Diary of Orrin Brown, New Bern, North Carolina
Sunday–Apr. 23rd
We had a quite a cool night and it has been cool all day with a west wind. There was 200 or 300 more men came in today from Goldsboro. I begin to feel quite smart again the jaunders have allmost left me. We draw two cups of coffee per day 1/2 loaf Soft Bread and a small piece of salt Beef as usual. I read 8 Chapts. today.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis was at this point still hanging out in Charlotte, North Carolina, in communication with Gen. Johnston and what was left of the Rebel Army command. Angley, Cross & Hill note his reflection on recent events:
Panic has seized the country…The issue is one which it is very painful for me to meet. On the one hand is the long night of oppression which will follow the return of our people to the ‘Union’; on the other, the suffering of the women and children, and carnage among the few brave patriots who would still oppose the invader.
Here we see how Gen. Sherman’s concern could prove out so easily, that Davis would take his fight to the high country or Out West with whatever “few brave patriots” he could muster. Both armies were in a holding pattern, waiting on word from Washington, D.C., which was on its way. Major Henry Hitchcock, who had brought Sherman’s Peace terms to the nation’s capital for approval, telegraphed Gen. Sherman that he would be back at Raleigh in the morning. He didn’t mention he was bringing a guest.
Read More:
- Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson (Penguin Press, 2014)
- Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War by Michael Vorenberg (Knopf, 2025)
- Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee’s Army after Appomattox by Caroline E. Janney (University of North Carolina Press, 2021)
- Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee–The War They Fought, the Peace They Forged by William C. Davis (Da Capo Press, 2015)
- Grant and Lee: Victorious American and Vanquished Virginian by Edward H. Bonekemper III (Prager, 2007)
- Grant and Lee. The Virginia campaigns 1864-1865 by William A. Frassanito (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983)
- Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas by John Gilchrist Barrett (Univ North Carolina Press, 1956)
- Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman by Robert L. O’Connell (Random House, 2014)
- The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman’s Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns by Joseph T. Glatthaar (New York University Press, 1985)
- The Memoirs Of General William T. Sherman by W.T. Sherman (Library of America, 1990)
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