Some one owned a big brass kettle, that would hold about half a barrel, which the wagons hauled, and it was soon on the fire, filled with the sliced pumpkins, to be stewed down. Some did one thing, and some another, and by an hour before day, that feast was ready, and several more along the same lines in the camp. We ate our fill, filled haversacks, distributed the balance to whoever wanted it and were ready to move at daylight. I believe that it was the only meal I remember during the war, where everything was the proceeds of plunder.
We had been pretty close to a famine for a day or two, but this was surely a feast.
It was all contrary to military law, but soldiers were not going to sit still and starve, when something to eat could be had out of the fields for the taking, and the officers could not be expected to sit up nights to come around and inspect our pots and kettles, and if they did, they could prove nothing, and so, for the occasion and the recognizing necessity, nothing was ever said about it. The men were on hand ready and able to do duty, and the tangle of the crisis was soon straightened out and our rations coming through the regular channels. From Macon, by way of Griffin, where a few days were spent in camp and thence to West Point on the Georgia-Alabama line, where preparations were made to cut loose from the railroad, and traverse northeast Alabama with Hood's army to strike for middle Tennessee by way of Decatur and Florence, west of the mountains. This was now ——, so that we had been months and days in reaching in a roundabout manner since the fall of Atlanta, on Sept. 2. Hood's infantry and cavalry had been somewhere south, and southwest of Atlanta. Sherman was fixing to destroy, and strike out southeast across Georgia, and Hood was preparing to strike out for middle Tennessee and Nashville.
With our guns and wagons, we joined the army wagon train, making its way northwestward, during a very rainy spell of weather. Traveling through the flat piney woods was awful. The white loblolly mud was often axle deep in the road, and turning out in these flats did not seem to better the matter much.
The writer had now been appointed a Sergeant, and been given a pie bald pony to ride at the head of his 4th Detachment of gun caisson. One day his pony got both feet on same side into a deep rut under the loblolly and down flat broadside he went and the writer disappeared. When he emerged he was greeted with the well known yell, "Come out of that, I see your ears sticking out." When the mud dried, it flaked off and I was not much worse off temporarily than the balance of the crowd and they were welcome to the fun.
Finally, we reached the Tennessee valley, in Morgan County, and marched westward. The sites of the old plantation homes were now marked only by groups of chimneys, the plantations a dreary waste. Reaching vicinity of Decatur about —— we found it garrisoned by a Federal force with entrenchments, but Hood's objective point for crossing the Tennessee river was between Tuscumbia and Florence. Near Tuscumbia, our battery was again in camp for a few days. As from West Point to Florence in a direct line is about 200 miles by the route traveled by us 250 or 275 miles of continuous march. We were not sorry to get a chance to rest, wash, clean and repair up. Here, in the garden spot of Alabama, prior to the war, food was scarce. The beef issued to us could not produce a bead of fat, on the top of the pot, when boiled. Bacon or salt pork, when we got any was generally rancid. But we got here one unusual luxury in the way of food, a fine young fat mule had its back broken by the fall of a tree, cut down in camp. So it was killed and the boys took possession and divided it out. It was very fat. The fat from its "innards" was "tryed" out like oil and saved in bottles and cans for "breadshortening" for which it answered well. The meat was very fine, much better than any beef we had gotton for a long time. But the boys made all sorts of fun over it. We had some left to carry along on the march, and a soldier would pull out a hunk from his haversack, throw up his head and let out a big mule bray, "a-h-h-h u-n-k, a-h-h-h u-n-k, a-h-h-h u-n-k," bite off a mouth full and go to chewing.
The crossing of the Tennessee on the night of Nov. 20, 1864, over a pontoon bridge at south Florence was to officers and men of Lumsden's battery only one of many disagreeable experiences. No more than our whole army had gotton used to experiencing in such campaigns in all sorts of weather and conditions, its locality merely makes it stand out in the memory, a little more prominently than other such experiences. Notified in the afternoon to be ready in our turn to cross over, then again to fall into the line on the South bank after dusk; moving on to the bridge after dark, and occupying several hours in crossing, moving a few paces in the bridge, then halting and standing shivering in a drizzling rain, until again a few paces could be gained. Then at the north bank, getting our teams up the steep banks through mud axle deep, by doubling teams and all hands at the wheels and getting through the night, hovering over roadside fires along streets of Florence and roads beyond until daylight brought a possibility of finding a place to make a temporary halt for feed and rest for man and beast.
On November 27th, reaching the vicinity of Columbia, where Schofield was entrenched with an army of about the same size as Hood's, a demonstration was made of an attack on his lines, but the main position of our army crossed Duck river above Columbia and struck for Spring Hill on the turn pike between Columbia and Franklin.
On 29th, the Battalion of Reserve Artillery was ordered to leave guns and caissons, with horses and drivers, under charge of one Commissioned officer south of Duck river. The captains, two Lieuts., Non-Commissioned officers and cannoneers were ordered to follow the infantry brigades; the object being to be able to man any batteries that might be captured from the enemy in this move against his rear. Lumsden was ordered to report to Brig. Gen. Reynolds and to keep right up with his brigade under all circumstances. It was nearly dark when we found ourselves in a half mile of Spring Hill, and there, we remained all night, without any attack being delivered on the enemy hurrying northward along the pike, wagons, artillery and all other vehicles kept on a rush with their infantry on east side of the pike to protect against our attack.
Time was lost during the day in building rough bridges across creeks waist deep to infantry, which had better have been waded, for the few hours so lost, prevented a successful attack at Spring Hill which Hood had planned to demolish Schofield.