Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

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[562] tenable. Now, leaving New Hope, he began to move back with remarkable quickness to the new line partially prepared by his engineers. This line, about ten miles long, ran, in general, from southwest to northeast, and was doubtless intended only for a temporary resort.

At last, McPherson, still going toward the east, reached and followed the Ackworth Railroad, and then moved out and went beyond us all near to Bush Mountain.

Thomas, after another leftward effort, was next in place to McPherson, near to and advancing upon Pine Top, while Schofield remained nearer the angle at Gilgal Church. Our line, like that of the Confederates', was about ten miles long, and conformed to all the irregularities of Johnston's intrenchments. The Georgia mud was deep, the water stood in pools, and it was hard to get fires to cook our food and dry spots sufficiently large upon which to spread a tent fly or soldier's blanket.

A young man from Boston who joined me, Mr. Frank Gilman, and who became my private secretary, though well and strong when he arrived, and full of patriotic fervor, with an earnest desire to remain, could not bear the wear and tear of our mud bivouac here near Big Shanty. He lost his appetite and little by little his flesh; then, being attacked by chills and fever, was obliged to seek the hospital, and, finally, to save his life, he returned to his home. But the most of the soldiers were now veterans, and so inured to hardships that the mud and water seemed hardly to affect them at all; they thought the soft places around the camp fires preferable for beds to the rough rocks which they had had a few days before.