diers are aware of
this fact who have passed this portion of the country. There are places
again where the sand seems to have been drifted like snow over the
surface of a plain, and as much as one thing can resemble another,
these drifts resemble snow, of a pure white color.
The swamps in this State are very different from those of Georgia. They
are not so difficult to travel through, and not near as numerous and
large. In many of them, rice is extensively cultivated, and is far
superior in quality to that raised on high lands.
So far, the State furnished us an abundance of forage of every kind,
and the very best.
The boys lived sumptuously on flour, molasses, cured hams and many
other of the staunch things of life--never fared better.
They always ate to satiety, and quit with plenty left. From the very
first they treated South Carolina as her acts of treason and atrocity
deserved. Nearly every house all over the country was fed on the flames
of Yankee vengeance. When their houses were burnt, the proud chivalry
were obliged to seek refuge in negro shanties--an awful condescension,
but scores of them have had their pride thus broken.
To some, it may have seemed relentless barbarism to burn and devastate
a country in the manner in which Carolina was served, but when they
remember she was the main actor in the rebellion, fired the first gun,
and led her sister States into a fratricidal war, and, moreover, prided
herself in such acts of inhumanity, who then can pity her, or
sympathize with her? She dared not ask sympathy, for multitudes of
slain patriots answered, No sympathy for the venomous Carolina! There
was no time in the day when looking around you there might not be seen
liquid flames of fire lifting themselves in mad waves above the
beautiful mansion, gin or fences; and even the hills and valleys for
miles around were blue with smoke.
These were truly the smoky days of Carolina! Such was the inveterate
hatred our troops entertained towards this State, and such the freedom
allowed, that seldom the least of things were spared. If there was more
forage than was needed for army consumption, the dancing flames of
Yankee vengeance eat it up.
This portion of South Carolina was not thickly settled, owing to single
persons owning very large tracts of land. On nearly all of these
extensive plantations there was usually two fine dwellings: one for the
lord, the other for the overseer. Round the overseer's dwelli
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