May 22, 1864.
I open my letter again as an opportunity now offers of
sending it quite direct. To-day the term of service of the old men of the
regiment expires, and they start for Chattanooga to be mustered out; the
Colonel and several other officers go with them to sign the necessary papers.
Colonel Coggswell has just received an order to go to Massachusetts to expedite
the forwarding of recruits to the regiment; he will give you the latest
intelligence about me. You see by this, that for the present, I shall have
command of the veterans, — not many of them, but men who can fight their
weight, and a little more, anywhere.
To-morrow, in the words of Sherman's general order, we start
on another “grand forward movement,” with rations and forage for twenty days.
Atlanta is evidently our destination; whether we shall reach it or not remains
to be seen. One thing we are certain of — Johnston cannot stop us with his
army; we can whip that wherever we can get at it. I wish the Army of the
Potomac had no greater obstacle. We are now in a decidedly warm climate; the
weather averages as warm as ours in July and August; what it will be when these
months come, we can only imagine. I am, as usual, enjoying perfectly good
health, and shall stand this campaign as I have all my others.
It is very painful to read the losses of friends in
Virginia, — Stevenson, Abbott, and others. Here, outside of our own divisions,
we know scarcely any one.
SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written
During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 167
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