Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
campaign. To be strong, healthy, and capable of the largest
measure of physical effort, the soldier needs about three pounds
gross of food per day, and the horse or mule about twenty pounds.
When a general first estimates the quantity of food and forage
needed for an army of fifty or one hundred thousand men, he is apt
to be dismayed, and here a good staff is indispensable, though the
general cannot throw off on them the responsibility. He must give
the subject his personal attention, for the army reposes in him
alone, and should never doubt the fact that their existence
overrides in importance all other considerations. Once satisfied
of this, and that all has been done that can be, the soldiers are
always willing to bear the largest measure of privation. Probably
no army ever had a more varied experience in this regard than the
one I commanded in 1864'65.
Our base of supply was at Nashville, supplied by railways and the
Cumberland River, thence by rail to Chattanooga, a "secondary
base," and thence forward a single-track railroad. The stores came
forward daily, but I endeavored to have on hand a full supply for
twenty days in advance. These stores were habitually in the
wagon-trains, distributed to corps, divisions, and regiments, in
charge of experienced quartermasters and commissaries, and became
subject to the orders of the generals commanding these bodies.
They were generally issued on provision returns, but these had to
be closely scrutinized, for too often the colonels would make
requisitions for provisions for more men than they reported for
battle. Of course, there are always a good many non-combatants
with an army, but, after careful study, I limited their amount to
twenty-five per cent. of the "effective strength," and that was
found to be liberal. An ordinary army-wagon drawn by six mules may
be counted on to carry three thousand pounds net, equal to the food
of a full regiment for one day, but, by driving along beef-cattle,
a commissary may safely count the contents of one wagon as
sufficient for two days' food for a regiment of a thousand men; and
as a corps should have food on hand for twenty days ready for
detachment, it should have three hundred such wagons, as a
provision-train; and for forage, ammunition, clothing, and other
necessary stores, it was found necessary to have three hundred more
wagons, or six hundred wagons in all, for a corps d'armée.
These should be absolutely under the immediate control of the corps
commander, who will, however, find it economical to distribute them
in due proportion to his divisions, brigades, and even regiments.
Each regiment ought usually to have at least one wagon for
convenience to distribute stores, and each company two pack-mules,
so that the regiment may always be certain of a meal on reaching
camp without waiting for the larger trains.
On long marches the artillery and wagon-trains should always have
the right of way, and the troops should improvise roads to one
side, unless forced to use a bridge in common, and all trains
should have escorts to protect them, and to assist them in bad
places. To this end there is nothing like actual experience, only,
unless the officers in command give the subject their personal
attention, they will find their wagon-trains loaded down with
tents, personal baggage, and even the arms and knapsacks of the
escort. Each soldier should, if not actually "sick or wounded,"
carry his musket and equipments containing from forty to sixty
rounds of ammunition, his shelter-tent, a blanket or overcoat, and
an extra pair of pants, socks, and drawers, in the form of a scarf,
worn from the left shoulder to the right side in lieu of knapsack,
and in his haversack he should carry some bread, cooked meat, salt,
and coffee. I do not believe a soldier should be loaded down too
much, but, including his clothing, arms, and equipment, he can
carry about fifty pounds without impairing his health or activity.
A simple calculation will show that by such a distribution a corps
will-thus carry the equivalent of five hundred wagon-loads--an
immense relief to the trains.
Where an army is near one of our many large navigable rivers, or
has the safe use of a railway, it can usually be supplied with the
full army ration, which is by far the best furnished to any army in
America or Europe; but when it is compelled to operate away from
such a base, and is dependent on its own train of wagons, the
commanding officer must exercise a wise discretion in the selection
of his stores. In my opinion, there is no better food for man than
beef-cattle driven on the hoof, issued liberally, with salt, bacon,
and bread. Coffee has also become almost indispensable, though
many substitutes were found for it, such as Indian-corn, roasted,
ground, and boiled as coffee; the sweet-potato, and the seed of the
okra plant prepared in the same way. All these were used by the
people of the South, who for years could procure no coffee, but I
noticed that the women always begged of us some real coffee, which
seems to satisfy a natural yearning or craving more powerful than
can be accounted for on the theory of habit. Therefore I would
always advise that the coffee and sugar ration be carried along,
even at the expense of bread, for which there are many substitutes.
Of these, Indian-corn is the best and most abundant. Parched in a
frying-pan, it is excellent food, or if ground, or pounded and
boiled with meat of any sort, it makes a most nutritious meal. The
potato, both Irish and sweet, forms an excellent substitute for
bread, and at Savannah we found that rice (was) also suitable, both for
men and animals. For the former it should be cleaned of its husk
in a hominy block, easily prepared out of a log, and sifted with a
coarse corn bag; but for horses it should be fed in the straw.
During the Atlanta campaign we were supplied by our regular
commissaries with all sorts of patent compounds, such as desiccated
vegetables, and concentrated milk, meat-biscuit, and sausages, but
somehow the men preferred the simpler and more familiar forms of
food, and usually styled these "desecrated vegetables and
consecrated milk." We were also supplied liberally with
lime-juice, sauerkraut, and pickles, as an antidote to scurvy, and
I now recall the extreme anxiety of my medical director, Dr. Kittoe,
about the scurvy, which he reported at one time as spreading and
imperiling the army. This occurred at a crisis about Kenesaw, when
the railroad was taxed to its utmost capacity to provide the
necessary ammunition, food, and forage, and could not possibly
bring us an adequate supply of potatoes and cabbage, the usual
anti-scorbutics, when providentially the black berries ripened and
proved an admirable antidote, and I have known the skirmish-line,
without orders, to fight a respectable battle for the possession of
some old fields that were full of blackberries. Soon, thereafter,
the green corn or roasting-ear came into season, and I heard no
more of the scurvy. Our country abounds with plants which can be
utilized for a prevention to the scurvy; besides the above are the
persimmon, the sassafras root and bud, the wild-mustard, the
"agave," turnip tops, the dandelion cooked as greens, and a
decoction of the ordinary pine-leaf.
For the more delicate and costly articles of food for the sick we
relied mostly on the agents of the Sanitary Commission. I do not
wish to doubt the value of these organizations, which gained so
much applause during our civil war, for no one can question the
motives of these charitable and generous people; but to be honest I
must record an opinion that the Sanitary Commission should limit
its operations to the hospitals at the rear, and should never
appear at the front. They were generally local in feeling, aimed
to furnish their personal friends and neighbors with a better class
of food than the Government supplied, and the consequence was, that
one regiment of a brigade would receive potatoes and fruit which
would be denied another regiment close by: Jealousy would be the
inevitable result, and in an army all parts should be equal; there
should be no "partiality, favor, or affection." The Government
should supply all essential wants, and in the hospitals to the rear
will be found abundant opportunities for the exercise of all
possible charity and generosity. During the war I several times
gained the ill-will of the agents of the Sanitary Commission
because I forbade their coming to the front unless they would
consent to distribute their stores equally among all, regardless of
the parties who had contributed them.
The sick, wounded, and dead of an army are the subjects of the
greatest possible anxiety, and add an immense amount of labor to
the well men. Each regiment in an active campaign should have a
surgeon and two assistants always close at hand, and each brigade
and division should have an experienced surgeon as a medical
director. The great majority of wounds and of sickness should be
treated by the regimental surgeon, on the ground, under the eye of
the colonel. As few should be sent to the brigade or division
hospital as possible, for the men always receive better care with
their own regiment than with strangers, and as a rule the cure is
more certain; but when men receive disabling wounds, or have
sickness likely to become permanent, the sooner they go far to the
rear the better for all. The tent or the shelter of a tree is a
better hospital than a house, whose walls absorb fetid and
poisonous emanations, and then give them back to the atmosphere.
To men accustomed to the open air, who live on the plainest food,
wounds seem to give less pain, and are attended with less danger to
life than to ordinary soldiers in barracks.
Wounds which, in 1861, would have sent a man to the hospital for
months, in 1865 were regarded as mere scratches, rather the subject
of a joke than of sorrow. To new soldiers the sight of blood and
death always has a sickening effect, but soon men become accustomed
to it, and I have heard them exclaim on seeing a dead comrade borne
to the rear, "Well, Bill has turned up his toes to the daisies."
Of course, during a skirmish or battle, armed men should never
leave their ranks to attend a dead or wounded comrade--this should
be seen to in advance by the colonel, who should designate his
musicians or company cooks as hospital attendants, with a white rag
on their arm to indicate their office. A wounded man should go
himself (if able) to the surgeon near at hand, or, if he need help,
he should receive it from one of the attendants and not a comrade.
It is wonderful how soon the men accustom themselves to these
simple rules. In great battles these matters call for a more
enlarged attention, and then it becomes the duty of the division
general to see that proper stretchers and field hospitals are ready
for the wounded, and trenches are dug for the dead. There should
be no real neglect of the dead, because it has a bad effect on the
living; for each soldier values himself and comrade as highly as
though he were living in a good house at home.
The regimental chaplain, if any, usually attends the burials from
the hospital, should make notes and communicate details to the
captain of the company, and to the family at home. Of course it is
usually impossible to mark the grave with names, dates, etc., and
consequently the names of the "unknown" in our national cemeteries
equal about one-half of all the dead.
Very few of the battles in which I have participated were fought as
described in European text-books, viz., in great masses, in perfect
order, manoeuvring by corps, divisions, and brigades. We were
generally in a wooded country, and, though our lines were deployed