Great piles of corn in sacks, and bacon, and crackers,
and molasses, and sugar, and coffee, and rice, and potatoes, and onions,
and peas, and flour by the hundreds of barrels, all now to be given to
the flames, while for months the Rebel soldiers had been stinted and
starved for the want of these same provisions. It was enough to make the
bravest and most patriotic soul that ever fired a gun in defense of any
cause on earth, think of rebelling against the authorities as they then
were. Every private soldier knew these stores were there, and for the
want of them we lost our cause.
Reader, I ask you who you think was to blame? Most of our army had
already passed through hungry and disheartened, and here were all these
stores that had to be destroyed. Before setting fire to the town,
every soldier in Maney's and Polk's brigades loaded himself down with
rations. It was a laughable looking rear guard of a routed and
retreating army. Every one of us had cut open the end of a corn sack,
emptied out the corn, and filled it with hard-tack, and, besides, every
one of us had a side of bacon hung to our bayonets on our guns. Our
canteens, and clothes, and faces, and hair were all gummed up with
molasses. Such is the picture of our rear guard.
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