Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

[373] movements of all the others were directed to assist and strengthen him. The others waited, it is true, till he was ready to start, but each was acquiring new strength and assuming more desirable positions during the delay; and the rains that impeded Sherman, in reality aided Schofield and Thomas and Canby to perfect their arrangements to co-operate with him.

On the 1st of February, the army designed for the active campaign from Savannah northward was again sixty thousand strong; and, as before, was composed of two wings, the right under Howard and the left under Slocum. Kilpatrick was once more chief of cavalry. Sixty-eight guns accompanied the command. The wagons were twenty-five hundred in number, and carried an ample supply of ammunition for one great battle, forage for a week, and provisions for twenty days. For fresh meat Sherman depended on beeves driven on the hoof, and such cattle, hogs, and poultry as might be gathered on the march. The same general orders were in force as in the previous campaign, of which this indeed was only a continuation. Sherman calculated that he could safely rely on the country for a moderate quantity of supplies, and that if he should by any possibility be cut off from other resources, his army could live for several weeks on the mules and horses of the trains.

The enemy at this time occupied the cities of Charleston and Augusta, with garrisons capable of making a respectable if not successful defence, but utterly unable to meet the veteran columns of Sherman in the open field. Wheeler's cavalry, now greatly reduced, was expected to resist or delay the national progress, and Wade Hampton had been 106