be at Wilmington, I determined to send a message there; I called for my man, Corporal Pike, whom I had rescued as before described, at Columbia, who was then traveling with our escort, and instructed him in disguise to work his way to the Cape Fear River, secure a boat, and float down to Wilmington to convey a letter, and to report our approach.  I also called on General Howard for another volunteer, and he brought me a very clever young sergeant, who is now a commissioned officer in the regular army.  Each of these got off during the night by separate routes, bearing the following message, reduced to the same cipher we used in telegraphic messages: 

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI
IN THE FIELD, LAUREL HILL, Wednesday, March 8, 1865.

Commanding Officer, Wilmington, North Carolina: 

We are marching for Fayetteville, will be there Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and will then march for Goldsboro’.

If possible, send a boat up Cape Fear River, and have word conveyed to General Schofield that I expect to meet him about Goldsboro’.  We are all well and have done finely.  The rains make our roads difficult, and may delay us about Fayetteville, in which case I would like to have some bread, sugar, and coffee.  We have abundance of all else.  I expect to reach Goldsboro’ by the 20th instant.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.

On the 9th I was with the Fifteenth Corps, and toward evening reached a little church called Bethel, in the woods, in which we took refuge in a terrible storm of rain, which poured all night, making the roads awful.  All the men were at work corduroying the roads, using fence-rails and split saplings, and every foot of the way had thus to be corduroyed to enable the artillery and wagons to pass.  On the 10th we made some little progress; on the 11th I reached Fayetteville, and found that General Hardee, followed by Wade Hampton’s cavalry, had barely escaped across Cape Fear River, burning the bridge which I had hoped to save.  On reaching Fayetteville I found General Slocum already in possession with the Fourteenth Corps, and all the rest of the army was near at hand.  A day or two before, General Kilpatrick, to our left rear, had divided his force into two parts, occupying roads behind the Twentieth Corps, interposing between our infantry columns and Wade Hampton’s cavalry.  The latter, doubtless to make junction with General Hardee, in Fayetteville, broke across this line, captured the house in which General Kilpatrick and the brigade-commander, General Spencer, were, and for a time held possession of the camp and artillery of the brigade.  However, General Kilpatrick and most of his men escaped into a swamp with their arms, reorganized and returned, catching Hampton’s men—­in turn, scattered and drove them away, recovering most of his camp and artillery; but Hampton got off with Kilpatrick’s private horses and a couple hundred prisoners, of which he boasted much in passing through Fayetteville.