Saturday, January 16, 2016

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Saturday, February 25, 1865

It rained all night, but today it is clear. We marched fifteen miles today through the mud. Our regiment is on train guard. We found Little Lynches creek flooded and we had to wade it, the water being waist deep. The Twentieth Corps crossed the creek above us, the day before, and we learned that they raised the floodgates of a dam, letting the water in on us before we could get across. Our supply train had a hard time crossing. The water came up into the wagon boxes and a great deal of our hard bread got wet. We lost several beef cattle in the flood. The First Division did not come across this evening. The hills on this side of the creek are frightful and the mud is deep; when a wagon once settles in one of the holes, it takes a final rest, for no effort of man or beast can extricate it.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 256-7

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