Brigadier-General Rutherford B. Hayes to Sophia Birchard Hayes, March 5, 1865

CUMBERLAND, March 5, 1865.

DEAR MOTHER:— We are feeling a good deal of anxiety now to hear from our cavalry. General Sheridan with all the mounted men of the Department left last Monday to make a raid on the Rebel towns south of us. If successful, he will do much towards compelling the evacuation of Richmond. The rains and swollen streams are regarded as the chief danger.

So many troops have left us that those who remain are kept almost constantly on duty. The men never were so cheerful when overworked before. They all think the end is so near that they can stand anything during the rest of the struggle.

Affectionately, your son,

R.

MRS. SOPHIA HAYES.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 565

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, April 5, 1865

We get no particulars of the surrender of Richmond, of the losses and casualties, of the time and circumstances of the evacuation. On Sunday afternoon Lee sent word to Davis that they were doomed, and advised his immediate departure. With heavy hearts and light luggage the leaders left at once.

Mr. Seward read to Mr. McCulloch and myself a proclamation which he had prepared for the President to sign, closing the ports to foreign powers, in the Rebel States. He and myself have had several conversations for the last two or three months on this subject. The time had arrived when it seemed to him proper to issue it, and unless the President returned forthwith it was, he thought, advisable that he, Mr. Seward, should go to Richmond and see him. He could also communicate with the President on the subject of payment of requisitions of the Navy and War Departments. Accordingly, a telegram was prepared and sent to the President, and Seward, anticipating that the President would remain a few days longer, made preparations to leave by procuring the promise of a revenue cutter to convey him. He is filled with anxiety to see the President, and these schemes are his apology.

Within half an hour after parting from Mr. Seward, his horses ran away with the carriage in which he was taking a ride, he jumped from the vehicle, was taken up badly injured, with his arm and jaw broken, and his head and face badly bruised.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 275

Major Charles Wright Wills: March 3, 1865

Five miles south of Cheraw, S. C., March 3, 1865.

General Wood says we have made 24 miles to-day. Our whole corps on one road and hardly a check all day. This is Thompson's Creek, and the Rebels under Hardee thoroughly fortified it. Logan's orders are to carry the works to-morrow, but as usual the Rebels have left. The 17th A. C. took Cheraw this p. m. without a fight, getting 27 pieces of field artillery, 3,000 stands of small arms, besides a great deal of forage.

There were only two or three small farms on the road today. Poorest country I have seen yet. An intelligent prisoner captured to-day says that Kilpatrick has taken Charlotte, N. C., and that Lee is evacuating Richmond. Saw the sun to-day; had almost forgotten there was such a luminary.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 356