We started on our march at 7 this morning, our division
again taking the advance. We marched twenty miles, and all the way in a fearful
northeast rain, accompanied by a high wind. The country is getting very rough.
Some of our foragers have been horribly butchered by the rebels' cavalry during
the last few days. Such atrocities as we have witnessed make the horrors of the
battlefield seem like tender mercies. In one instance one of our couriers was
found hanged on the roadside with a paper attached to his person bearing the
words: “Death to all foragers.” At another place we found three men shot dead
with a similar notice on their bodies. Yesterday our cavalry in the direction
of Chesterfield found twenty-one of our infantry lying dead in a ravine with
their throats cut. There was no note giving a reason for the frightful murders.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 256
No comments:
Post a Comment