It was a warm day late in October. The nights at this time were keen and frosty, but the sun at mid-day still showed much of his Summer vigor. Perspiration flowed freely down the faces of those wandering Hoosiers—faces that were fast assuming the color of half-tanned leather under the influence of sunshine and storm.
Once an hour there was the customary halt, when the boys would stretch their legs by the roadside, hitching their knapsacks up under their heads. When the allotted time had expired the bugler blew "Fall in," the notes of which during the next two years became so familiar to the ears of the 200th. Later in '64, the Indiana boys mingled their voices with the rest of Sherman's hundred thousand veterans as they sang:
"I know you are tired, but still you must go
Down to Atlanta to see the big show."
The soldiers were in good spirits. As they marched they fired jests at one another, and laughter rippled along the line.
The only thing that troubled them was the emaciated condition of their haversacks, with a corresponding state of affairs in their several stomachs. The Commissary Department was thoroughly demoralized. The supply train had failed to connect, and rations were almost exhausted. There was no prospect that the aching void would be filled, at least, in the regular way, until they reached a certain place, which would not be until the following day.
Strict orders against foraging were issued almost daily under the Buell dispensation. These were often read impressively to the new troops, who, in their simplicity, "took it all in" as military gospel.
The effect was somewhat depressing upon the ardor with which otherwise they would have pursued the panting pig and the fluttering fowl, and reveled in the orchards and potato-fields. A few irrepressible fellows managed to get a choice meal now and then—just enough to show that the 200th Ind. was not without latent talent in this direction, which only needed a little encouragement to become fruitful of results.
But these orders against foraging didn't hold the soldiers of the crop of 1861. It was like trying to carry water in a sieve. When rations were short, or if they wanted to vary the rather monotonous bill of fare, they always found a way to make up any existing deficiency.