The Atlanta (Georgia) Campaign: May 1 - September 8, 1864., Part I: General Report.
Maj. George B. Davis, Mr. Leslie J. Perry, Mr. Joseph W. Kirkley, Ed.

The diseases from which the troops suffered were those incidental to a campaign long continued, viz, dysentery, diarrhea, fevers (malarial, typho-malarial, and typhoid), with a slight sprinkling of the exanthemata. During the rainy season lesions of the pulmonary viscera were common. Scurvy showed itself in an early part of the campaign, which became considerably aggravated during the time the troops lay in the trenches before Kenesaw and Atlanta. As soon, however, as the corn became edible the command showed marked indications of improvement. After the movement to the south of Atlanta, which resulted in its evacuation, the troops had access to the extensive corn-fields on the line of the march and improved rapidly, and on entering the city on the 7th of September there was little if any of the scorbutic taint perceptible, and the men were in finer condition and better able to. take the field than at any time since their leaving Chattanooga.

The troops wounded at and near Buzzard Roost and Rocky Face Ridge were transferred by rail to the hospitals at Chattanooga. Those wounded near Resaca were treated for some days at the division hospitals and thence transferred to the general field hospital, where the most seriously wounded were retained until they were in condition to be conveyed in the hospital train to the hospitals at the rear. After the first action near Dallas, the wounded were brought in wagons to Kingston and thence by rail to Chattanooga. Those wounded in the last action near Dallas were brought in wagons to Acworth, where temporary hospitals were improvised until the bridge over the Etowah River was rebuilt, when the wounded were carried in freight cars to the rear. The wounded from the various assaults and skirmishes at and about Kenesaw were transferred from the division hospitals to Acworth and Big Shanty and thence by rail to Chattanooga.

After the assault on the enemy's works at Kenesaw, on the 27th of June, orders were given to move the wounded to the rear in the course of twenty-four hours. The Army of the Cumberland hospitals were at the time from six to nine miles distant from Big Shanty, the nearest point on the railroad, where, too, the general field hospital then was. To obey this order it was necessary to avail ourselves of every class of transportation, ambulances and baggage wagons. There were at the time near 2,000 wounded men in this army, and these had to be carried from six to nine miles over roads rendered extremely rough by the rains which had inundated them and the heavy trains which were constantly passing over them. Knowing that Big Shanty would be uncovered by the time named, it was necessary to avail ourselves of every train of box-cars returning to the rear. The haste in which this transfer of wounded men was made caused, I doubt not, much suffering, and I regret to say that in some cases neither proper nor sufficient food was furnished them when en route to Chattanooga. This was owing principally, however, to detention on the road. The trip which was represented as being made in twelve hours at times occupied thirty-six and even more. The result was, the rations in these cases ran short. The attendants accompanying the sick in many cases were regardless of their duties. Though every train had a medical officer accompanying it, he could not see the wounded, save when stopping, in consequence of being unable to pass from car to car when they were in motion. This took the greater part of the nurses from under his eye, and then it was that the wants of the sick were disregarded, the more especially in procuring water for them. To avoid the recurrence