By 1864 most of the men in the armies that struggled for Atlanta had become veterans, inured to the hardships of military life.
Soldiers in both armies had no scruples about supplementing their rations with whatever could be taken from surrounding farms and homes.
Soldiers in both armies suffered from a shortage of food and had no scruples about supplementing their rations with whatever could be taken from the surrounding farms and homes. Corn, pork, chickens, geese, hams, potatoes, apples, and onions disappeared as the armies moved through a neighborhood. Wild berries and fish were also eaten. Nevertheless, there were many times when food was in short supply. One Federal wrote, “most of the time we are on the move and cannot get such as is fit for a man to eat.”
The Atlanta Campaign, like many of the later Civil War campaigns, saw the development of trench warfare on a large scale. Protecting works were built from loose rocks, fence rails, tombstones, or even the bodies of dead comrades. By the third or fourth week of the campaign, both sides had mastered the art of field fortification—a trench, with the dirt piled on the side toward the enemy and surmounted by a headlog under which were small openings for firing. Such works left “little but the eyes ... exposed” to enemy fire. In front of the trenches the underbrush would be cleared away and young trees cut so they fell toward the foe. The trees were left partly attached to the stump so that they could not be dragged aside. Telegraph wire was sometimes strung between them to create further obstacles.
From behind their fortifications soldiers could pour out such a volume of fire that there was no chance for a successful massed attack—unless complete surprise could be achieved or overwhelming numbers brought against a weak part of the enemy’s line. Much of the fighting was therefore done by small patrols and snipers, especially in heavily wooded country such as the area around New Hope Church and Kennesaw Mountain.
The soldier who died in battle could expect no elaborate funeral. Usually the armies were too busy to do more than bury the dead as quickly as possible and they would probably be put in a mass grave near the place where they had fallen. Later the bodies might be exhumed and moved to a cemetery where they would be listed as “unidentified” and reinterred in a numbered but nameless grave.
The soldier who was wounded or who was disabled by disease suffered greatly. As a rule, the Northerner who was sent to an army hospital fared better than his opponent because the Federals were better equipped and provisioned than the Confederates. Field hospitals treated men whose wounds were either very slight or too serious to permit further movement. Others were sent by wagon and rail to hospitals in the rear—Rome, Chattanooga, and Knoxville for the Federals; Atlanta and the small towns along the railroads south of that city for the Southerners.
Transportation in crowded hospital wagons over rutted roads or in slow hospital trains was an indescribable horror. The hospitals themselves were better but, by modern standards, uncomfortable and dirty. For painful operations, Northern soldiers often enjoyed the blessing of chloroform. Many Southerners, however, especially those in the hospitals in smaller towns, frequently endured major surgery without the benefit of any opiate except, perhaps, whiskey. In such cases the hospitals echoed with the screams of men undergoing amputations or such treatments as that calling for the use of nitric acid to burn gangrene out of their wounds.