Will Fisher to his mother
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Sabbath, March 12, 1865

My own dear Mother,

This pleasant Sabbath I have the satisfaction of knowing that we have again reached a point where communication with home & the world can be had & how much of a pleasure it is, none of you can ever commence to know.
We are at Fayetteville on the Cape Fear River 75 miles from Wilmington by land & 120 by river. There is some place not far below here where our gun boats have come up & there is where we are to send this mail from.
This has been an awful hard march, storms & everything to encounter & sometimes the Rebels. We have had all we could eat, but a good deal of the time nothing at all. We have drawn no rations since we started but lived entirely on the country. For two whole days now I have had nothing to eat but parched corn & pork, bacon, but when we reached this place last night & heard the results of our campaign, I never felt so in all my life.
Wilmington & Charleston have fallen in consequence, besides the results in the interior. We cut loose from the boats on the Savannah river on the 5th of Feb. (left Savannah the 15 of Jan.) & marched on Columbia burnt it to the ground & marched nearly to the N.C. line & then turned east & have at last got here, but we are not yet done.
I suppose we have got to go on to Goldsboro or some point or other. Things are hard for the Rebels just now I should think, but I will write the particulars when I have time. This is no permanent base yet. I am about barefooted & have not had a stocking in two weeks.
None of the express reached before we left Savannah. Skellie did not get his box yet.
I think we will soon get through & have a rest. I will put in some things that I have picked up & which will spoil getting wet every storm. It is my hair which I had cut off awhile ago & as I did not think of its getting so long again I saved a lock for you, & some old continental money. A great deal of love to Aunt S. & my dear Mother from her own.

Willie