The weather changed again, and we had a rather cold,
drizzling rain nearly all day. We left our trenches at 7 o'clock this morning
and were all day in marching ten miles, the country being so very swampy. We
had a great deal of corduroy to build, and the rebels blocked our way by
burning a bridge over a deep channel in the swamp. There was some skirmishing
in the front. We were ordered to leave all our surplus bacon in the company
parade ground, and the quartermaster would send a wagon with the extra forage
for us; but we were skeptical and carried all that our haversacks would hold.1
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1 Our company alone left a load of the finest
bacon, besides other articles. It was the last we saw of our store of surplus
forage. We learned later that the officers took that way of having the forage
left for the negroes and poor people of the vicinity, for we had cleaned the
vicinity of everything. — A. G. D.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 251
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