It was the boast of the Federal commander and published with delight in all the Northern newspapers, that “where his army went along a crow could not pass over without taking its rations along.”  Then, too, this very country was to feed and support, while in transit to their homes almost the whole of Johnston’s and the greater part of Lee’s Army.  All these, in squads or singly, were fed along the way from house to house wherever they could beg a little meal or corn, with a morsel of meat or molasses.  A great number of negro troops also passed through this country on their way to the coast to be disbanded.  But the noble women of South Carolina never turned a hungry soldier from their doors as long as there was a mouthful in the house to eat.

Another terror now alarmed the people—­the news of a great raid, under Stoneman, being on its way through North Carolina and upper South Carolina, coming across the country from East Tennessee, laying waste everything in its track.  General Sherman had concentrated his whole army at Goldsboro, and was lying idle in camp, preparatory to his next great move to connect with Grant.  He had at his command the right wing, under General Howard, twenty-eight thousand eight hundred and thirty-four; its left wing, under General Slocum, twenty-eight thousand and sixty-three.  General Schofield had come up from Newbern with twenty-six thousand three hundred and ninety-two and constituted the center, besides five thousand six hundred and fifty-nine cavalry, under Kilpatrick, and ninety-one pieces of artillery.  General Johnston had encamped his army between two roads, one leading to Raleigh, the other to Weldon.  The Confederate Government, after the evacuation of Richmond, had now established its quarters at Danville, Va., awaiting the next turn of the wheel.  Lee had fallen back from Petersburg; while Johnston, before Sherman, was awaiting the move of that General to fall back still nearer to his illustrious chieftain.  The government and all the armies were now hedged in the smallest compass.  Still our leaders were apparently hopeful and defiant, the troops willing to stand by them to the last.

On the 10th of April President Davis and a part of his cabinet left Danville on his way to Greensboro.  Even at this late day President Davis was urging the concentration of the troops under General Walker, the scattered troops at Salisbury and Greensboro, and those under Johnston at same place on the Yadkin, and crush Sherman, and then it is supposed to turn on Grant.  All this with less than twenty thousand men!

The last conference of the great men of the Confederacy met at Greensboro, on the 13th of April, 1865.  Those present were President Davis, Messrs. Benjamin, Secretary of State; Mallory, of the Navy; Reagin, Postmaster General; Breckinridge, Secretary of War, and General Johnston.  The army had been falling back daily through Raleigh, and was now encamped near Greensboro.  President Davis still clung to the