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After crossing, Slocum and the cavalry will have the road from Lancaster to Chesterfield, and you (Howard) from your ferry go straight for Cheraw, dipping a little south to get on the Camden road. I will keep with the Twentieth Corps.
From this it will be seen what a wide swath we were making, and the general direction taken by the whole command. At Perry's Ferry, across the Wateree River, I spent the night of February 22d. The country had begun to be fertile and rolling, with better farms than those near Columbia. There was some show of hostile cavalry in our front, which we pushed back as we marched. The Wateree was between 300 and 400 feet wide, and had quite a strong flow. Sherman's retaliatory work has often been mentioned. I think it began from an occurrence of this day. Two of our men were found not only slain, but with their brains beaten out. We judged that they had been captured first and then murdered.
Several men in another column were killed in the same way and labels pinned upon them. On the labels were these words: “Death to all foragers.” These are Sherman's words to me, which he wrote after finding repeated acts like the above:
I have ordered Kilpatrick to select of his prisoners, man for man, shoot them, and leave them by the roadside labeled, so that our enemy will see for every man he executes he takes the life of one of his own.
After defining proper and improper foraging, Sherman continues: “I lay down these rules, and wish you to be governed by them. If any of your foragers are murdered, take life for life, leaving a record of each case.”
It is quite surprising how quickly the Confederates,
