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St. Augustine (Florida, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
on the order of his going, came sliding and tumbling down off the roof, striking the ground with too much emphasis and a great deal of feeling, where, joined by his comrades, who by this time had taken in the situation, he beat a hasty retreat, followed by the jeers of the Johnnies, and rejoined the column. A veteran of the Seventh New Hampshire tells of one Charley Swain, who was not only an excellent duty soldier, A Dilemma. but a champion forager. While this regiment lay at St. Augustine, Fla., in 1863, Swain started out on one of his quests for game, and, although it had grown rather scarce, at last found two small pigs penned up in the suburbs of the town. His resolve was immediately made to take them into camp. Securing a barrel, he laid it down, open at one end, in a corner of the pen, and without commotion soon had both grunters inside the barrel, and the barrel standing on end. By hard tugging he lifted it clear of the pen, and, taking it on his back, started rapidl
Maryland (Maryland, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
idents were the saddest of spectacles after the army had passed along in the early fall, for no native-born Southron had a finer appreciation of the excellent qualities of roasting ears than the average Yankee soldier, who left no stalk unstripped of its burden. Even the stalks themselves were used, to regale the appetites of the horses and mules. Volumes might be filled with incidents of foraging. I will relate one or two that came under my own personal observation. The people of Maryland undoubtedly enjoyed greater exemption from foragers, as a whole, than did those of Virginia, for a larger number of the former than of the latter were supposed to be loyal and were therefore protected. I say supposed, for personally I am of the opinion that the Virginians were fully as loyal as the Marylanders. But a large number of the soldiers when fresh and new in the service saw an enemy in every bush, and recognized no white man south of Mason and Dixon's line as other than a secesh
Dixon, Ill. (Illinois, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
ervation. The people of Maryland undoubtedly enjoyed greater exemption from foragers, as a whole, than did those of Virginia, for a larger number of the former than of the latter were supposed to be loyal and were therefore protected. I say supposed, for personally I am of the opinion that the Virginians were fully as loyal as the Marylanders. But a large number of the soldiers when fresh and new in the service saw an enemy in every bush, and recognized no white man south of Mason and Dixon's line as other than a secesh. Very often they were right, but the point I wish to make is that they indulged in foraging to a greater extent probably than troops which had been longer in service. Before my own company had seen any hard service it was located at Poolesville, thirty-eight miles from Washington, where it formed part of an independent brigade, which was included in the defences of Washington, and under the command of General Heintzelman. While we lay there drilling, growling
Fredericksburg, Va. (Virginia, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
n left in his place; but later in the war all animals abandoned by the Union army were shot if any life remained in them, so that even this resource was to that extent cut off from the inhabitants, and the family cow, while she was spared, was fitted out for such service. But the soldiers did not always content themselves with taking eatables and forage. Destruction of the most wanton and inexcusable character was sometimes indulged in. It is charged upon them when the army entered Fredericksburg, in 1862, that they took especial delight in bayonetting mirrors, smashing piano-keys with musket-butts, pitching crockery out of windows, and destroying other such inoffensive material, which could be of no possible service to either party. If they had been imbibing commissary whiskey, they were all the more unreasonable and outrageous in their destruction. Whenever a man was detected in the enactment of such disgraceful and unsoldierly conduct, he was put under arrest, and sentenced
Petersburg, Va. (Virginia, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
er, had hundreds of bushels of corn, I should judge, which the forage trains took aboard before they crossed over; and on the south side of the James, east from Petersburg, where Northern troops had never before pene- A corn-barn and hay-rick. trated, many such stores of corn were appropriated to feed the thousands of loyal quadrg the stalks of tobacco, root upwards. Then, in other buildings were hogsheads pressed full of the weed, in another stage of the curing. It is well known that Petersburg is the centre of a very extensive tobacco-trade, and in that city are large tobacco-factories. But the war put a summary end to this business for the time, by column without leave. They were not infrequently murdered on these expeditions. On the 7th of December, 1864, Warren's Fifth Corps was started southward from Petersburg, to destroy the Weldon Railroad still further. On their return, they found some of their men, who had straggled and foraged, lying by the roadside murdered, th
Georgia (Georgia, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
hams, bacon, bags of corn-meal, and poultry of every description. No doubt, many acts of pillage, robbery, and violence were committed by these foragers, usually called bummers; for I have since heard of jewelry taken from women, and the plunder of articles that never reached the commissary; but these acts were exceptional and incidental. Sherman further states that his army started with about five thousand head of cattle and arrived at the sea with about ten thousand, and that the State of Georgia must have lost by his operations fifteen thousand first-rate mules. As to horses, he says that every one of the foraging party of fifty who set out daily on foot invariably returned mounted, accompanying the various wagon-loads of provisions and forage seized, and, as there were forty brigades, an approximation to the number of horses taken can be made. But this travelling picnic of the Western armies was unique. There is nothing like it elsewhere in the history of the war. Certai
Mason (Virginia, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
rsonal observation. The people of Maryland undoubtedly enjoyed greater exemption from foragers, as a whole, than did those of Virginia, for a larger number of the former than of the latter were supposed to be loyal and were therefore protected. I say supposed, for personally I am of the opinion that the Virginians were fully as loyal as the Marylanders. But a large number of the soldiers when fresh and new in the service saw an enemy in every bush, and recognized no white man south of Mason and Dixon's line as other than a secesh. Very often they were right, but the point I wish to make is that they indulged in foraging to a greater extent probably than troops which had been longer in service. Before my own company had seen any hard service it was located at Poolesville, thirty-eight miles from Washington, where it formed part of an independent brigade, which was included in the defences of Washington, and under the command of General Heintzelman. While we lay there drilling
Virginia (Virginia, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
tion, and finally begging rations from the army. Those families by whose premises both armies marched were in the depths of distress, for Confederate soldiers let little in the way of provisions escape their maws on their line of march, even in Virginia; so that it was not unusual for such families to meet the Union advance with tearful eyes, and relate the losses which they had sustained and the beggary to which they had been reduced by the seizure of their last cow and last ounce of corn-mead mules. Volumes might be filled with incidents of foraging. I will relate one or two that came under my own personal observation. The people of Maryland undoubtedly enjoyed greater exemption from foragers, as a whole, than did those of Virginia, for a larger number of the former than of the latter were supposed to be loyal and were therefore protected. I say supposed, for personally I am of the opinion that the Virginians were fully as loyal as the Marylanders. But a large number of
United States (United States) (search for this): chapter 13
people of the South were in a state of rebellion against the government, notwithstanding that they had been duly A discovery. Act II. warned to desist from war and return to their allegiance; that they had therefore forfeited all claim to whatever property the soldier chose to appropriate; that this was one of the risks they assumed when they raised the banner of secession; that for this and perhaps other reasons, they should be treated just as a foreign nation waging war against the United States, all of which may seem plausible at first view, and indeed it may be said just here that if the soldiers had always despoiled the enemy to supply their own pressing personal needs, or if they had always taken or destroyed only those things which could be of service to the enemy in the prosecution of the war, the arguments against foraging would be considerably weakened; but the authority to forage carried with it also the exercise of the office of judge and jury, from whom there was no a
Savannah (Georgia, United States) (search for this): chapter 13
ny daily to take scythes from the Battery wagon, and, with a six-mule team, go off and now a load of grass wherever they could find it within our lines, to eke out the government forage. The same programme was enacted by other batteries in the corps. As Sherman's Bummers achieved a notoriety as foragers par excellence, some facts regarding them will be of interest in this connection. Paragraphs 4 and 6 of Sherman's Special Field Orders 120, dated Nov. 9, 1864, just before starting for Savannah, read as follows:-- 4. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route travelled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten days provisions for his command, and three days forage. Sol
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