Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 11.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

It will readily be seen that some one high in authority in the quarter-masters' department was to blame for this state of affairs. Captain Rowan says that he saw ‘with his own eyes thousands of bales of good fodder actually rotting along the line of the principal railroad accessible to the army, for want of attention.’

The officers of the subsistence department cannot say that short transportation was the cause of insufficient supplies, for at this time the army was in winter quarters at Dalton, Ga., and the cars were not used for the transportation of troops, but were used exclusively for supplies, except a few furloughed and sick men.

Notwithstanding the complaints of the artillery officers, the forage question remained about the same until the close of the war, except an occasional feast obtained on the march in the rich valleys of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. The horses were made to feel that they had friends when the artillerists had access to provender. Such feasts were few and far between.