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698 Series I Volume LII-I Serial 109 - Supplements Part I

Page 698 SW. VA., KY., TENN., MISS., ALA., W. FLA., &. N. GA. Chapter LXIV.

that we brought up to Big Shanty the necessary quantity of supplies in time, but they were brought up. The movement was entirely successful. The march of the Army of the Tennessee had hardly commenced before the enemy withdrew from Kenesaw, our men following them closely and occupying Marietta July 3. By the 6th we had forced them to the Chattahoochee and partly across it. The railroad, injured by the destruction of two miles of track and the removal of the frogs at Marietta, was repaired to that place by the 6th, and to Vining's Station a few days later. July 18 our army was all across the Chattahoochee with wagons full, carrying about ten days' supplies. In the hard-fought battles that followed our army repulsed the desperate assaults of the enemy at Peach Tree Creek, about Decatur, and west of Atlanta. Up to August 5 whatever stores were immediately wanted by the army were unloaded at the Chattahoochee River (the remainder being left at Marietta), at the point where the railroad bridge had stood before it was burned. Two wagons bridges had been built over the river by our troops and a pontoon bridge captured from the enemy. August 5 the railroad bridge was completed by the construction corps, and supplies were brought over the river and unloaded on the bank south of it. At that date we had twenty days' subsistence and twelve days' grain up with the army and the men were well clothed.

During the month of July we had begun to feel some solicitude concerning the quantity of supplies at Nashville. The navigation of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers was partially suspended on account of low water, and the light boats that could run received very inefficient protection on the Tennessee from the enemy's cavalry by our gun-boats being obliged to wait, collect infleets, and be convoyed up the river, thus causing a great loss of time. The Louisville railroad was delivering hardly fifty cars of freight daily at Nashville, which would furnish the army much less than half its daily consumption of stores of all kinds. The consumption of grain by the army in the field alone weas over 600,000 pounds daily, and Colonel Donaldson had barely enough to last until September 1. The quantity of subistence was sufficient to s upply us up to about the 15th of September. July 27 the chief commissary of the army and myself united in a letter to Major-

General Sherman, representing these facts and recommending that he issue orders to the construction corps to repair the railroad from Clarksville to Nashville, there being only about thirteen miles of it to put in order, and the Cumberland being navigable to that point (which is below Harpeth Shoals) at all seasons. The order was given and Colonel W. W. Wright sent north to carry it out. Colonel Donaldson reported that enough grain had been received during the season at Nashville to last until October, but that much had been destroyed. The quantity destroyed at the front was not large. In two or three cases railroad trains of forage had been burned by the enemy, but none was lost after it reached the army, and much of the time since leaving Chattanooga our animals had not received full rations. Considerable grain had been ruined by shipping it at Nashville and Chattanooga in platform cars without protection from the rain. It required some severe measures from me at Chattanooga to break up this practice and that of shipping grain already damaged.

August 16 I put our animals on half rations of grain. August 24 Colonel Donaldson reported that the was not getting half rations from the Ohio, and that he had not more than six days' full rations on hand. Fourtunately about this time the rivers had risen some. General Allen,


Page 698 SW. VA., KY., TENN., MISS., ALA., W. FLA., &. N. GA. Chapter LXIV.