attention to the ripe fruit which was in great abundance on every
side, and, stooping down, kept picking, and eating berries, as they went
slowly forward, actually into action. And so much was their attention
distracted by the blackberries that they were actually within 50 yards
of the enemy's advanced line before they realized their position, when
they rushed forward with a yell, and got possession of a slightly
elevated roadway, which they held until the main line came up.
During the assault on the breastworks, Capt. S. Porcher Smith, who was
standing just behind me, was shot through the face and fell. The
litter-bearers picked him up, and as they were carrying him to the rear,
one of them was shot and fell, and Captain Smith rolled headlong out of
the litter. I well remember this incident.
We held our position until about midnight, when we fell back to a place
called Elevation. This night's march was a very trying one. The road was
terribly cut up by the wagons and artillery, and as the rains had been
frequent it seemed as if the clay mud was knee deep. We floundered
along for about six hours, and at daylight on the 17th halted and were
given some rations. Most of us had not had a morsel of food since the
night of the 15th. It happened in this way. On the night of the 15th we
cooked our cornmeal and bacon and ate our supper, saving half for the
next day. At the early break of day on the 16th, as I was warming my
bacon and corn pone in a frying-pan before eating some of it, the
Federals attacked us, and we had to fall into line instantly. So I had
to leave the frying-pan with all my food as it was on the fire and go
through that day's hardship, and until the next day at Elevation,
without any food whatever. It had been General Hardee's intention to
give us two or three days' rest at Elevation, but it having been
ascertained that the Federal army was pushing toward Goldsboro, Gen.
Jos. E. Johnston, then only recently put in command of the Confederate
troops in North Carolina, ordered General Hardee to hurry forward and
intercept Sherman near Bentonville. So about 3 o'clock on the morning of
the 19th we were aroused and hurried on toward Bentonville, where we
arrived a little before three in the afternoon, having made the 20 miles
in rather less than 12 hours.
It was on the march this day that an amusing incident occurred. I had
not owned a pair of socks since I left James Island a month before, and
my shoes were in such tattered condition that I could keep uppers and
soles together only by tying them with several leather strings, but
most of my toes stuck out very conspicuously. I had read of the
importance that great generals attached to the good condition of
infantry soldiers' feet, and hence the aphorism, "A marching man is no
stronger than his feet," and I determined to keep mine in good condition
if possible. I knew that frequent bathing prevented blistering;
therefore, every night before going to sleep, and often on the march
during the day I would bathe my feet, so that they were never blistered,
and I kept well up with my company in marching. On this day as we
crossed a little stream, according to my custom I stepped aside, and
pulling off my shoes soaked my feet in the running water. General Hardee
and his staff rode by at the moment. He checked his horse and called
sternly to me, "You there, sir! What are you doing straggling from your
command? I suppose you are one of those men who behaved so badly at
Averysboro." (A few men had been guilty of misconduct there.) I sprang
to my feet, and saluting him said, "Excuse me, General, but you are
speaking to the wrong man, sir. I have never misbehaved, and never
straggled. I am only bathing my feet to prevent them from blistering.
There is my company right ahead there, sir, and I always keep up with
it." My injured tone and evident sincerity struck the old man, and he
saluted me with the words, "I beg your pardon, sir," and rode on. He was
a courtly and knightly soldier, and a great favorite with the men.
We reached Bentonville at about 3 o'clock p. m., only a short time after
the battle had begun, and as we marched hurriedly along the road in the
direction of the firing we passed a number of wounded men coming to the
rear; and then several operating tables on both sides of the road, some
with wounded men stretched on them with the surgeons at work, and all of
them with several bloody amputated legs and arms thrown alongside on the
grass. The sight was temporarily depressing, as it foreshadowed what we
had to expect. But we hurried on, and our division halted for a few
moments on the ground from which the Federals had just been repulsed,
and there were quite a number of their dead and wounded lying about. One
of the Federal wounded, a lieutenant, begged us for some water, and I
stepped from the line and gave him a drink from my canteen. Others
begged me likewise, and in a few moments my canteen was empty. I knew
that this might result seriously to me, in case I should need the water
badly for myself, but I could not refuse a wounded man's appeal even if
he was my enemy; and one of our men, a thrifty fellow, who always
managed to have things, produced a little flask of whiskey, and gave a
good drink to a Federal who had his leg badly crushed. The blue-coat
raised his eyes to Heaven with, "Thank God, Johnnie; it may come around
that I may be able to do you a kindness, and I'll never forget this
drink of liquor." We were not allowed to remain long relieving the
suffering, but soon were called to "attention," and received orders to
create it, by an attack upon the enemy from our extreme right. At this
moment Maj. A. Burnett Rhett, of the artillery, rode along the line and
called out that news had been received that France had recognized the
Confederacy and would send warships to open our ports immediately. The
men cheered, few of us realizing that the end was so near. We were
blinded by our patriotism. There was Lee with his 30,000 men that moment
surrounded by Grant with his 150,000. Here was Johnston with his 14,000
trying to keep at bay Sherman with his 70,000, with the knowledge that
Schofield was only two days off with 40,000 more. And this was about all
there was to the Confederacy; and they talked of recognition! Oh, the
pity of it!