owned
large plantations and scores of slaves. In fact, it was noticeable
that the poorer class were more patriotic and more cheerful givers, if
such could be possible, than the wealthy class.

Negroes were drafted to go upon the coast to work in salt mills or to
work upon the fortifications. This duty they performed with remarkable
willingness, until, perhaps, some Federal gunboat got their range and
dropped a few shells among them. Then no persuasion nor threat could
induce them to remain, and numbers of them would strike out for home
and often get lost and wander for days, half starved, through the
swamps of the lower country, being afraid to show themselves to the
whites for fear of being "taken up" and sent back. Many were the
adventures and hair-breath escapes these dusty fugitives had, and
could tell them in wonderful yarns to the younger generation at home.
It may be that the negro, under mental excitement, or stimulated with
strong drink, could be induced to show remarkable traits of bravery,
but to take him cool and away from any excitement, he is slow at
exposing himself to bodily dangers, and will never make a soldier in
the field.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XL

Opening of 1865--Gloomy Outlook--Prison Pens--Return to South Carolina
of Kershaw's Brigade.

The opening of the year 1865 looked gloomy enough for the cause of
the Confederacy. The hopes of foreign intervention had long since
been looked upon as an ignis fatuus and a delusion, while our maritime
power had been swept from the seas. All the ports, with the exception
of Charleston, S.C., and Wilmington, N.C., were now in the hands of
the Federals. Fort Fisher, the Gibraltar of the South, that guarded
the inlet of Cape Fear River, was taken by land and naval forces,
under General Terry and Admiral Porter. Forts Sumter and Moultrie, at
the Charleston Harbor, continued to hold out for a while longer. The
year before the "Alabama," an ironclad of the Confederates, was
sunk off the coast of France. Then followed the "Albemarle" and the
"Florida." The ram "Tennessee" had to strike her colors on the 5th of
August, in Mobile Bay. Then all the forts that protected the bay were
either blown up or evacuated, leaving the Entrance to Mobile Bay open
to the fleet of the Federals.

Sherman was recuperating his army around Savannah, and was preparing
a farther advance now northward after his successful march to the sea.
At Savannah