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

[249] transit, for he had not proceeded far before grunts developed into squeals, squeals into internal dissensions, to which the bottom of the barrel at last succumbed, and a brace of pigs were coursing at liberty. Here was a poser for the spoilsman. If he caught them again, how should he carry them? While he was attempting to solve this problem the cavalry patrol hove in sight, and Swain made for camp, where, crestfallen and chagrined, he related how he had left to the greedy maws of the provost-guard the quarry which he had hoped to share with his mess that night.

In considering this question of foraging, it has not been my purpose to put the soldiers of the Union armies in an unfair or unfavorable position as compared with their opponents. It has been claimed that Southerners on northern soil were more vindictive and wanton than Northerners on southern soil; and the reason on which this statement is based is that the South hated the Yankees, but the North hated only slavery. Nor is it my intention to charge atrocities upon the best men of either army. They were committed by the few. And I do not wish to be understood as declaring foraging a black and atrocious act, for, as I have shown, it had a legal warrant. I only claim that when the order once goes forth it leads to excesses, which it is difficult to control, and such excesses are likely to seriously affect the unoffending, defenceless women and children with woes out of all proportion with their simple part in bringing on the strife. But so it always has been, and so it probably always will be, till wars and rumors of wars shall cease.