Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

Post image for Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

March 4, 2015

Diary of Alexander G. Downing; Company E, Eleventh Iowa Infantry

Saturday, 4th—We remained in bivouac all day. The Fifteenth Corps just came in on a road to our left and is to cross the Pedee ahead of the Seventeenth. The rebel skirmishers are just across the river and our skirmishers are keeping up a lively fusillade. Our engineers cannot lay the pontoons so long as the rebels are on the opposite bank of the river and the plan is to send a detachment above or below and cross the river after dark, and flank them. The foragers of the Seventeenth Corps were put in command of the colonel of the Ninth Illinois today and sent out on a raid to Society Hill, fifteen miles south of Cheraw on the railroad. They captured and destroyed two trains of cars loaded with ammunition and provisions, and then tore up the tracks for some miles and burned everything in town that would burn.

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