anta,
on Sept. 2. Hood's infantry and cavalry had been somewhere south, and
southwest of Atlanta. Sherman was fixing to destroy, and strike out
southeast across Georgia, and Hood was preparing to strike out for
middle Tennessee and Nashville.

With our guns and wagons, we joined the army wagon train, making its
way northwestward, during a very rainy spell of weather. Traveling
through the flat piney woods was awful. The white loblolly mud was
often axle deep in the road, and turning out in these flats did not
seem to better the matter much.

The writer had now been appointed a Sergeant, and been given a pie bald
pony to ride at the head of his 4th Detachment of gun caisson. One day
his pony got both feet on same side into a deep rut under the loblolly
and down flat broadside he went and the writer disappeared. When he
emerged he was greeted with the well known yell, "Come out of that, I
see your ears sticking out." When the mud dried, it flaked off and I
was not much worse off temporarily than the balance of the crowd and
they were welcome to the fun.

Finally, we reached the Tennessee valley, in Morgan County, and marched
westward. The sites of the old plantation homes were now marked only by
groups of chimneys, the plantations a dreary waste. Reaching vicinity
of Decatur about ---- we found it garrisoned by a Federal force with
entrenchments, but Hood's objective point for crossing the Tennessee
river was between Tuscumbia and Florence. Near Tuscumbia, our battery
was again in camp for a few days. As from West Point to Florence in a
direct line is about 200 miles by the route traveled by us 250 or 275
miles of continuous march. We were not sorry to get a chance to rest,
wash, clean and repair up. Here, in the garden spot of Alabama, prior
to the war, food was scarce. The beef issued to us could not produce a
bead of fat, on the top of the pot, when boiled. Bacon or salt pork,
when we got any was generally rancid. But we got here one unusual
luxury in the way of food, a fine young fat mule had its back broken by
the fall of a tree, cut down in camp. So it was killed and the boys
took possession and divided it out. It was very fat. The fat from its
"innards" was "tryed" out like oil and saved in bottles and cans for
"breadshortening" for which it answered well. The meat was very fine,
much better than any beef we had gotton for a long time. But the boys
made all sorts of fun over it. We had some left to carry along o