y.

It should be remembered that our last stronghold on the Mississippi,
Vicksburg, had capitulated about the time of the disastrous battle of
Gettysburg, with thirty thousand prisoners. That great waterway was
opened to the enemy's gun boats and transports, thus cutting the
South, with a part of her army, in twain.

This suggestion of General Longstreet was accepted, so far as sending
him, with a part of his corps, to Georgia, by his receiving orders
early in September to prepare his troops for transportation.

The most direct route by railroad to Chattanooga, through Southwest
Virginia and East Tennessee, had for some time been in the hands
of the enemy at Knoxville. We were, therefore, forced to take the
circuitous route by way of the two Carolinas and Georgia. There
were two roads open to transportation, one by Wilmington and one by
Charlotte, N.C., as far as Augusta, Ga., but from thence on there was
but a single line, and as such our transit was greatly impeded.

On the morning of the 15th or 16th of September Kershaw's Brigade was
put aboard the trains at White Oak Station, and commenced the long
ride to North Georgia. Hood's Division was already on the way.
Jenkins' (S.C.) Brigade had been assigned to that division, but it and
one of the other of Hood's brigades failed to reach the battleground
in time to participate in the glories of that event. General McLaws,
also, with two of his brigades, Bryan's and Wofford' (Georgians),
missed the fight, the former awaiting the movements of his last
troops, as well as that of the artillery.

Long trains of box cars had been ordered up from Richmond and the
troops were loaded by one company being put inside and the next on
top, so one-half of the corps made the long four days' journey on
the top of box cars. The cars on all railroads in which troops were
transported were little more than skeleton cars; the weather being
warm, the troops cut all but the frame work loose with knives and
axes. They furthermore wished to see outside and witness the fine
country and delightful scenery that lay along the route; nor could
those Inside bear the idea of being shut up in a box car while their
comrades on top were cheering and yelling themselves hoarse at the
waving of handkerchiefs and flags in the hands of the pretty women and
the hats thrown in the air by the old men and boys along the roadside
as the trains sped through the towns, villages, and hamlets of the
Carolinas and