Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Monday, March 6, 1865

Pleasant weather. We started at 9 a. m., marched eight miles and went into bivouac near Bennettsville. We are marching through a fine country and have plenty of forage. There are no rebels in front of us at present. We are nearing the state line now between South Carolina and North Carolina, and our army has certainly made a wide path of desolation through the state.1
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1 In our march through South Carolina every man seemed to think that he had a free hand to burn any kind of property he could put the torch to. South Carolina paid the dearest penalty of any state in the Confederacy, considering the short time the Union army was in the state, and it was well that she should; for, if South Carolina had not been so persistent in going to war, there would have been no war for years to come. — A. G. D.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 259

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