27 March 1865, Chester, South Carolina

"Lee and Johnston have each fought a drawn battle.* Only a few more dead bodies stiff and stark on an unknown battlefield. For we do not so much as know where these drawn battles took place.
One can never exaggerate the horrors of war on one's own soil. You understand the agony, strive as you will to speak, the agony of heart—mind—body.
'A few more men killed.' A few more women weeping their eyes out, and nothing whatever decided by it more than we knew before the battle."

*On 25 March 1865, Robert E. Lee's troops suffered heavy losses in storming and then abandoning Fort Stedman, east of Petersburg, Virginia. A few days earlier, Joseph E. Johnston also sustained many losses when he unsuccessfully attacked one of Sherman's columns at Bentonville, North Carolina. 

October 1864, tragedy at Petersburg

"Preston Hampton rode recklessly into the hottest fire.* His father [Cavalry Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton III] sent his brother Wade [IV] to bring him back. Wade saw him reel in the saddle and galloped up to him. General Hampton followed. As young Wade reached him, Preston fell from his horse. And as he stooped to raise him was himself shot down. Preston recognized his father but died without speaking a word. Young Wade, though wounded, held his brother's head up. Tom Taylor and others hurried up. The general took his dead son in his arms, kissed him, and handed his body to Tom Taylor and his friends—made them take care of Wade—and then rode back to his post. At the head of his troops in the thickest of the fray he directed the fight for the rest of the day. Until night he did not know young Wade's fate. He might be dead, too.
Now he says no son of his must be in his command. When Wade recovers he must join some other division.
The agony of that day—and the anxiety and the duties of the battlefield—it is all more than a mere man can bear. ...
Preston was not yet twenty."

*On October 27, Hampton's cavalry prevented Federal troops from flanking the Confederate defenses at Petersburg and severing Richmond's southern lines of communication.