Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 11.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[207] hogs, fitted kindly by nature for forcing their way through the thick jungles of bushes. The former are very tempting to stragglers especially when they have eaten only hard salt pork for many days, and it is a very natural thing that many of them should be shot and carried on the march till the time for the evening halt. The sharp eye of the Provost Marshal detected some of these forbidden meats pendent from a pole carried on the shoulders of two men, who in vain sought to avoid observation by making a troublesome march through the fields, and, as a consequence, when the halt was called for the night, certain men were to be seen tramping slowly around a limited circle in the hot sunshine, and close by the roadside, carrying between them the aforesaid mutton and preceded and followed by certain others who had been accomplices thereto, carrying rails on their shoulders, and the whole marching in solemn procession to the music of tremendous volleys of cheers from the troops who were passing by and comprehended the situation. When all things were taken into consideration, both the quality of the meat involved and the crest-fallen faces of the men who carried it, the whole affair was decidedly sheepish. The conclusions of the matter was that the men carried off their spoils in triumph, declaring they had earned it, and would eat it accordingly.

General Sherman evidently meant by his order, as every sensible man would at once understand, that the supplies from the country were to be added to the Government stores by the proper authorities, and issued regularly to companies and squads in the usual manner. Every corps has with it its own droves of beeves, which are kept in good condition by foraging, and which have a way of absorbing all that are found by the roadside, so that the men have little to complain of in this particular. All along the lines of battle, when the armies were confronting each other, a few rods in the rear, were little pens of cattle from which the men in the trenches were well reinforced with smoking steaks, added to their coffee and pilot bread; while two or three miles in the rear could be seen large droves, under guard, serenely grazing in the pastures-forming the best possible reserve forces upon which the army could fall back.

Still there is very little danger that this army will suffer any serious demoralization by straggling and pillaging. There is very little of it. The men were thoroughly sorted over before starting, and the feeble and sick were rejected. I had occasion, in following at the rear of the whole army for a day, to observe the truth of this. Scarcely a dozen were overtaken in the whole day, where a regiment might have been expected. A hundred and twenty-eight ambulances were provided for the Fourth corps, and yet the fear of the disgrace of having been carted in the sick wagon, and the general good assurance of the men that they are going on no fools errand, kept. the men square up to the regiment. The same good sense which ordered weak, but plucky men to be transferred from the regiments to the hospital, brought out from the latter to the place where they could do some service, a host of lusty cowards. Captain Warnock has but lately returned from a visitation of wholesale purging to the hospitals of the Department, where he has been ousting from their cozy cots all malingerers and skin-deep sick men, without mercy. From the hospitals of the Department, he returned to duty about twelve hundred men, and from those at Nashville alone, nine hundred and sixty. So let it be, more and more.

There is not a superfluity of news afloat at present. Captain Tousley, of the Fourth corps, who came in to-night from our former camping-ground and the scenes of the engagements had about there, from which the corps marched yesterday, reports that the rebels had had a force of cavalry all day to-day attempting to take the hospitals stationed there. General Kimball's brigade (formerly General Little's) were guarding them, and had lost a few wounded during the day. All the wounded will arrive safely at this camp sometime to-night. Some of the wounded were so terrified at the prospect of falling into the hands of the rebels that even poor wretches whose legs were mangled by shells, crawled on the backs of mules and escaped. The damnable villainy which will make such an attack is of a piece with that which orders men to fire upon those (Federals) who are burying their own (rebel) dead.

The army is pretty much massed about here on the railroad and near it, recruiting itself for a new campaign. The cars at present come to the river at Etowah, where there is a large bridge, six hundred feet long, seventy-five feet high, and composed of three branches of trestle-work, which is announced to be completed on the tenth. Heavy wagon trains are already running from that point to the army, supplying the army anew; and as soon as the cars cross the bridge, and the wagons are again filled from them, why, then — yes.

The army extends nearly to Lost Mountain in its outposts, and will probably find no resistance this side the Chattahoochee. General Sherman's headquarters are at present established at Acworth, which is a little village on the railroad, of twenty or thirty houses, and about ten miles below the Etowah River. General Thomas' are within a quarter of a mile of this place.

The whole army has now accomplished the object of flanking the strong position of Allatoona Gap, and, at the same time, transferring itself across the range of hills of the same name, where it was expected we would meet so stout an opposition. The railroad has been brought along at the same time. Thus we have accomplished the third great step in the march to Atlanta — Buzzard Roost, Resaca, and Allatoona. There remains only the fourth--Chattahoochee River. By calculating the time it has