Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 10.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[110] and others were to be accepted as conclusive, and that it was “very bad form” to listen to evidence to the contrary from any one, even from one claiming to be suffering under an unjust charge. In other words, the testimony of the prisoner at the bar in his own favor proves incontestably his innocence. Rather than adopt such an absurd view as this, I would prefer to endeavor to become more credulous about the psychological influence of names than Tristram Shandy's father, and then one might believe that General Sherman has been borne down to savagery by the weight of his Indian name, without involving his own moral responsibility. I have ample hereditary cause to know something of the Indian mode of warfare, and had abundant personal opportunities after the retreat from Columbia to study General Sherman's style. I must confess that the family resemblance between the two is startling.

In the latter part of the month of December, 1864, the cavalry division in which I was serving as a private, was in winter quarters near Petersburg, Virginia. The campaign, which was, I believe, the bloodiest of the war, had not been long ended.

Our division, consisting of two brigades, each composed of three regiments, had come to Virginia from the South early in the spring with full ranks and in excellent condition. Now, our numbers did not much exceed those of one ordinary regiment of the maximum numerical strength. Thus had our division been boiled down in the devil's cauldron of war to a very small residuum.

At the time of which I am speaking we were doing picket duty a few miles from camp, and were suffering a good deal from cold, so that we all thought it a great nuisance. We were very much pleased therefore to hear the news that we were under marching orders for Columbia, S. C., then threatened by Sherman. Any change is agreeable to soldiers in winter quarters, whose only variation from the dull monotony of camp life is picketing. Moreover square meals were to us pioneers of the Tanner system, a recollection of the dim, and shadowy past, while we regarded ourselves as being about to go to a land comparatively overflowing with milk and honey. Our joy, however, was not entirely unalloyed by regrets at leaving, for we had great pride in the army of which we were a part, and in the fame of our incomparable chieftain; and the soil itself was endeared to us by kindnesses received from its self-sacrificing people, and by the bones of our many comrades reposing in it.

We soon found ourselves in front of Columbia awaiting the approach of the enemy. General Hampton, who had until then commanded all