Diary of Corporal Alexander G. Downing: Monday, November 7, 1864

It is cloudy and quite cool. The Eleventh Iowa received six months' pay this afternoon, besides another installment of the bounty. I got $148.00 in pay and $100.00 of bounty money. Our army is preparing to evacuate Atlanta. The general quartermaster is loading every train going north with the surplus commissariat and all extra army baggage. It is reported that our army is going to fall back as far as Chattanooga, and that we are to destroy the railroad as we go. There is a report that the army of the Tennessee is going on a long expedition further south.¹

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¹ This was through Georgia, but as yet the men knew nothing definite. — Ed.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 227