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