So ended our second day's, or rather night's, march. We had traveled only about fifteen miles that night. Thus far we had been traveling in a northwesterly direction, through the parishes of Orangeburg and Lexington, nearly on a line with the railroad running from Keyesville to Columbia, about ten miles from the railroad.
We had as yet selected no particular point in Sherman's line as our goal. We were, indeed, at a loss to know what place to select. When we last heard from our forces, Sherman had taken Atlanta; Hood had succeeded Johnston in command of the Confederate army, and had commenced his celebrated movement to flank Sherman out of Atlanta, and in reality out of Georgia; so we were left to conjecture what the result of the movement would be.
Atlanta was the nearest point, but we were not by any means sure that Sherman still occupied that place. We finally concluded to make for the nearest practicable point on the line held by Sherman between Atlanta and Chattanooga. On our approach to what was Sherman's lines on the second of October, we would gather such information as we could from the negroes, and be governed accordingly.
As nearly as we could calculate, we were about twenty or twenty-five miles southwest from Columbia. We now concluded to make our course a little north of west, so as to head off some of the streams running into the Saluda River, until we should strike the Savannah.
A Friend in the Dark
On the approach of darkness we started out on our third night's march. Nothing unusual occurred until about three o'clock in the morning. We had traveled on a turnpike road, part of the time through a cultivated country, and partly through a forest of stunted pines, the second-growth of timber on abandoned plantations. We had just passed a large plantation, when we came suddenly upon a pedestrian wending his way in a direction opposite to our own. Before we saw him we were too close to avoid his observation, and we therefore boldly approached him. To our joy he proved to be a negro.
By this time we were both hungry and faint. The last crumbs of our rations had been eaten hours before. When and how we were to procure more, was a problem difficult of solution. We had tried several cornfields, but were unable to find anything except perfectly hard corn. Gathering some of this, we had determined to boil it and do the best we could. Naturally, then, when we discovered the race of our new acquaintance, our first thought was to ascertain from him if there was any prospect of supplying our larder with something more palatable than hard corn—always providing he should, upon further acquaintance, prove to be our friend. Notwithstanding our desperate situation in the matter of food, and the fact that we had deliberately determined to trust the first negro that we should meet, our intercourse would, to a looker on, have seemed strangely cautious on both sides. Our conversation, as my memory serves me, was substantially as follows:
Yankee. Well, boy, where are you traveling so late at night?
Negro. Been ovah to see my wife, massa.
Yankee. Where does your wife live?