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Updated: May 27, 2025
He had, with characteristic lack of reflection and without authority, furloughed the Fifth West Virginia regiment in mass and sent the men home. I gave him a new one in place of this, ordered him to reassemble the other as soon as possible, and to march at once to Parkersburg, proceeding thence to Clarksburg by rail.
Another portion of them were not exactly the worst kind of men, but those adventurous and uneasy varlets who always want to get out of jail when they are in, and in when they are out; furloughed sailors, for example, who had enlisted just for fun, while ashore, with no definite purpose of remaining in the land service for any tedious length of time.
It was true, besides, that the whole male population of the South, of military age, was part of the army, and that even State officers were "furloughed" to enable them to perform public duties of a civil nature.
Among them I recognized the young fellow whom we had met with his wife carrying away the yule-log; and found that all of them were workmen upon the estate who either being married or having homes within walking distance were to be furloughed for the day.
General Corse may see you and explain in full, but, lest he should not find you in person, I will simply state that Forrest, availing himself of the absence of our furloughed men and of the detachment with you, has pushed up between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers, even to the Ohio. He attacked Paducah, but got the worst of it, and he still lingers about the place.
Still, I doubt if there be any necessity in time of peace to organize a corps specially to work the military railroads in time of war, because in peace these same men gain all the necessary experience, possess all the daring and courage of soldiers, and only need the occasional protection and assistance of the necessary train-guard, which may be composed of the furloughed men coming and going, or of details made from the local garrisons to the rear.
On paper Thomas had plenty of men, but Sherman had taken his pick of infantry, cavalry, artillery and transportation, leaving the odds and ends with Thomas, consisting largely of post troops garrisoning towns; bridge guards in block-houses along the railroads; new regiments recruited by the payment of the big bounties that produced the infamous tribe of bounty jumpers; negro regiments never yet tested in battle; green drafted men assigned to some of the old, depleted regiments in such large numbers as to change their veteran character; dismounted cavalrymen sent back to get horses, and convalescents and furloughed men belonging to the army with Sherman who had come up too late to join their commands, organized into temporary companies and regiments.
For when we consider that these Pennsylvania levies who have now mutinied are recruits and soldiers of a day, who have not borne the heat and burden of war, and who can have in reality very few hardships to complain of, and when we at the same time recollect that those soldiers who have lately been furloughed from this army, are the veterans who have patiently endured hunger, nakedness, and cold; who have suffered and bled without a murmur, and who, with perfect good order have retired to their homes without a settlement of their accounts or a farthing of money in their pockets, we shall be as much astonished at the virtues of the latter as we are struck with detestation at the proceedings of the former."
He had furloughed many of his loyalists, as all formidable resistance seemed at an end; and he now sent out messengers in every direction to recall them to his standard. Meanwhile he fell slowly back from the foot-hills, so that he might not have to face the mountaineers until he had time to gather his own troops. He instantly wrote for reinforcements to Cruger, at Ninety-Six.
Whether Greg was crestfallen at the news no one knew. Greg had never believed, anyway, in wearing his heart on his sleeve "just for other folks to stick pins in it, you know," was his explanation. There came the day when the furloughed second class marched over to camp.
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