General Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War

I was equally unsuccessful in an application to the Government for money for the troops, who had received none for many months.

The course of the march of the Federal army from Winnsboroa indicated that it would cross the Cape Fear at Fayetteville, and be joined there by General Schofield, with his forces, believed by us to be at Wilmington. It was a question, on the 1st of March, whether the troops of the department, coming from Charleston, or the Federal army, would reach Cheraw first. The latter, however, was more retarded than the Confederate troops, by the streams, then much swollen by recent heavy rains; for the course of its march crossed the larger streams, while that of the Confederates was parallel to them. Thus General Hardee crossed the Pedee, at Cheraw, on the morning of the 3d, with all the military stores he had the means of transporting-having assembled his forces there on the 2d. His rear-guard was so closely pressed by the leading Federal troops, that it had barely time to destroy the bridge after passing over it. In the march from Winnsboroa, the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps, which formed General Sherman's right wing, crossed the Catawba at Peay's Ferry; the left wing, consisting of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps, after destroying the railroad-track as far as Blackstock, crossed the river at Rocky Mount; the Seventeenth Corps crossed Lynch's Creek by Young's Bridge; the Fifteenth, moving farther to their right, sent detachments to Camden to burn