iving
as sumptuously as kings are wont to live in their marble palaces and
wanton luxuries. Time did not drag heavily with us, nor did the ghost
of hunger haunt us in our dreams. We laid down at night on a bed of
pine boughs with as much composure as if feathers had been at our
command. We dared famine to look us in the face, and treated discontent
with contempt.

The commonest produce of the country so far was sweet potatoes or yams,
and negro beans. These vegetables, with all kinds of meat, afforded
high living, and in a plentiful manner. The boys were never under the
necessity of carrying much provisions with them; in fact, they scarcely
ever carried any in these parts, for when the column stopped for meals
they would climb the fence for sweet potatoes, and shoot a shoat for
meat. About half an hour before the troops went into camp, firing might
be heard in every direction about the column, being caused by the boys
shooting porkers and such, for their supper.

There was a great caravan of negroes hanging on the rear of our column
when it arrived in Milledgeville, like a sable cloud in the sky before
a thunder storm or tornado. They thought it was freedom now or never,
and would follow whether or no. It was really a ludicrous sight to see
them trudging on after the army in promiscuous style and divers manner.
Some in buggies of the most costly and glittering manufacture; some on
horseback, the horses old and blind, and others on foot; all following
up in right jolly mood, bound for the Elysium of ease and freedom. Let
those who choose to curse the negro curse him; but one thing is true,
despite the unworthiness they bear on many minds, that they were the
only friends on whom we could rely for the sacred truth in the sunny
land of Dixie. What they said might be relied on so far as they knew;
and one thing more, they knew more and could tell more than most of the
poor white population. Milledgeville was occupied by our forces without
the slightest opposition on the part of the enemy, there being no enemy
of material consequence to contend with, all having gone to Nashville,
there to get a complete drubbing.

On the morning of the 24th our division marched through Milledgeville,
and passing on through Sandersville, crossed the Ogechee river and
Rocky Comfort creek into Louisville, a county seat town, where it
remained several days to let the right wing of the army come up on a
line. Milledgeville is beautifully situat