"Shooting Yankee cavalry has always been good sport."

An unidentified Confederate image from the Library of Congress. He wears his Union belt plate upside down as some  Southern soldiers did to thumb their nose at the Old Union.

Thursday, April 27, 1865, south of the Catawba River near Rock Hill

We are so close that we can smell it and taste it, the sweet sensations of home. The brigade is in York County. Lancaster County is but two counties away. While I am joyful for my comrades, their journey is short and mine is long. I still have to travel to nearly the Georgia border and I do not know quite how I shall make it. My comrades have no reason to leave their home county so I might have to travel alone.

The people of South Carolina have turned out for us. While some of the North Carolinians were decent, the further south in their state we marched, the more hostile the populace became. South Carolinians have bent over backwards to make us feel welcome. This comes from the state that started it all some four years ago. There has been a lot of water under the bridge as well as blood.

The Yankees have hit this area and not that long ago. We had to cross the Catawba on a pontoon at Nation's Ford because the railroad bridge had been burned by Yankee raiders. Some of the timbers were still smoldering. The river was running high due to the rains. We were all downhearted at the thought of postponing our home arrival for a few days.

The sound of approaching hoofbeats broke us out of our melancholy. Without waiting for orders, we went straight into line, our front facing towards the sound. Those who had rifles were in the front ranks, those without were in the rear and there were few of us were without rifles. We hoped they were cavalry, some of the raiders who have been terrorizing the local people. Shooting Yankee cavalry has always been good sport.

They must have heard our officers barking commands as we could hear the horsemen slow down. We could not yet see anyone but we heard two or there of them peel off from the rest and come closer rather slowly. Once they broke cover, we could see that they were Confederates. But were they regular soldiers or bandits? Should we lower our rifles?

A captain identified himself as part of he escort for President Davis and his party. The captain, "requested", that we come to assist the party across the river. Captain Bell volunteered us and off we went. Lucky for us, the party was not far away.

It was such a sight as I will never see again. On the wrong bank of the river stood our President and his cabinet. I recognized only Benjamin, the Israelite, and Breckenridge, who used to command troops in the field. The party had several wagons, a number of mules and some horses plus the escort.

We put our backs into it and got them across, piece by piece. To his credit, the President allowed his back to be worked like that of a field hand. Benjamin could not move anything except his own copious self. His sole exertion was puffing on an endless number of cigars.

Jefferson Davis.

Judah P. Benjamin.

John C Breckinridge.

After everyone and everything was finally across and encamped, numerous fires were built so that we could all dry out. The President went from fire to fire to chat with us. He did not speak of politics or higher planes. He spoke like one man commonly speaks to another. We stayed the night around our fires but the President and his party resumed their march, or rather, flight, after a few hours rest.

While we were helping the party across, I could not but help thinking that something looked familiar about the place. Only while sitting around the fire with my pards did it dawn on me.  This was the Carolina Road, the path that I had taken on my journey from Virginia to South Carolina back in '58. I had left Virginia via the Wagon Road which eventually took me here. It is certainly a small world.


I Send You These Few Lines


In the last Greyback Diary posting, I had mentioned that there was a reason for repeated mentions of the fleeing Davis party in the last several postings. At first, I wasn't going to include the Davis party as it was immaterial to Tooms' story. Then I read a very good book about the story of Jefferson Davis and his refugee party from the fall of Richmond to Davis' capture and imprisonment.The book is, "The Long Surrender", by Burke Davis.

In the book, it mentions the place where the Davis party crossed the Catawba River and it rang a bell. The Carolina Road, presently US 21, was a southerly extension of the Philadelphia Wagon Road, sometimes called the Great Wagon Road. The road ran from Philadelphia to the Yadkin Valley in South Carolina. The part now known as US 11 ran through Southwest Virginia where I used to live and work at a 3-century living history park, now defunct. When I read that in the book, I knew that I had to include it in the blog.

Virginia historical marker in Botetourt County.

Jefferson Davis has been sainted or condemned depending on the historian. So much of the ink spilled on Davis has been concerned with his role as President and commander-in-chief. I will not weigh in on that debate or diatribe. That's above my pay grade. That Davis had a human side is borne out in the book. Davis played marbles with children during the flight. Apparently, he was good at marbles.

One more thing about Davis. I'm not quite done with him. There are some more connections.