I was detailed to help the general quartermaster draw
supplies for the division. There were about one hundred men and we went with
teams to La Grange, Tennessee. The supplies consisted of sugar, flour, pickled
beef, pork, salt and vinegar, these all in barrels, with coffee and rice put up
in sacks, and crackers or “hard-tack,” salt bacon, pepper, soap and candles in
boxes. The feed for the animals consisted of oats and shelled corn in sacks,
and hay in bales of four or five hundred pounds each. Loading these on the
wagon was heavy work, especially the big bales of hay, which required the
strength of all who could get hold to lift them. We got a taste of another
phase of war.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 83
