Jenkins' Brigade had been at Petersburg for some time after coming up from around Suffolk on the Blackwater and elsewhere down in that section, when we received orders to prepare to load and ship for the West with the balance of Longstreet's corps. Our brigade, however, was the last to be loaded and shipped, and we finally went to the depot and were loaded on freight boxes, inside and outside, the top being as much crowded as the inside. The trains those days did not make as good time as today, and, while I do not recollect how slowly we did run, I do recollect that when our regiment (the First South Carolina Volunteers) reached Bamberg and found the little town all lit up with bonfires and tables spread and the whole country--men, women and children--with baskets of cold chicken, rice pilau, biscuits, hams, boiled eggs, fried ham, salads and everything else that women can get up in a country of plenty, awaiting us and greeting us (the regiment) as if we were all their brothers; it made us feel good; and then Col. Kilpatrick, who was in charge of this train, held it for about an hour to give us time to do justice to what was tendered us.
Here it was that many an old fellow met his people for the first time since he had left them; even some here met their wives and children for the first time, and here I met one of my sisters who was visiting in the neighborhood. I had not seen any of them since I first went. You may talk of courage and a sense of duty, but when a man pulls up at a station at 1 o'clock at night, finds there his wife and children whom he has not seen for two years, and after about one hour to see them, to be caressed by them, to be allowed to talk with them, then to be hauled off on a freight car--perhaps the only place for him on top--_that is manhood_. But this occurred in Bamberg, not in one case only, but in many--_they were men in those days_.
We passed through Denmark (then Graham's Turn Out), Lees, Blackville, Elko, Williston and White Pond. At each place some member of the regiment had loving friends and families, but no stop-over was allowed, and these old soldiers passed by their homes, outwardly showing cheerfulness, but one could discover their eyes were dim. We stopped over a couple of hours in Augusta, where we were transferred to the Georgia Road. We arrived in Atlanta early next morning and thence direct on to Chattanooga. It was right cold riding in and on top of freight boxes, so after leaving Atlanta we gathered some sand while the train was stopped and put it on the floor of the car, and on top, too, and that evening between sundown and dark we passed through Marietta with fires in and on top, cooking supper. We even spread down our beds on top of these trains and went regularly to bed. We reached the nearest station to Chickamauga that was in our possession, and were immediately unloaded and ordered in a double quick for the battlefield. The fight had been going on since early the day before and Longstreet's corps had reached there to be in time, with the exception of our brigade. There was hard fighting at Chickamauga, and the battle was won when our brigade got in at a double quick. The enemy were already on the run, and we, being fresh, there was a regular stampede. Had Bragg let Longstreet alone we would have run the last one into the Tennessee River, but Bragg held us up and gave them time to "catch their breath" and stop at Chattanooga and at the base of Lookout Mountain. Here we remained for the most of the fall and here we had the hardest service of the entire war. The rainy season came on--cold, sleet and snow--and the creeks in our rear got so swollen that we were cut off from our supplies. We had a tough time getting something to eat. So scarce were rations that some men in our regiment tore down barns catching rats, which they would boil and put in "drop dumplings" and did have good stews. Finally Col. Kilpatrick had a detail of axmen to fell trees, out of which he had a large raft made, and sent a detail across the expanse of water and brought us in meal, bacon, salt and whatever there was. Ours was the only regiment so fortunate.