"Yes."
"Would you like to have some coffee for your breakfast?"
"Yes."
So the Johnny fixed up a good liberal ration and handed it to him, and when the Captain started away, he said:
"Charley, you see that the Yanks get their tobacco."
There were hundreds of similar places along the line where similar exchanges were made, and as far as I ever knew there never was any armistice abused or violated.
Casualties were of almost daily occurrence. More than two hundred and fifty comrades are buried from the 78th between Chattanooga and Atlanta.
On September 29th, the regiment and division were moved by rail to Athens Alabama, and then marched to Florence in pursuit of Forest's cavalry who were in the rear and doing a great deal of damage; the division had a skirmish with him and drove him across the Tennessee river near Florence, Alabama. The division returned to Athens and to Chattanooga by rail. After we had drawn clothing and rations, we took up our line of march for Atlanta via Gaylesville, Rome and Kingston to Atlanta, as the R. R. had been torn up between Chattanooga and Atlanta, arriving at the last named place November 14th. The grand march to the sea commenced November 16th, when the command moved from Atlanta after the city was burned. We reached Milledgeville about November 23rd. About November 26th, 1864, passed through Sandersville and thence to Louisville and on to Savannah.
At Louisville we camped a few days in order that the several commands might adjust their lines of march so that the generals could proceed to the best advantage, for we were on a perilous trip, no one knew where we would show up, not even ourselves. But we were bound to be heard from somewhere. While we were camping at Louisville we had to be doing something, and as we had been compelled to forage off the country some of the forage squads had picked up some race horses, and there was a difference of opinion as to who had the best one, so we took this opportunity to test them. We had to go some little distance from camp in order to find a suitable piece of road that would make a race track, but just as we were in the zenith of our expectations of seeing a horse race, Wheeler's Rebel cavalry showed up and we had to form a skirmish line in order to protect ourselves from being captured. Needless to say, our ardor for a horse race was cooled to the extent that we did not care who had the best horse.
Our march was conducted in a very systematic manner. The brigade or regiment that was in the advance to-day was put in the rear tomorrow.