t they did
not want, for sweet-potatoes were very abundant, as well as
corn-meal, and our soldiers took to them naturally. We started
with about five thousand head of cattle, and arrived with over ten
thousand, of course consuming mostly turkeys, chickens, sheep,
hogs, and the cattle of the country. As to our mules and horses,
we left Atlanta with about twenty-five hundred wagons, many of
which were drawn by mules which had not recovered from the
Chattanooga starvation, all of which were replaced, the poor mules
shot, and our transportation is now in superb condition. I have no
doubt the State of Georgia has lost, by our operations, fifteen
thousand first-rate mules. As to horses, Kilpatrick collected all
his remounts, and it looks to me, in riding along our
columns, as though every officer had three or four led horses, and
each regiment seems to be followed by at least fifty negroes and
foot-sore soldiers, riding on horses and mules. The custom was for
each brigade to send out daily a foraging-party of about fifty men,
on foot, who invariably returned mounted, with several wagons
loaded with poultry, potatoes, etc., and as the army is composed of
about forty brigades, you can estimate approximately the number of
horses collected. Great numbers of these were shot by my order,
because of the disorganizing effect on our infantry of having too
many idlers mounted. General Euston is now engaged in collecting
statistics on this subject, but I know the Government will never
receive full accounts of our captures, although the result aimed at
was fully attained, viz., to deprive our enemy of them. All these
animals I will have sent to Port Royal, or collected behind Fort
McAllister, to be used by General Saxton in his farming operations,
or by the Quartermaster's Department, after they are systematically
accounted for. While General Easton is collecting transportation
for my troops to James River, I will throw to Port Royal Island all
our means of transportation I can, and collect the rest near Fort
McAllister, covered by the Ogeeehee River and intrenchments to be
erected, and for which Captain Poe, my chief-engineer, is now
reconnoitring the ground, but in the mean time will act as I have
begun, as though the city of Savannah were my objective: namely,
the troops will continue to invest Savannah closely, making attacks
and feints wherever we have fair ground to stand upon, and I will
place some thirty-pound Parrotts,