Just prior to the evacuation of Columbia, General Beauregard applied to the war department for the promotion of General Wade Hampton to Lieutenant General, to take precedence over Major General Wheeler, now in command of all the cavalry in this army.  He further asked that he be assigned to the command of the cavalry of his department, all of which was granted.  Generals Hampton and Butler were both at home at the time, the former on furlough, the latter recruiting and mounting his troops.  These two Generals being natives of the State, and General Hampton so familiar with the topography of the country through which the army had to pass, General Beauregard thought him a desirable officer for the post.  Furthermore, Wheeler’s Cavalry had become thoroughly demoralized and undisciplined.  From their long, continual retreats the cavalry had become to look upon “retreat” as the regular and national order.  Acting on the principle that all which was left in their wake of private property would be appropriated by the enemy, they fell with ruthless hands upon whatsoever property their eyes took a fancy to, consoling themselves with the reasoning “that if we don’t take it, the enemy will.”  So audacious had become the raids of Wheeler’s command that citizens had little choice between the two evils, “Wheeler’s Cavalry or the Federals.”  The name of “Wheeler’s men” became a reproach and a by-word, and remains so to this day with the descendants of those who felt the scourge of these moving armies.

These are matters that are foreign to the subject or to the “History of Kershaw’s Brigade,” but as the greater part of the soldiers of South Carolina were away during the march through their State and ignorant of the movements of the armies, I write for their information, and the concluding part of this work will be rather a history of the whole army than of one brigade.

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CHAPTER XLII

March Through South Carolina, February and March, 1865.

When Sherman put this mighty machine of war in motion, Kershaw’s Brigade was hurried back to Charleston and up to George’s Station, then to the bridge on the Edisto.  Raiding parties were out in every direction, destroying bridges and railroads, and as the Southern Army had no pontoon corps nor any methods of crossing the deep, sluggish streams in their rear but by bridges, it can be seen that the cutting of one bridge alone might be fatal to the army.  It was discovered early in the march that Sherman did not intend to turn to the right or the left, but continue on a direct line, with Columbia as the center of operations.  We were removed from the Edisto back to Charleston, and up the Northeastern Railroad to St. Stephen’s, on the Santee.  It was feared a raiding party from Georgetown would come up the Santee and cut the bridge, thereby isolating the army Hardee had in Charleston and vicinity.  Slowly Sherman “dragged his weary length along.”  On the 13th of February the corps of General Blair reached Kingsville and drove our pickets away from the bridge over the Congaree.