Some little time after this I was the sergeant on the picket line. The enemy's line of picket was some four hundred yards off, but in fair view. At midnight I sent William Dyches, a private from Company E, to relieve the vidette and to remain as vidette till day began to break, then to come back to our picket line. Just as day had fairly broken and Dyches had not come in I took a look for him, and was surprised to see him nearly over to the Yankees. I took a shot at him, but missed him. A Yankee then hollered over to me, saying, "Say, Johnny, we've got one of your small potatoes." I replied, "D——d small, but few in a hill." Dyches had always been a very good soldier—had never shirked duty and was ever there in a fight. He was from the section of Barnwell district, now Aiken county, known as Cracker's Neck, near the Upper Three Runs. Dyches did not reach home until after we all had surrendered and tramped from Appomattox home. We never went back to the trenches after the charge on Fort Harrison; remaining, however, below Richmond until the night of April 1st, when we abandoned our quarters, gave up our breastworks and took our march for Richmond. We reached Richmond after midnight and everything was in confusion and uproar—the city was on fire in more than one place. Soldiers on horse and on foot were going in every direction—old men and women and children were on the streets weeping; all that, together with the heavy firing we could hear at Petersburg, told us that Richmond was gone—Richmond, the goal that Grant had striven so hard for and for which he had sacrificed so many lives, would be his at last. In passing through Richmond I lost both Morrison and Stewart—they escaped me in the confusion.

We went on through Richmond, giving it up to the Yankees who entered just behind us, and just before noon we reached Petersburg. Here we found our troops hardly pressed. We were placed in position some four or five hundred yards below the bridge which spanned the Appomattox River, with orders to hold the bridge, as it was the only escape our whole army had, and to lose this we were captured. We held the advancing enemy all the afternoon until late into the night after our army had crossed. We were drawn off and crossed over, then, pouring oil on the bridge, set fire to it. After seeing it in flames we took up our march as rear guard to Lee's army on that ever-to-be-remembered six days' march, and every hour a fight to Appomattox.

I don't know how to tell of this march. Things happened so fast and we were pressed so hard that we were at one place for only a few minutes and then at another. In a fight here, holding the enemy back long enough for our troops to cross a stream, or even a narrow place in the road, then we were gone. I know at Farmville we had a good, stiff fight, holding the enemy back while our troops crossed the bridge, and at one time it seemed that they would cut us off. Some of our troops waded the creek, neck deep. After passing this place just on top of the hill we found our quartermaster and commissary wagons deserted and afire. Just a little further on we stopped to blow, and I made up a fire and beat up some batter, put a flap-jack in the frying pan. Just as it was ready to turn over we were ordered to make a quick charge. I grabbed my frying pan, flap-jack and all, and went into the charge. We drove the Yankees back, and, getting back to my fire, I finished cooking my flap-jack, and it ate right well.

For six days and six nights we did not stop for sleep nor for rest longer than ten minutes, but those ten minutes were used for sleep. It was a fight and a run the whole time. I saw men—and I did the thing myself—go to sleep walking along. Two days before reaching Appomattox Frank Green slipped out on the side, to see if he could get something to eat. He got off some half mile and had succeeded in getting a half middling of bacon from an old woman. He stuck his bayonet through this and swung it on his shoulder and started out for us. He soon discovered that the Yankees' cavalry were between him and us. He therefore had to outmanoeuvre them some way. Being in any open country this was hard to do. Two of them soon spied him and went for him; but, after an hour or more, Frank came in with his bacon, too. Along about now I was again barefoot. I had not had an opportunity to run upon any dead Yankees, as we were doing the running these times. So I commenced looking around for a pair of shoes somewhere. I soon discovered that Sid Key had a pair of number sixes hung onto his belt. Sid wore about tens. I bartered him for a trade. He was willing to sell, but he wanted cash. However, he let me have them on credit, with the understanding that I would pay him after the next fight if I got anything from a dead Yankee. We never got into another fight where we held the field, consequently, I never had a chance at a dead Yankee; and I owe Sid for those shoes yet!

On the morning of April 9th, 1865, we were halted in a field. Firing was going on down on the front. We had not long stopped when we noticed that the firing on the front had ceased. We were lying down on each side of the road. Presently we saw two men galloping up the road. On reaching us we discovered one to be one of our general's staff officers, the other to be a Yankee officer. Right then there was excitement. We knew something was wrong, but what was it? Sleep and exhaustion had gone; everybody was up, stirring around and wondering. We were held here in this position and under this strain for over three hours, when the report got started that Lee had surrendered. Very shortly after we heard this we saw a crowd of horsemen coming up the road. We soon recognized Gen. Lee among them. Every man got on his feet, and we commenced yelling for Lee. The old man pulled off his hat, and, with tears streaming down his cheeks, without a word, he rode through us. Lee was not the only one shedding tears—old men who had wives, sons, daughters, even grandchildren at home; middle aged men who had families at home; younger men who had left a young wife, and young fellows like myself—all were bowing their heads with tears; but no thought of censure; no criticism of Gen. Lee, ever entered the minds of any of us. We knew he had done for the best and we had more confidence in him, as he rode through us that day, than we ever had before, and we loved him more. We knew how humiliated he felt, and, knowing this, we were anxious to make him feel that we recognized that he had done right, and our confidence and love for him, instead of being shaken, had been increased. He was certainly now more of an idol than ever before.

That afternoon we were taken into the oak grove and put in the Bull Pen, as we called it. This was only going into bivouac with a guard around us, but not a Yankee guard. We could not have submitted to that had that been attempted; the last one would have been knocked out during the night. But we had our own men for our guards. We were not allowed out of our lines, nor were any Yankees allowed to come in; but they hung around and seemed surprised that they had such a hard time in overwhelming such a crowd of rag-a-muffins, and so few of them.

On being put into the Bull Pen it so happened, and we immediately discovered, there was in our regimental lines a large barn pretty well filled with ears of corn. We were soon scrambling for this and men could be seen going in all directions with an armful of this corn. It looked exactly like each man was going to feed a horse. It was well for us that we struck this luck, for we had nothing to eat; and when there is nothing better, parched corn goes mighty good. We now filled up on our parched corn and by good dark everybody seemed to be asleep—the first sleep we had for seven days and nights, since we left Richmond. We awoke the next morning, and, after taking our breakfast (parched corn again and water), we felt very much refreshed, after a night of sleep and rest. We would hang around our lines, seeing anything that might take place. During the morning Gen. Lee, accompanied by Gen. Meade and staff, rode around. I suppose Gen. Lee was showing Gen. Meade how few men he had surrendered him and the condition they were in. On passing by us we began to cheer and yell. Meade turned to his color bearer, who had his headquarters' flag rolled up, and said, "Unfurl that flag." This he did, when an old, ragged, half-starved, worn-out Confederate soldier in our lines cried out, "D——n you old rag. We are cheering Gen. Lee." This old fellow, like the balance of us, was no more whipped, penned up here in the Bull Pen, overpowered by at least ten to one, starved, naked, broken down, than he was at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor or the nine months in the trenches and below Richmond. We were not whipped, and we never felt whipped; but felt like men who had done their duty in every emergency, and now, while we were forced to give up the struggle, it was only to overwhelming odds and resources. But we were yet men and men, too, who were entitled to and would get the admiration of the entire world. We knew we deserved this, and, knowing it, we held up our heads, not ashamed to look our victors straight in the eye. And they, the Yankees, acted with much consideration, and like good soldiers, and good Americans can only act, did not show that exultation they must have felt. While they seemed to feel proud, of course, at the result, yet we had their sympathy and good will.

This was April 10. We remained in our lines the entire day. To this we did not object, as we needed the rest, and, besides, we did not care to move around much. Again, we had a good night's sleep and parched corn enough to eat. Early on the morning of the 11th it became known that we were to be taken out and surrender our arms, ammunition and everything else. We were, however, allowed to retain our side arms and blankets. The side arms consisted of, with the officer, his sword and pistol; with the private, his haversack, canteen and little hand axe, the axe that we wore stuck in our belts and which had been of so much service to us in building log breastworks at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and below Richmond. We noticed in the morning, say ten o'clock, the Yankee columns moving down to Appomattox Court House. At noon our drums beat for us to fall in. In a short time we were again in ranks. Lee's army was now moving down the road towards Appomattox Court House, every man fully armed, cartridge boxes full and the men well rested. We knew we were being taken to stack and give up those arms which had been a part of us for four long years; but we did not lag or skulk. Had Gen. Lee, then and there, ridden out and said, "Boys, there are the enemy, go for them," there would have been no man to question it; we would have broken through, no matter the odds. But we marched up in front of them, where they were formed in line of battle, with our heads up, showing them that a soldier knows how to die. We were stopped and made to face them, and then, for the last time, we heard our boy colonel, Jim Hagood, give the command, "First South Carolina, order arms, fix bayonets, stack arms, unbuckle accoutrements, hang up accoutrements." When this was completed we heard again his command, "First Regiment, attention. Right face, file right, march." The deed was done. Now we were truly prisoners—nothing with which to protect us from either danger or insult. We were carried back from whence we came, and we took up our quarters as before. We suffered no insult in any way from any of our enemies. No other army in the world would have been so considerate of a foe that it had taken so long, so much privation, so much sacrifice of human life, to overwhelm. Gen. Grant had acted nobly towards Gen. Lee. His men acted considerately towards us.

JAMES R. HAGOOD,
Colonel of (Hagood's) First S. C. Regiment of Volunteer
Infantry, C. S. Army.

Of him General Lee wrote as follows: "It gives me pleasure to state that Col. J. R. Hagood, during the whole term of his connection with the Army of Northern Virginia, was conspicuous for gallantry, efficiency and good conduct. By his merit constantly exhibited, he rose from a private in his regiment to its command, and showed by his actions that he was worthy of the position."

(Signed) R. E. Lee.

Lexington, Va., 25th March, 1868.

J. R. Hagood volunteered as a private in the above named regiment, just before its departure to Virginia, in the summer of 1862, under the command of Col. Thomas Glover, who had succeeded Johnson Hagood to the colonelcy of the regiment upon the latter's promotion to brigadier-general.

J. R. Hagood was promoted sergeant-major of the regiment August, 1862. He was promoted adjutant of the regiment November 16th, 1862. He was promoted captain of Company K January, 1863. He was promoted colonel of the regiment on 16th of November, 1863. His commission being dated within ten days of his nineteenth birthday, he was doubtless the youngest colonel commanding a regiment in the Confederate Army.

This rapid promotion came to him while serving in and forming a part of "that incomparable infantry which bore upon its bayonets the failing fortune of the Confederacy for four long and bloody years." He surrendered at Appomattox, with Lee's Army, having participated in nineteen battles in which at least 20,000 men were engaged.

That evening Col. Hagood got enough paroles for the men of his regiment, but did not give them out. The next day, April 12, Col. Hagood, having decided to try the scheme of keeping us together, started the tramp for home. Early in the morning the Yankees had sent us over some beef, and upon dividing this out each man got one-fourth of a pound. This was the only rations we had issued to us during the time we were in the Bull Pen; but, in justice to the enemy, I must say that they, too, had not had anything issued them.

I guess we had traveled so fast and furiously that their wagon could not keep up. Here we were, six hundred miles away from home, not a cent in our pockets, and only one-fourth of a pound of raw beef. Can a more deplorable picture be drawn? Col. Hagood marched us off, keeping us pretty well together till night coming on we stopped. We had traveled about twenty miles towards home this day. After stopping for the night Col. Hagood called on the few officers present to meet him, when he explained that we had no money nor had we authority to confiscate something to eat. The men now had nothing and hadn't had for over ten days. He had thought it best to keep them together as long as possible, and now he had gotten them some twenty miles away from the Yankee army, he saw no other alternative but to give each man his parole and turn him loose to get home the best he could. He was satisfied this was the best course. All the officers present agreed with him, and that night each orderly sergeant was given the number of paroles to be filled out, inserting the man's name. By midnight Orderly Sergeant A. P. Manville and myself had them all ready for Company E, and early next morning Sergt. Manville called up the company and gave to each man his parole. Then, with tears in our eyes, we bade each other good-bye, and took our course for our desolated homes in old Barnwell District.