Monday, November 23, 2015

Diary of 5th Sergeant Alexander G. Downing: Monday, February 6, 1865

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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