John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

[239] who had a liking for tobacco helped himself as freely as he pleased, with no one caring to stay his hand. But I believe that the experts in smoking and chewing preferred the black navy plug of the sutler, at a dollar and a quarter, to this unprepared but purer article to be had by the taking.

Tobacco-drying houses.

While the army lay at Warrenton Sulphur Springs, after Gettysburg in ‘63, a detail of men was made from my company 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. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants or commit any trespass; but during a halt or camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock in sight of their ”