Page:A narrative of service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry.djvu/194

This page has been validated.

SERVICE WITH THE THIRD

showers, and vegetation is growing fine. This part of North Carolina is very fine country and crops look well.

A great many of Lee's paroled army are coming in here, and they seem more pleased at being whipped or at getting home than we do at having gained a victory. Some of them say they cheered louder when they surrendered than Grant's army when they captured them.

********

Our camps were now overrun with citizens and paroled Confederate soldiers, who were hunting for horses that they had lost; some of them had come as far as sixty or seventy miles. We gave them all the spare horses that we had, for we knew that the Government would have to help them in some way to keep them from starvation. We also issued to them large quantities of rations, for there was nothing eatable left in all the track of Sherman's army. On the 29th, general orders were issued announcing the formal surrender of Johnston's army.

Homeward

On the next day began the march to Washington. We entered Richmond on May 11, and on

[176]