University of Virginia Library

Second Military District, Department of South Carolina,
Georgia and Florida.

On the 19th July, 1862, Colonel Hagood was, by an order from
General Pemberton's headquarters, relieved from duty with his
regiment, then on James Island, and assigned to the command of
the "Second Military District of the Department of South Carolina,
Georgia and Florida." This was in consequence of a telegraphic
dispatch from Richmond that Colonel Hagood was to be

*The Federal reports (War Rebellion, Series I, Vol. XIV) place the Federal reserve
under Gen. Wright nearer Hamilton's Battery than in this sketch.

promoted to a brigadiership, and shortly afterwards he received
his commission, bearing date 21 July. Colonel Hagood was promoted
upon the recommendation of General Pemberton, and it
was peculiarly gratifying to him, both because it was entirely
unsolicited, and because it was a decisive mark of approval from
one whom he esteemed as a thorough soldier. General Pemberton
made few friends in Charleston, from his unfortunate want of
tact and brusquerie of manner. He was not to the taste of a
people at that time particularly disposed to be critical of military
men, and matters through the Coles Island business, which was
undoubtedly the cause of his removal from command in South
Carolina, was much misunderstood; and his misfortune at Vicksburg,
whither he was sent, completed the ruin of his reputation
as a general before the country at large. His conduct afterwards,
however, marked him both as a devoted patriot and a spirited
soldier.

Finding that his usefulness in the high rank he then held of
lieutenant general was impaired by want of public confidence,
he resigned that commission and reverted to his original grade of
lieutenant colonel of artillery in the Regular Army of the Confederate
States; in which capacity he served until the end of the
war. It was General Hagood's pleasant fortune to meet and
serve with him again, both in Virginia and North Carolina.

The Second Military District embraced the country south of
Charleston, from Rantowles to the Ashepoo River, with headquarters
at Adams Run, about twenty-five miles from the city.
Our lines of occupation chiefly followed the coast line of the main
upon which the enemy had never effected a lodgement—the
adjoining islands were debatable ground. The troops of the command
were always mixed, combining all the different arms and
varied in number from 1,000 to 1,200, or 3,000 to 4,000 from time
to time. They were constantly shifting, too, regiments coming
and going as the emergencies of the service required. It was not
a pleasant command. While no operations of a considerable character
were to be expected for some time, the country to be
guarded was extensive and penetrated in every direction by
water courses, giving facility for the petty marauding incursions
which were to be expected. In repelling these, little reputation
was to be made, and from their success much was sure to be lost.

In addition to this, the whole region was before the war considered
fatally malarious during the summer months. In the
winter the climate was delightful.

General Hagood's attention was given at once to a thorough
personal reconnoisance of the country committed to his charge,
and the perfecting of sanitary regulations for the troops consistent
with their indispensable duties.

His military position was that of a local guard, having reference
to the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, and the planting
interest along the coast, and also an advanced guard to the City
of Charleston. The result of his reconnoisance was the location
of batteries armed with siege guns at certain points, with infantry
entrenchments at these and other points; and the maturing of a
general plan of operations in the event of an advance upon
Charleston by a land force from this direction. Upon General
Beaureguard's succeeding General Pemberton in this quarter,
which happened shortly afterwards, he called upon each of his
district commanders to submit their views of operations in their
respective localities. The following paper was submitted by General
Hagood for the Second District and returned approved. It
may be premised that the whole country was a network of swamps
and water courses, and it will be seen that General Hagood, from
the topography of the country, dismissed the idea of the enemy
seeking the main within the limits of his district for an advance
upon Charleston, except between Pon Pon and Rantowles.

"MEMOIR OF OPERATIONS CONTEMPLATED IN SECOND MILITARY
DISTRICT.

General Hagood caused the country embraced in his district
to be thoroughly surveyed and mapped, and made himself personally

acquainted with all its intricacies. He required his staff
to do the same, as well as certain trusty and reliable mounted men
whom he kept about his headquarters as couriers and guides.

The country west of Edisto and to the Ashepoo was watched
by a cavalry company[22] encamped near Jacksonboro on the
Charleston and Savannah Railroad, which picketed Bear's Point,
the junction of the two rivers and a landing on the Ashepoo.
They were subsequently re-enforced by a field battery[23] of artillery;
and were sometimes supported by infantry, when the
number of the latter arms in the district permitted. This was,
however, seldom the case. Walpole's company of fifteen or twenty
men, known as the Stono Scouts, and composed exclusively of late
planters upon the island, were kept upon Johns Island. The
Ashepoo and Johns Island pickets reported direct to headquarters.
The line of pickets from Rantowles to Edisto on the main was
placed under the charge of a permanent superintendent and
reported through him. He was furnished with the following
instructions, which were also promulgated in General Orders:

"GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR PICKETS.

Special instructions as to the number, station and conduct of
each outpost and vidette post was also furnished the superintendent.
The general scheme was a vidette post at each landing on
the line, or good point of observation, with outposts at proper
points to sustain them. These were all of cavalry. A strong
infantry grand guard was stationed at the Church a mile from
Adams Run, where the approaches from these landings chiefly
concentrated. The body of the troops was held at Adams Run
as a strategic center and for sanitary reasons. A permanent garrison
of infantry and artillery was, however, kept at Church
Flats, where siege guns were mounted; and a light battery was
kept encamped sometimes with, and sometimes without, an
infantry support at a landing on Wadmalaw River, known as
Younges Island; and another light battery at Willtown on the
Pon Pon. General Hagood was fortunate in the selection of his
superintendent of pickets, Major John Jenkins, of the Third
Cavalry, and the duty was in general well performed—as well as could be got out of corps newly raised and in which most commonly
the officers needed instruction in every detail.

Before passing from this portion of the subject, it may not be
amiss to say something of the use of cavalry, as developed in
this war. Its use, as on the plains of the eastern continent and
with the short range arms of former wars, seemed to have been
impracticable, for it was never done. They were used generally
merely as mounted riflemen, who dismounted to fight, leaving
every fourth man to hold the horses. Of course there were
exceptional instances. Yet throughout the war, as far as the
writer's observation extended, the former mode of equipping the

cavalrymen was retained. His sabre was slung to his waist, and
when he dismounted to go into action, almost always as skirmisher
when the greatest freedom of action was required, it was
of no earthly use and a most serious hindrance. The sabre came to
be regarded by most of the cavalry as an ornamental badge of
their arm of service, was kept as blunt as a frow, and in many
instances whole corps were without it. The rifle carbine and the
revolver pistol were relied upon, whether upon horseback or
afoot. Now, the use of the sabre has by no means passed away.
In encounters of cavalry with cavalry, and in exceptional cases
of cavalry against infantry, it still remains a more valuable
weapon than any firearm discharged from a horse in motion. To
hang the sabre to the pommel of the saddle on the left side, the
scabbard passing under the left leg of the rider to hold it steady,
and balance it on the right with a holster revolver, all to be
for use only when mounted, and left with the horse when the
soldier dismounted to fight with his carbine, apparently would
relieve the difficulty. Now, the sabre, kept sharp, carried in a
wooden scabbard to preserve its edge, and a repeating carbine
(without a bayonet), would fit the trooper for the discharge of
all the duties required of him in the most effective manner. He
should be taught on horseback to rely as of yore on the sabre
and pistol, and on foot upon the arms and tactics of the light
infantry. Such are the reflections of one who did not serve in
the cavalry arm of the service, but who had opportunities of
observing cavalry fighting and sometimes commanded them in
the field.

Dr. J. F. M. Geddings was the chief surgeon of the command
in the Second Military District, and at his suggestion the following
sanitary regulations were adopted for the sickly season,
and such portions of them as had general application were continued
afterward. They were enforced by the daily inspection
of the doctor himself, who, for the purpose, was relieved from all
other duty. He was untiring in his effort to give them effect:

"SANITARY REGULATIONS.

In addition to the rigid enforcement of the foregoing regulations,
quinine was at times issued to be taken as a prophylactic
in daily doses of three grains, and in default of quinine a decoction
of the bark of the cherry tree and dogwood with whiskey,
equal parts, was used. The good effect of these precautions was
soon visible in the improved health of the troops, which was
alarmingly bad upon General Hagood's taking command, and
we tided over the sickly season without the efficiency of the command
becoming at any time seriously impaired. Most of the
picket stations were upon rice swamps and some of the camps,
as at Rantowles, were in localities heretofore considered deadly
pestilential. The laws of malaria are subtle and but little understood.
Mr. Davis, in discussing the fact of the comparative
exemption of the troops on both sides from its effects during the
war, for this exemption seems also to have occurred in other
malarial sections, is reported to have said:[24] "That the excitement

of war itself was a prophylactic." We had none of the
excitement and all of the monotony of stationary camps.

To guard against the propensity of all troops to accumulate
impedimenta when long in camp, and to endeavor to secure
mobility to the command, the following was made a standing
order:

Schools of instruction by recitation were established in each
regiment and independent corps, followed by reviews and drills
in presence of the brigadier general commanding; and boards
were organized and kept in laborious session for the examination
of officers under the Act of Congress to relieve the army of
incompetent incumbents.

In the discharge of these unobtrusive but important duties,
General Hagood's service in the Second Military District wore
away. No event of military interest beyond an occasional collision
of pickets marked this time. When the enemy advanced upon

General Walker in the Third District in October, 1862, General
Hagood received an urgent dispatch from him calling for
assistance. Moving the Seventh South Carolina Battalion to the
railroad, General Hagood stopped and emptied a passing train
and dispatched the Seventh to Walker's assistance. It reached
him in time to materially assist in the decisive repulse of the
enemy at Pocotaligo. General Hagood, by permission of General
Beauregard, followed with other re-enforcements but arrived
after the battle.

In April, 1863, after the repulse of the enemy's fleet in the
attack on Fort Sumter, their ironclads rendezvoused in the North
Edisto Inlet, where they lay for some time with an infantry force
of some 2,500 or 3,000 men, encamped close by on Seabrook's
Island. General Beauregard organized a force to attempt to sink
the ironclads or drive them to sea, and capture the troops on Seabrook's.
He raised General Hagood's force by special re-enforcements
about 3,000 good infantry, with ten or twelve field guns,
and sent him a naval force of over 100 men with torpedo barges.
The plan was for the torpedo barges to get amongst the fleet just
before day, and as soon as they were routed, and upon condition
that they were, the infantry was to attack. The barges rendezvoused
safely in a creek not over a mile from the fleet on the
previous night; and the land forces were brought unsuspected
within short striking distance. Everything was in readiness for
the next day's work, when the order was countermanded, and
the troops directed to return with all speed to Charleston, to
proceed, most of them, to Pemberton's assistance, then hard
pressed in Vicksburg. A sailor from the naval force deserted
that evening to the enemy, betraying the plan of concealment of
the barges and they with difficulty escaped. Afterwards, while
in North Edisto, the enemy adopted huge rafts of timber as
fenders to each ironclad by way of precaution against the
approach of their diminutive enemies, the torpedo boats. An
instance of special gallantry occurring at this time deserves to be
recorded.

When the troops above referred to landed on Seabrook Island,
Captain Walpole, commanding the Scouts on Johns Island, dispatched
the fact to General Hagood, and received in reply the
order: "Get me a prisoner." It was between sundown and dark,

and taking Sergeant Gervais and Evans Fripp with him, Walpole
made his way through the enemy's chain of videttes and
charging in at full speed upon a regiment which had stacked
arms and was going into bivouac, discharged their six-shooting
rifles right and left, shooting down two men and wounding a
third, whom Walpole, a very active and strong man, jerked up,
as he ran, to the croup of his horse; and the party made their
escape, having obeyed the order to "get a prisoner." He was an
intelligent sergeant and gave all the information wanted before
he died from his wound, which proved mortal next day.

[ILLUSTRATION]

Yankee Ironclad in North Edisto April, 1863 (a monitor).

A few days after General Hagood was relieved of the command
of the Second District, an effort was made by the enemy to pass
up the Pon Pon River in gunboats to Jacksonboro and there
destroy the Charleston and Savannah railroad bridge. They
passed Willtown chiefly from the inefficiency with which the field
battery at that point was worked. The guns were in barbette
entrenchment upon a commanding bluff with the river obstructed
by piling under their fire, and should have turned the boats back.
They passed on, but Captain Walter, of the Washington Artillery,
stationed, as before mentioned, on the western side of the
river near Jacksonboro, came up rapidly with a section of his
battery, and unlimbering in an open old field, went into action
with the two gunboats just as they had reached within sight of

the bridge. He turned them back and sunk one of them, which
the enemy abandoned.[25]

Black's First Regiment of First South Carolina Cavalry
served for a short time after Hagood's taking command, in the
Second District. They were ordered to Virginia and Aiken's
Sixth South Carolina Cavalry took their place.[26] These with two
companies of the Third (Colcock's) under Major Jenkins composed
Hagood's mounted force for the remainder of the time.
The Washington Artillery (Walter's) and the Marion Artillery
(Parker's) were with him all the time. Shultz's Battery was
with him part of the time. The Seventh South Carolina Battalion,
afterwards of Hagood's Brigade, McCullough's Sixteenth
South Carolina, afterwards of Gist's Brigade, and Smith's
Twenty-sixth South Carolina, afterwards of Elliott's Brigade,
constituted his infantry force, details from which also acted as
heavy artillery for the siege guns in position. Other regiments
were with him for short periods. The Stono Scouts under Walpole
were also with him from first to last. Lieutenant-Colonel
Del. Kemper commanded the field batteries and the staff was:

• Captain P. K. Moloney—Assistant Adjutant General.

• Major G. B. Lartigue—Quartermaster.

• Major R. G. Hay—Commissary Subsistence.

• Lieutenant Isaac Hayne—Ordnance Officer.

• Lieutenant Ben Martin—Aid-de-camp.

• Captain Carlos Tracy—Volunteer Aide.

Service in the Second District had all the monotony of garrison
life, with something of its advantages. The families of the
officers to some extent were enabled to visit them from time to
time, the ladies finding shelter in the unoccupied summer residences
of the planters in the little hamlet of Adams Run. It was
a fine fish and game country, and, with railroad facilities for
drawing supplies from home, our tables were fairly furnished for
Confederate times. The troops were supplied from the resources

of the District, and at first these were ample. Towards the last,
however, these supplies became scant. Agricultural operations
had been greatly interfered with by the propinquity of hostile
armies, and the supply of beef cattle and sheep, at first large,
became exhausted. Hogs there were none. But few of the
planters continued to work the plantations south of the railroad.
Among these, however, was Hawkins S. King. He continued
to the last to carry on his several plantations, and truly his homestead
appeared to be a perfect Goshen, whose abundance he dispensed
with a lavish generosity. He obtained with the brigade
staff the sobriquet of "The King of St. Pauls."

General Hagood, however, chafed at his life of inactivity—
while the great game of war was being played so grandly in
Virginia and in the west, his friends and former comrades being
actors in the drama, and received in the spring of 1863 a promise
from General Beauregard to send him into one or the other of
these fields with the first brigade that left the department. Gist
claimed his seniority and got the brigade sent to Pemberton in
June, 1863. Two or three weeks afterward other troops were
ordered in that direction and General Hagood was placed in
command of the brigade organized to go. He left Adams Run
and had reached Charleston on his way, when a dispatch from
Richmond directed Evans's Brigade, lately arrived from North
Carolina, to be substituted in his place. General Beauregard,
when remonstrated with by General Hagood, under a misapprehension
of the source of this order, said he knew not what
induced the unusual course of the War Department in interfering
in this matter. Evans did not desire to go, but was unpopular
with Beauregard's chief of staff, and one of the colonels of
the brigade made for Hagood, who was very intimate with General
Gordon, preferred just then to remain where he was. The
conclusion on General Hagood's mind, whether justly or not, was
that the change had its inspiration in this "power behind the
throne," which was generally believed by those who served with
General Beauregard during this period to be sometimes without
the General's consciousness "stronger than the throne itself."
This belief and the equally general belief of Gordon's unworthiness
operated injuriously both with the officers and men. In the
following summer Captain Beauregard, a brother of the General's

and aid-de-camp on his staff, resigned his commission, and, calling
to say good-bye to General Hagood, told him that he had himself
informed his brother of the common estimate of Gordon's character,
and of its injurious influence upon the General himself.
But Beauregard either knew his chief of staff better, or thought
he could not do without him, for he retained him until he was
compelled to give him up by subsequent action of the War
Department. General Gordon immediately after the war signalized
himself by a very able and heartless attack in the
Northern papers upon Mr. Davis, with whom he had some personal
feud; and has since acquired some notoriety as the commander-in-chief,
by contract for a twelvemonth, of the Cuban
Insurgents.

General Hagood had to stomach his disappointment and return
to Adams Run, expecting another monotonous summer within its
precincts. He shortly after applied for a ten days' leave of
absence to arrange his private affairs, and while at home received
a dispatch from department headquarters ordering him to report
at once in Charleston. Gilmore had developed his batteries
against the south end of Morris Island, and the siege of Charleston
had begun.

Note.—In the winter of 1863 the ladies of Nelson's country sent him a flag for
his battalion, with a request that General Hagood should, for them, make the
formal presentation. This was the last incident of the kind the writer remembers
to have witnessed in the war. They were frequent at an earlier period; perhaps
no one of the earlier regiments marched to the war without some such memorial
of the dear ones at home to nerve them for the fray. These flags were generally
beautifully embroidered State flags and were really used in but few engagements.
The use of a general flag was ordered and as soon as the regiments got into the
larger armies they were required to lay these aside for the regular Confederate
battle flags.

General Hagood's address to the battalion in presenting the ladies' banner is
appended as characteristic of the times. He said:

"I am commissioned, soldiers of the Seventh Battalion, by the ladies of the section
of the State in which your corps was raised, in their name to present you with this
banner.

"For two long years our fair Southern land has been drenched in blood; her plains
have been torn with the rush of contending hosts; her hills have echoed and re-echoed
with the dread voice of battle. The world has beheld with amazement a struggle in
which a million and a half of armed men have been engaged, with almost a continent
for a battlefield. Upon the one side it has seen a gigantic foe, trebling its
adversary in numbers and wealth, and with all the appliances of war at its command,
again and again, with a pertinacity rarely equaled, advancing to the onset.
Upon the other it has seen a people cut off from all save the sympathies of the
brave, standing desperately by their hearthstones and again and again repelling the
insolent foe. We have met them upon our deserted fields; we have fought them
by the light of our blazing homes; in rags, and with imperfect weapons, we have
encountered their serried hosts. In defeat as in victory our high purpose has never
quailed, and in the darkest hour of this unequal war a murmur of repining at its
hardships has never passed the lips of a Southern man; it has never entered into
his heart to conceive a termination to his efforts short of absolute and unqualified
success. It is a spectacle, soldiers, which may well challenge comparison with the
heroic struggles of classic fame, and upon this grand page of history you, too, have
written your names. Upon the weary march, in the comfortless bivouac, and upon the
field of battle, you have borne your part. Beneath the old oaks of Pocotaligo you
have seen a comrade's glazing eye `look fondly to heaven from a deathbed of fame,'
and sadder, far sadder, in tent and hospital, afar from the gentle ministering of
home, you've seen a comrade's spirit flutter its way to God, crushed out by the
merciless requirements of war.

"But while the sons of the South have vindicated the blood they have inherited
from patriot sires, her daughters have illustrated all that is admirable in the
attributes of woman. No Joan has arisen from among them to gird on the harness
of battle, no Charlotte Corday to drive the dagger home to the tyrant's heart. There
has been no need for them to unsex themselves, nor will there ever be a dearth of
manhood requiring such a sacrifice while woman remains the true and holy creature
which God made her. But it is scarce an exaggeration to say that the voluntary
efforts of our women, themselves laboring under cruel and unaccustomed privations,
have clothed our armies, and organized all of comfort that exists in our hospitals. No
high bred Dame of Chivalry ever belted her knight for battle with a more devoted
spirit than that with which the humblest Southern woman has sent her loved ones
to this war. She has checked the cry of wailing over the slaughtered corpse of her
husband, to prepare her first born to take his place; and when disaster has befallen
our arms and the heel of the oppressor has ground into the dust the souls of the few
men who have remained to bear his yoke, the spirit of patriotism has survived in
the women. Insult and injury have failed to crush it—until the indignant utterances
of the civilized world have compelled the oppressor for very shame to desist.[27]

"It is from such women as these, soldiers of the Seventh Battalion, that I present
you with this beautiful banner. Wrought by fair hands, consecrated by the pure
and tender aspirations of wife, and mother, and sister, which cluster in its folds, it
is committed to your keeping.

"Colonel Nelson, it is narrated in martial story that a general, desiring to hold
a pass upon which much depended, posted in the defile a battalion whose metal he
knew, and left them with this stern and simple charge: `Here,' said he, `colonel,
you and your men will die.' And the order was literally obeyed. There they died!
In a like spirit, and with a like confidence, I say to you: `In defense of this flag you
and your men will die.' "