The Eleventh Iowa started at sunup this morning for Jackson,
Mississippi, as an escort for two hundred and forty-five wagons loaded with
provisions and ammunition for General Sherman's army. By night we were within
one mile of Clinton, where we went into bivouac, closely corralling the wagons.
We rode on the wagons a part of the time during the journey. Whenever they came
to a stretch of good roads, the teamsters would put the horses on the run, and
in order to keep up we had to climb onto the loaded wagons. We suffered for
lack of water today, for the rebels in their retreat polluted the branches they
crossed by killing and throwing into the streams their worn-out horses and
mules, hoping thus to strike a blow at us. Their march was marked by the
buzzards flying above or feeding upon the carcasses of the slain animals.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 128
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