General Jeff.  C. Davis got across the Catawba during the 27th, and the general march was resumed on Cheraw.  Kilpatrick remained near Lancaster, skirmishing with Wheeler’s and Hampton’s cavalry, keeping up the delusion that we proposed to move on Charlotte and Salisbury, but with orders to watch the progress of the Fourteenth Corps, and to act in concert with it, on its left rear.  On the 1st of March I was at Finlay’s Bridge across Lynch’s Creek, the roads so bad that we had to corduroy nearly every foot of the way; but I was in communication with all parts of the army, which had met no serious opposition from the enemy.  On the 2d of March we entered the village of Chesterfield, skirmishing with Butler’s cavalry, which gave ground rapidly.  There I received a message from General Howard, who, reported that he was already in Cheraw with the Seventeenth Corps, and that the Fifteenth was near at hand.

General Hardee had retreated eastward across the Pedee, burning the bridge.  I therefore directed the left wing to march for Sneedsboro’, about ten miles above Cheraw, to cross the Pedee there, while I in person proposed to cross over and join the right wing in Cheraw.  Early in the morning of the 3d of March I rode out of Chesterfield along with the Twentieth Corps, which filled the road, forded Thompson’s Creek, and, at the top of the hill beyond, found a road branching off to the right, which corresponded with the one, on my map leading to Cheraw.  Seeing a negro standing by the roadside, looking at the troops passing, I inquired of him what road that was.  “Him lead to Cheraw, master!” “Is it a good road, and how far?” “A very good road, and eight or ten miles.”  “Any guerrillas?”

“Oh! no, master, dey is gone two days ago; you could have played cards on der coat-tails, dey was in sich a hurry!” I was on my Lexington horse, who was very handsome and restive, so I made signal to my staff to follow, as I proposed to go without escort.  I turned my horse down the road, and the rest of the staff followed.  General Barry took up the questions about the road, and asked the same negro what he was doing there.  He answered, “Dey say Massa Sherman will be along soon!” “Why,” said General Barry, “that was General Sherman you were talking to.”  The poor negro, almost in the attitude of prayer, exclaimed:  “De great God! just look at his horse!” He ran up and trotted by my side for a mile or so, and gave me all the information he possessed, but he seemed to admire the horse more than the rider.

We reached Cheraw in a couple of hours in a drizzling rain, and, while waiting for our wagons to come up, I staid with General Blair in a large house, the property of a blockade-runner, whose family remained.  General Howard occupied another house farther down-town.  He had already ordered his pontoon-bridge to be laid across the Pedee, there a large, deep, navigable stream, and Mower’s division was already across, skirmishing