Scottsboro, Ala., April
30th, '64.
You know we have been under marching orders for several
days. At dress parade this evening orders were read notifying us that the
division would move out on the road to Chattanooga at 6 a. m., May 1st.
This is the first intimation of the direction we would take.
It surprises me very much, and I think many others. I was
certain we would either cross the Tennessee river at Larkins Ferry or near
Decatur and take Dalton in flank or rear, but Sherman didn't see it. I would
rather do anything else save one, than march over the road to Chattanooga. That
one is to lie still in camp.
When the boys broke ranks after the parade, cries of “mule
soup” filled the camp for an hour. That is the name that has been unanimously
voted to the conglomeration of dead mules and mud that fills the ditches on the
roadside between Stevenson and Chattanooga.
The whole division has been alive all evening; burning
cabins has been the fashion. Captains Post, Smith and myself got into a little
discussion which ended in our grabbing axes and demolishing each other's
cabins.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 230-1
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