dled under little tents or blankets, but the greater
number burrowed under the ground like moles or prairie dogs. Numbers
made their escape by tunnelling under the wall.
When Sherman began his march through Georgia, the major portion at
Andersonville were removed to Salisbury, N.C., where a great national
cemetery was set apart after the war, and kept under the authority of
the war department, containing thousands of graves--monuments to the
sufferings and death of these unfortunate people--a sacrifice to what
their government called a "military necessity." Our prisoners were
scattered in like manner at Camp Chase, in Ohio; Fort Johnston, in
Lake Michigan; Fort Delaware, in the Delaware River; and many other
places, subject to greater sufferings and hardships than the Federal
prisoners in our hands.
The Government of the South had nothing to do but accept the
conditions imposed upon the sufferers by the authorities in
Washington.
In January, 1865, rumors were rife in camp of the transfer of some of
the South Carolina troops to their own State to help swell the
little band that was at that time fighting on the flanks and front of
Sherman. Of course it was not possible that all could be spared from
Lee, but it had become a certain fact, if judged from the rumors in
camp, that some at least were to be transferred. So when orders came
for Kershaw's Brigade to break camp and march to Richmond, all were
overjoyed. Outside of the fact that we were to be again on our
"native heath" and fight the invader on our own soil, the soldiers of
Kershaw's Brigade felt not a little complimented at being selected
as the brigade to be placed at such a post of honor. It is a settled
feeling among all troops and a pardonable pride, too, that their
organization, let it be company, regiment, brigade, or even division
or corps, is superior to any other like organization in bravery,
discipline, or any soldierly attainments. Troops of different States
claim superiority over those of their sister States, while the same
rivalry exists between organizations of the same State. So when it
was learned for a certainty that the old First Brigade was to be
transferred to South Carolina, all felt a keen pride in being thus
selected, and now stamped it as a settled fact, that which they had
always claimed, "the best troops from the State." The State furnished
the best to the Confederacy, and a logical conclusion would be
"Kershaw's Brigade was the bes
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