It may prove of interest to the surviving members of the old brigade to know that after the fight of Sailor’s Creek, when General Kershaw and his companions were being taken back to Petersburg and thence to City Point to be shipped North, he spent a night at a farm house, then occupied as a field hospital and as quarters by the surgeons and attendants.  They were South Carolinians, and were anxious to hear all about the fight.  In telling of it the pride and love which he reposed in the old brigade received a wistful testimonial.  It was then confronting Sherman somewhere in North Carolina.  Its old commander said in a voice vibrant with feeling:  “If I had only had my old brigade with me I believe we could have held these fellows in check until night gave us the opportunity to withdraw.”

The roads in every direction near the army had become almost impassable—­mud knee deep in the middle and ruts cut to the hubs on either side.  The roads leading to Manassas were literally strewn with the carcasses of horses, some even sunk out of sight in the slough and mud.  It would remind one of the passage of Napoleon across the Arabian desert, so graphically described by historians.  The firewood had become scarce, and had to be carried on the men’s shoulders the distance of a mile, the wagons being engaged in hauling supplies and the enormous private baggage sent to the soldiers from home.  I remember once on my return from home on a short furlough, I had under my charge one whole carload of boxes for my company alone.  Towards night every soldier would go out to the nearest woodland, which was usually a mile distant, cut a stick of wood the size he could easily carry, and bring into camp, this to do the night and next day.  The weather being so severe, fires had to be kept up all during the night.  Some constructed little boats and boated the wood across the stream, Bull Run, and a time they generally had of it, with the boat upsetting the men and the wood floundering and rolling about in the water, and it freezing cold.

The Department granted a thirty days’ leave of absence to all individuals and companies that would re-enlist for the remaining two years or the war.  Many officers were granted commissions to raise companies of cavalry and artillery out of the infantry commands, whose time was soon to expire.  Lieutenant T.J.  Lipscomb, of Company B, Third South Carolina Regiment, was given a commission as Captain, and he, with others, raised a company of cavalry and was given a thirty days’ furlough.  A great many companies volunteered in a body, not knowing at the time that the Conscript Act soon to be enacted would retain in service all between certain ages in the army, even after their time had expired.