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Updated: May 17, 2025
The rush with the bayonet was never so speedy but that deft fingers found time to rifle the haversacks of the fallen, and such was the eagerness for booty that it was with the greatest difficulty that the troops were dragged off from the pursuit.
Sherman had left his camp on the north side of the Tennessee River, near Chattanooga, on the night of the 23d, the men having two days' cooked rations in their haversacks. Expecting to be back in their tents by that time and to be engaged in battle while out, they took with them neither overcoats nor blankets. The weather was already cold, and at night they must have suffered more or less.
But, so lovely was the weather, so oppressive in the sunshine would be a heavy weight to carry, so obliging were the wagon drivers, so easy in many regiments the Confederate discipline, that overcoats, blankets, and, in very many instances haversacks, had been consigned before starting to the friendly care of the wagons in the rear. The troops marched light, and in a good humour.
Terence wrote an acknowledgment of the receipt of the general's order, and handed it to the orderly who had brought it. A bugler at once sounded the field-officers' call. "We are to march at once," he said, when Herrara, Bull, and Macwitty arrived. "Let the tents be struck, and handed over to the quartermaster's department. See that the men have four days' biscuit in their haversacks.
I had my ammunition all distributed, and ordered my men to have 24 hours' rations in their haversacks, independent of their breakfast. We were to march at 4 o'clock the next morning. I had this road to the Opequan completed that night.
We wiped our plates on an old sock or a rag or a piece of newspaper and packed them into our haversacks together with our mugs and rations for the day a chunk of bread and a dirty piece of cheese. I tied up my boots the laces were covered with liquid clay and put on my puttees which were hard and stiff with caked mud.
The men were marching at a quick step, carrying their guns, cartridge-boxes, haversacks, canteens, and blanket-rolls. I saw that they had not been in the fight, for there was no powder-smoke on their faces. "What regiment is this?" I asked of a young sergeant marching on the flank. Back came the answer in a quick, cheery tone, "The 36th Indiana, the advance guard of Buell's army."
They were all ragged, mud-stained, and altogether unlovely, but seemed to me most desirable and welcome visitors. One of my boxes being opened, I proceeded to do the honors. My guests having eaten very heartily, filled their haversacks, and, putting "a sup" in their canteens, returned to camp to send out a fresh squad.
They were loaded down with overcoats, haversacks, knapsacks and baggage, baggage, baggage without end. The single New York regiment to which he had attached himself required forty wagons to move its baggage. They had a bakery and cooking establishment that would have done credit to Broadway. They hurriedly packed all they could carry in readiness for the march into battle.
Dead horses, a few unburied men, marks of shot in the buildings, now told of immediate proximity to the field. A short distance further, and the Division was drawn up in line of battle, behind one of the singular ridges that mark this memorable ground. Fragments of shells, haversacks, knapsacks, and the like, told how hotly the ground had been contested on the previous day.
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