The people of Fayetteville supported the Confederate Government warmly to the last gasp, upon the principle that united, the South might stand—divided, she certainly would fall. After the failure of the Peace Commission, the citizens met and passed vigorous war resolutions, calling on all classes to rally once more in self-defense—a proceeding which did more credit to their zeal than to their ability to read the signs of the times; for, rally or no rally, the fate of the Confederacy was already written on the wall.
All these antecedents doubtless conspired to give Fayetteville a bad character in the opinion of our Northern brethren, who, for their part, were bent on peace-making; and accordingly, when the hour and the man arrived, on the eleventh of March, 1865, she found she must pay the penalty. A skirmish took place in the streets between General Sherman's advanced-guard and a part of General Hampton's cavalry, which covered the retreat of Hardee's division across the Cape Fear. This, no doubt, increased the exasperation of feeling toward this "nest of rebels," and the determination to put a check to all future operations there in behalf of the cause. In less than two hours after the entrance of the Federal forces, so adroitly had every house in the town and its suburbs been ransacked and plundered, that it may be doubted if all Fayetteville, the next day, could have contributed two whole shirts or a bushel of meal to the relief of the Confederate army. The incidents of that most memorable day, and for several days succeeding, would fill (and will fill) a volume; and as for the nights, they were illuminated by the glare of blazing houses all through the pine groves for several miles around Fayetteville. One of the first of the "soldiers in blue" who entered the town, accosted in the street a most distinguished and venerable clergyman, Rev. William Hooper, D.D., LL.D., more than seventy years of age—the grandson of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence—and who had suffered reproach for his adherence to the Union, and whose very appearance should have challenged respect and deference—accosted him as a "d—d rebel," and putting a pistol to his head, demanded and carried off his watch and purse.
Southerners can not write calmly of such scenes yet. Their houses were turned into seraglios, every portable article of value, plate, china and glass-ware, provisions and books were carried off, and the remainder destroyed; hundreds of carriages and vehicles of all kinds were burned in piles; where houses were isolated they were burned; women were grossly insulted, and robbed of clothing and jewelry; nor were darker and nameless tragedies wanting in lonely situations. No; they hardly dare trust themselves to think of these things. "That way lies madness." But the true story of "The Great March" will yet be written.
Not the least remarkable of all these noble strategical operations was the fact that black and white suffered alike. Nothing more strikingly evinces the entire demoralization and want of honor that prevailed. The negro whom they came to liberate they afterward plundered; his cabin was stripped of his little valuables, as well as his master's house of its luxuries; his humble silver watch was seized, as well as the gentleman's gold repeater. This policy is also modern, and due to the enlightenment of the nineteenth century. A good many years ago, a grand liberation of slaves took place, where the leaders and deliverer sanctioned the "spoiling of the Egyptians," but they hardly picked the pockets of the freedmen afterward.
During the month of March our central counties were traversed by straggling bodies of Confederate soldiers, fragments of the once powerful army of Tennessee, hurrying down toward Raleigh to concentrate under General Johnston once more, in the vain hope of being able yet to effect something. Tennesseeans, Texans, Georgians, Alabamians, men who had been in every fight in the West, from Corinth to Perrysville, from Perrysville to Atlanta—men who had left pleasant homes, wives and children, many of whom they knew were without a house to shelter them;
"For the blackness of ashes marked where it stood,
And a wild mother's scream o'er her famishing brood!"
The whole population of our town poured out to see these war-worn men; to cheer them; to feed and shelter them. The little children gathered handfuls of the early daffodils "that take the winds of March with beauty," and flung to them. What we had to eat we gave them, day after day. Repeatedly the whole of a family dinner was taken from the table and carried out to the street, the children joyfully assisting. They were our soldiers—our own brave boys. The cause was desperate, we knew—the war was nearly over—our delusions were at an end; but while we had it, our last loaf to our soldiers—a cheer, and a blessing, with dim eyes, as they rode away.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] General Winfield Scott.