Diary of Orrin Brown, Rocky Mount, South Carolina
Sunday–Feb. 26th
It rained nearly all night again last night and was very foggy this morning but the sun came out about 9 AM and I think that our storm is over with for the present. Our waggon train was passing till about 10 Oclock last night and they are passing again this morning. The roads are in a dreadfull condition. I did not rest much last night on account of my eyes and head paining so and my head is very bad today. The train all got up about noon so I think we will move again tomorrow. We had regimental inspection at 4PM we have had a very pleasant day since the sun came out. I read 7 Chapt. in the Testament today.
The Catawba River begins in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, becoming known as the Wateree River at modern Lake Wateree between Fairfield and Kershaw counties—about where Pvt. Brown and Morgan’s 2nd Division was trying to cross the swollen river. Lake Wateree is a 21-square mile reservoir developed by Duke Power in 1919, one of South Carolina’s oldest man-made lakes, with 181 miles of shoreline. The Wateree Hydro Station can produce up to 56 megawatts of electricity.
The Wateree River is named for an historic tribe which was absorbed into the Catawba people. The Saluda and Broad rivers, crossed earlier to the west, combine at Columbia to form the Congaree, which joins the Wateree to form the Santee River.
Read More:
- 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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