ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: ADVANCE TO THE ETOWAH
Tactics modified by character of the country--Use of the
spade--Johnston's cautious defensive--Methods of Grant and
Sherman--Open country between Oostanaula and Etowah--Movement in
several columns--Sherman's eagerness--Route of left wing--Of
McPherson on the right--Necessity of exact system in such
marches--Route of Twenty-third Corps--Hooker gets in the way--Delays
occasioned--Closing in on Cassville--Our commanding
position--Johnston's march to Cassville--His order to fight
there--Protest of Hood and Polk--Retreat over the Etowah--Sherman
crosses near Kingston--My reconnoissance to the Allatoona
crossing--Destruction of iron works and mills--Marching without
baggage--Barbarism of war--Desolation it causes--Changes in our
corps organization--Hascall takes Judah's division--Our place of
crossing the Etowah--Interference again--Kingston the new
base--Rations--Camp coffee.
The opening period of the campaign had developed the conditions of
warfare in so broken and difficult a country, and they were only
emphasized by the later experiences of both armies. Positions for
defence could be intrenched with field-works whilst the hostile army
was feeling its way forward through dense forests and over mountain
ridges. To carry such positions by direct assault was so costly that
the lesson of prudence was soon learned and such attacks were more
and more rarely resorted to. Sherman had moved upon the enemy at
Resaca as promptly as the deployment and advance could be made after
the turning movement and the passage of the Snake Creek defile; but
we found Johnston strongly placed, on ground naturally difficult of
approach, with works which gave his men such cover as to overcome
any advantage we had in numbers. Still, the enemy found in turn that
we could make counter-intrenchments and quickly extend them till we
turned his flanks and threatened his communications, when he must
either retreat or assault our works, and that, if he assaulted, the
balance of losses would turn so heavily against him as to fatally
deplete his army. Johnston carefully and systematically maintained
this defensive, and in Virginia, after Lee had tried the policy of
attack in the Wilderness, he became as cautiously defensive as
Johnston. Grant was slower than Sherman in learning the
unprofitableness of attacking field-works, and his campaign was by
far the more costly one. The difference in such cases goes much
farther than the casualty list; it was shown in October, when
Sherman's army was strong and well-seasoned, but Grant's was so full
of raw recruits as almost to have lost its veteran quality. There
were special reasons which led Grant to adhere so long to the more
aggressive tactics, which would need to be weighed in any full
treatment of the subject; but I am now only pointing out the fact
that in both the East and the West the lesson was practically the
same. Aggressive strategy had the advantage it always has, but
defensive tactics proved generally the better in so peculiar a field
of operations.
Between the Oostanaula and the Etowah was the most open portion of
northern Georgia, and it was possible for Sherman to move his army
southward in several columns of pursuit on parallel roads (such as
they were) without extending his front over a width of more than
eight or ten miles. He was eager to bring the Confederates to battle
in this region, and urged his subordinates to make haste. The
assignment of routes to the different columns gave the centre to
General Thomas, following the railroad in general, but putting his
three corps upon as many country roads, when they could be found.
General Schofield with the Twenty-third Corps was ordered to get
over to the old Federal road which runs through Spring Place (east
of Dalton) to Cassville. General McPherson with his two corps was
sent by the Rome road and such parallel road as might be available,
keeping communication with the centre. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 216.] Beyond him, on the extreme right,
Davis's division of the Cumberland Army supported Garrard's cavalry
division in a movement upon Rome by the west side of the Oostanaula.
[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 198, 202-204.] The object of the
last-mentioned movement was the destruction of the Confederate
machine-shops and factories at Rome, as well as to cover the flank
against movements along the main route of travel from Alabama. The
extreme left flank was to be covered by the cavalry of the Ohio Army
under General Stoneman.
In making such an advance, success as well as comfort depends upon
the care with which the several columns are led, so that each shall
keep its place, progressing equally with the others, and avoid above
all things cutting into and interrupting those moving on its right
or left. Each must keep the common purpose in view, and avoid
obstructing the rest, for nothing is more wearisome to the troops
and ruinous to the plans of the commander than to have the lines of
advance cross each other. In our march of the 17th our own corps was
fated to feel the full annoyance and delay of such an interference.
General Thomas ordered Howard's corps to cross by the bridges at
Resaca, followed by Palmer's, which was diminished by the absence of
Davis's division. He also ordered Hooker's corps to march by the
long neck between the Oostanaula and Connasauga rivers to Newtown,
and cross the Oostanaula there. Hooker would then follow such roads
as he could find within two or three miles of Howard's line of march
toward Adairsville. Sherman and Thomas both were with Howard.
[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 202, 209, 210, 216, 217.]
Schofield ordered the divisions of the Twenty-third Corps to cross
the Connasauga at different places, and make their way by different
roads eastward to the Federal road crossing of the Coosawattee,
turning south after crossing that river and marching till abreast of
Adairsville and some four or five miles distant from it. As we had
to gain several miles of easting and to cross two rivers before
marching southward, ours was, of course, much the longer route; and
as the pontoons were all in use at Resaca and Lay's Ferry, we had to
find fords or build trestle-bridges.
I marched my own division to Hogan's Ford on the Connasauga, two
miles below Tilton, and there crossed in water so deep that the men
had to strip and carry their clothes and arms on their heads. Once
over we pushed for the Federal road and the crossing of the
Coosawattee at Field's Ferry. The other two divisions of the corps
crossed the Connasauga at or near Fite's Ferry, where were
trestle-bridges. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv.
p. 210.]
General Hooker started upon the Newtown road, which runs southward
some miles upon a long, narrow ridge which here separates the
Oostanaula from its tributary; but before he had gone far he learned
that the crossing at Newtown (the mouth of the Connasauga) was
unfordable, and other means of getting over doubtful. He now turned
abruptly to the east, crossed the Connasauga at Fite's, and marched
toward McClure's Ford on the Coosawattee. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 205,
206.] In moving out from Hogan's (or Hobart's) Ford, I had learned
that the road from the north which crosses the Coosawattee at
McClure's was probably the principal and shortest route to Cassville
and had reported this to General Schofield, who ordered Judah's and
Hovey's division to take the most direct roads to McClure's. These
columns, however, ran into Hooker's, which were making for the same
point and had headed Schofield's off, having the inner of the
concentric routes on which we were marching. Neither at McClure's
nor the more distant ferry at Field's Mill was there any bridge or
tolerable ford, and Hooker was no better off than he would have been
at Newtown. This movement had wholly disjointed Sherman's plan of
keeping the three armies upon separate lines of march. Finding no
means for rapid crossing at McClure's, he pushed one of his
divisions to Field's, and so occupied and blocked both of the
Coosawattee crossings, which by the orders should have been wholly
at Schofield's disposal. We found ourselves obliged therefore to
camp on the north side of the Coosawattee on the night of the 16th,
instead of being well over that river and ready for a prompt advance
on the 17th. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp.
210, 211, 220, 221, 225, 226.] Hooker himself might much better have
obeyed his original orders. He reported to Thomas at ten o'clock on
the morning of the 17th that he was not yet over, and had not the
means of constructing a bridge that would stand; in short, that he
had been "bothered beyond parallel." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 221.] When
Schofield requested that he would allow our troops to take
precedence of the Twentieth Corps wagons at either the ferry or the
bridge, so that Sherman's expectation might not be disappointed,
Hooker suggested that we should march back to Resaca and follow
Thomas across the bridges there, thus getting into the place he
himself should have taken if the Newtown crossing had been really
impossible! [Footnote: _Id_., p. 227.]
Modern systems lay great stress upon the most scrupulous care on the
part of corps commanders to follow the roads assigned them, and to
avoid trespassing upon those assigned to others. Moltke has even
condensed the whole strategic art of moving troops into "marching
divided in order to fight united," and to avoid interference and
confusion of columns _en route_ is quite as essential as to keep
tactical manoeuvres on the battle-field from crossing each other.
[Footnote: See Prince Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's Letters on Strategy
(Wolseley Series), vol. ii. pp. 160, 161, 185, 237, etc.] No better
proof of the necessity of the rule could be given than this. Sherman
was most anxious to bring Johnston to battle in the open country
between the two rivers, and ordered his subordinates to press the
pursuit and to engage the enemy wherever he might be overtaken,
trusting to the quick advance of the several columns to their
support. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 201,
202, 211, 220, 232, 242.] Anything which delayed the columns or put
them on different roads from those indicated by the commanding
general, directly tended to thwart his plans. All of Sherman's
dispatches during the 17th, 18th, and 19th of May show his
disappointment at not getting forward more rapidly.
Johnston seemed disposed, in the afternoon of the 17th, to meet
Sherman's wish for a decisive battle, and had selected a position a
mile or two north of Adairsville, where the valley of the Oothcaloga
Creek seemed narrow enough to give strong positions for his flanks
on the hills bordering it. Preliminary orders were given and the
cavalry was strongly supported by infantry to hold back Sherman's
advance-guard till the deployment should be completed. The
skirmishing was so brisk that, at a distance, it sounded like a
battle; but upon testing the position by a partial deployment,
Johnston concluded that his army would not fill it, and he resumed
his retreat on Cassville and Kingston, hoping that Sherman's columns
would be so separated that he could concentrate upon one of them,
and so fight his adversary in detail. [Footnote: Narrative, pp. 319,
320.]
Schofield had pressed the march of his troops after getting over the
Coosawattee, but the interruptions had been such that the distance
made was not great, though the time was long and the troops were
more tired than if they had made double the number of miles on an
unobstructed road. My division was on the extreme left flank and in
advance. After crossing the river at Field's Mill, the infantry by
Hooker's foot-bridge and the artillery by the flat-boat ferry, I
marched at ten o'clock in the evening and reached Big Spring Creek
at two o'clock in the morning of the 18th. Resting only till five
o'clock, we marched again, going southward on the Cassville road
three miles, thence westward on the Adairsville road five miles to
Marsteller's Mill. The other divisions of our corps took roads
westward of that which I followed, and the cavalry under Stoneman
passed beyond our left flank, scouting up the valley of Salequa
Creek as far as Fairmount and Pine Log Post-Office. Hooker moved two
of his divisions toward Calhoun after getting over the Coosawattee,
and these regained the position relative to the rest of Thomas's
army which the corps had been ordered to take. The other division
(Butterfield's), which had crossed in advance of my own at Field's
Mill, was necessarily on roads assigned to Schofield's command, and
a good deal of interference was inevitable. Hooker was personally
with this division, and in the afternoon of the 18th met General
Schofield at Marsteller's Mill, and then went forward about six
miles to the foot of the Gravelly Plateau, Butterfield's division
going still further forward on its top. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 238-242. The Atlas of the Official Records
does not give the routes of all the columns of either Hooker's or
Schofield's corps, nor does it give the line of march of the cavalry
on our left. The march of my own division is fixed by the memoranda
of my personal diary of the campaign. The official "Atlas" (Plate
lviii.) gives two mills as Marsteller's. It is difficult to identify
the several roads, but my own line of march was the principal
Cassville road leading from Field's Mills and ferry through Sonora
until we reached the road running directly to Adairsville. On this
last we marched to Marsteller's Mills. Our route on the 19th is also
incorrectly marked on the map. See Official Records, vol. xxxviii.
pt. iv. p. 256.]
General Schofield assembled the corps at the mills and rested for
the night. Early on the 19th my division took the advance and
marched southward on by-roads till we overtook Hooker's corps and
found it in line of battle, its movement being disputed by the
enemy's cavalry. Schofield deployed his corps on Hooker's left, my
division taking the extreme flank and advancing in line to the south
fork of Two Run Creek. Crossing this, we went forward to a position
a mile northeast of Cassville, briskly skirmishing with part of
Hood's corps. We found that we were opposite the extreme right of
the Confederate position, which was a strong one on the hills behind
Cassville; but an exchange of artillery shots satisfied us that we
to some extent enfiladed their intrenchments. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. p. 680.] The concentration of
Thomas's army with Schofield's made a continuous line facing the
enemy on the north and west. Night was falling as we took position.
Johnston had followed the railroad to Kingston, where he was joined
by French's division coming to Polk's corps from Rome, and still
stuck to the general line of the railway to Cassville, though this
led him by a considerable detour to the east. His manifest policy
was to make the largest use of the railroad to move his baggage and
supply his troops, for wagon trains were not over-abundant with the
Confederates. He naturally reckoned also that Sherman could not go
far from the same line, and as the road crossed the Etowah near the
gorges of the Allatoona hills, he wished to lead the national
commander into that difficult country from the north, instead of
taking the more direct wagon-roads from Kingston toward Marietta.
Could Sherman have been sure of the route his adversary would take,
no doubt he would have concentrated his columns by shortest roads on
Cassville, gaining possibly a day thereby. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iv.
pp. 242, 266.]
The position on the hills behind the village of Cassville was so
strong a one, and Johnston so much desired to offer battle at an
early day, that he resolved to retreat no further and to try
conclusions with Sherman here. He signified this in an unusually
formal manner by issuing a brief and stirring address to his troops,
in which he said that as their communications were now secure, they
would turn and meet our advancing columns. "Fully confiding in the
conduct of the officers and the courage of the soldiers," he said,
"I lead you to battle" [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii.
pt. iv. p. 728.] But when our left flank crossed Two Run Creek and
partly turned the right of his position, his corps commanders, Hood
and Polk, became so uneasy that they protested against giving battle
there, and induced Johnston to continue the retreat through
Cartersville across the Etowah River. He saw the mistake he had made
as soon as it was done, and never ceased to regret it. [Footnote:
Narrative, p. 323, etc.] The Richmond government had been
disappointed at his retreat from Dalton and Resaca and its
continuation through Adairsville. His strained relations with Mr.
Davis were rapidly tending toward his deprivation of command. But
more strictly military reasons made his change of purpose very
undesirable. Hardly anything is more destructive of the confidence
of an army than vacillation. The order to fight had been published,
and even a defeat might be less mischievous than the sudden retreat
in the night without joining the battle which had been so formally
announced. Either the order had been an error or the retreat was
one. Every soldier in the army knew this, and the _morale_ of the
whole was necessarily affected by it.
Sherman had no mind to follow the enemy into the defiles of
Allatoona from Cartersville. His position at Kingston offered a far
more easy way to turn that fastness by the south, if he could
replenish his stores, rebuild the bridges behind him, and make
Kingston the base for a march upon Dallas and thence on Marietta. On
the 20th of May his orders were issued for the new movement, to
begin on the 23d with preparation for a twenty days' separation from
the railroad. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p.
271.] My own duty on the 20th was to follow the enemy's rear-guard
to the river and learn the condition of the bridges and crossings.
The division marched early, most of the distance to Cartersville
being made in line of battle, the opposition being at times
stubborn. The purpose of this was probably to prepare for the
destruction of the bridges, which were burned as soon as the
rear-guard crossed. We sent detachments to destroy the Etowah Mills
and Iron Works a few miles above; [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 286, 298.]
meanwhile General Schofield concentrated the Army of the Ohio at
Cartersville, General Thomas occupied Kingston as the centre, and
McPherson came into position on the right near the same place.
General J. C. Davis's division had occupied Rome, finding there
important iron-works and machine-shops as well as considerable
depots of supplies. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 264.] General Blair was
advancing from Decatur, Ala., with the Seventeenth Corps, under
orders to relieve Davis at Rome, when the latter would rejoin
Palmer's corps at the front.
The ten days which had passed since the movement to turn the enemy's
position at Dalton was begun, had been in literal obedience to the
order to march without baggage. At my headquarters we were, in fact,
worse off than the men in the ranks, for, although the private
soldier finds his knapsack, haversack, canteen, and coffee-kettle a
burden and a clattering annoyance, he soon learns to bear them
patiently, for they are the necessary condition of the comparative
comfort of his bivouac when the day's march is over. The veteran,
indeed, clings to them with eager tenacity, when he has fully
learned that they are his salvation from utter misery. But the
officer, whose hours of halting are crowded with important business,
and whose movements must be light and quick whenever occasion
arises, cannot carry on his person or on his horse the outfit
necessary for his cooking and his shelter. We had been full of the
most earnest zeal to respond thoroughly to the general's wishes, and
had not tried to smuggle into wagons or ambulances any extra
comforts. We had left mess chests behind, and had used our fingers
for forks and our pocket-knives for carving, turning sardine boxes
into dishes, and other tins in which preserved meats are put up into
coffee-cups. Such roughing can be kept up for a week or two, but it
is not a real economy of means to make it permanent. A compromise
must be found in which the wholesome cooking of food and the shelter
in a rainstorm, without which no dispatches can be written or
records kept, may be made to consist with the lightness of
transportation which active campaigning requires. The simple,
closely packed kitchen kit of a Rob-Roy canoe voyager was more or
less completely anticipated by the devices and inventions born of
necessity in our campaign in Georgia. The remainder of the season
bore witness that we could organize our camp life so as to secure
cleanliness of person and healthful living without transgressing the
reasonable rules as to weight and bulk of baggage which Sherman
insisted on. Every day proved the reasonableness of his system,
without which the campaign could not have been made.
The tendency of war to make men relapse into barbarism becomes most
evident when an army is living in any degree upon the enemy's
country. Desolation follows in its track, and the utmost that
discipline can do is to mitigate the evil. The habit of disregarding
rights of property grows apace. The legitimate exercise of the rules
of war is not easily distinguished from their abuse. The crops are
trampled down, the fences disappear, the timber is felled for
breastworks and for camp-fires, the green forage is used for the
army horses and mules, barns and houses may be dismantled to build
or to floor a bridge,--all this is necessary and lawful. But the
pigs and the poultry also disappear, though the subsistence officers
are issuing full and abundant rations to the troops; the bacon is
gone from the smoke-house, the flour from the bin, the delicacies
from the pantry. These things, though forbidden, are half excused by
sympathy with the soldier's craving for variety of food. Yet, as the
habit of measuring right by might goes on, pillage becomes wanton
and arson is committed to cover the pillage. The best efforts of a
provost-marshal with his guard will be useless when superior
officers, and especially colonels of regiments, encourage or wink at
license. The character of different commands becomes as notoriously
different as that of the different men of a town. Our armies were
usually free from the vagabond class of professional camp-followers
that scour a European battlefield and strip the dead and the
wounded. We almost never heard of criminal personal assaults upon
the unarmed and defenceless; but we cannot deny that a region which
had been the theatre of active war became desolate sooner or later.
A vacant house was pretty sure to be burned, either by malice or by
accident, until, with fences gone, the roads an impassable mire, the
fields bare and cut up with innumerable wagon-tracks, no living
thing to be seen but carrion birds picking the bones of dead horses
and mules, Dante's "Inferno" could not furnish a more horrible and
depressing picture than a countryside when war has swept over it.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 273, 297,
298.]
The orders issued from our army headquarters in Georgia forbade
soldiers from entering houses or stripping families of the
necessaries of life. Most of the officers honestly tried to enforce
this rule; but in an army of a hundred thousand men, a small
fraction of the whole would be enough to spoil the best efforts of
the rest. The people found, too, that it was not only the enemy they
had to fear. The worse disciplined of their own troops and the horde
of stragglers were often as severe a scourge as the enemy.
[Footnote: See Hood's orders, Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v.
pp. 960, 963.] Yet I believe that nowhere in the world is respect
for person and property more sincere than among our own people. The
evils described are those which may be said to be necessarily
incident to the waging of war, and are not indications of ferocity
of nature or uncommon lack of discipline.
In the organization of the Army of the Ohio, General Schofield made
an important change by assigning Brigadier-General Hascall to
command the second division in place of General Judah. In the battle
of Resaca the division suffered severe loss without accomplishing
anything, and General Schofield found, on investigation, that it was
due to the incompetency of the officer commanding it. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 243.] The brigade
commanders, in their reports, complained severely of the way in
which the division had been handled, and the army commander felt
obliged to examine and to act promptly. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii.
pp. 581, 610, 611.] Judah was a regular officer, major of the Fourth
Infantry, a graduate of West Point in the class of 1843, but lacked
the judgment and coolness in action necessary in grave
responsibilities. General Schofield kindly softened the treatment of
the matter in his report of the campaign, but in his personal
memoirs he repeats the judgment he originally acted upon. [Footnote:
Schofield's Report, _Id_., pt. ii. p. 511; Forty-two Years in the
Army, p. 182. In the passage of his memoirs last referred to,
General Schofield had been using the case of General Wagner at
Franklin to give point to "the necessity of the higher military
education, and the folly of intrusting high commands to men without
such education" (p. 181); but he also distinctly recognizes the fact
that such education is gained by experience, and the fault of those
he uses as illustrations was that they had not learned either by
experience or theoretically. I have discussed the subject in vol. i.
chapter ix., _ante_. There must be knowledge; but even this will be
of no use unless there are the personal qualities which fit for high
commands.] The crossing of the Etowah River on May 23d was again the
occasion of an interference of columns, because Sherman's orders
were not faithfully followed. To McPherson was assigned a country
bridge near the mouth of Connasene Creek, to Thomas one four miles
southeast of Kingston, known as Gillem's Bridge, and to Schofield
two pontoon bridges to be laid at the site of Milam's Bridge, which
had been burned. There were fords near all these crossings which
were also to be utilized as far as practicable. [Footnote: Sherman's
general plan was given to his subordinates in person, but he
repeated it to Halleck, Official Records vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p.
274. Thomas's order is given, _Id._, p. 289, and accompanying
sketch, p. 290. Gillem's Bridge in the Atlas is called Free Bridge,
plate lviii. Schofield's place for pontoon bridges is fixed by his
dispatch to Sherman, _Id._, p. 284, my own dispatch, _Id._, p. 298,
and my official report, _Id._, pt. ii. p. 680. The line of march and
place of crossing as given in the Atlas are incorrect.] We marched
from Cartersville on the Euharlee road by the way of the hamlet of
Etowah Cliffs, till we reached the direct road from Cassville to
Milam's Bridge, when we found the way blocked by Hooker's corps,
which had possession of the pontoons which Schofield's engineer had
placed. Hooker, however, was not responsible for this, as he had
been ordered to change his line of march by a dispatch from Thomas's
headquarters written without stopping to inquire how such a change
might conflict with Schofield's right of way and with Sherman's
plans. Halted thus about noon, we were not able to resume the march
till next day, as Hooker had ordered his supply trains to follow his
column. [Footnote: _Id._, pt. iv. pp. 283, 291. Schofield to Sherman
and reply, _Id._, pp. 296, 297. When I wrote "Atlanta," I supposed
Hooker acted without orders.] The incident only emphasizes the way
in which we learned by experience the importance of strict system in
such movements, and the mischiefs almost sure to follow when there
is any departure from a plan of march once arranged. There was, of
course, no intention to make an interference, and the difficulty
rarely, if ever, occurred in the subsequent parts of the campaign.
In preparation for the movement to turn Johnston's new position at
Allatoona we were ordered to provide for twenty days' absence from
direct railway communication. Within that time Sherman expected to
regain the railway again and establish supply depots near the camps.
Meanwhile Kingston was made the base, and was garrisoned with a
brigade. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 272,
274, 278.] The returning veterans were coming back by regiments and
were fully supplying the losses of the campaign with men of the very
best quality and full of enthusiasm. Nine regiments joined the
Twenty-third Corps or were _en route_ during the brief halt at the
Etowah. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 291.] The ration was the full supply of
fresh beef from the herds driven with the army, varied by bacon two
days in the week, a pound of bread, flour, or corn-meal per man each
day, and the small rations of coffee, sugar and salt. [Footnote:
_Id._, p. 272.] Vegetables and forage were to some extent gathered
from the country. The coffee was always issued roasted, but in the
whole berry, and was uniformly first-rate in quality. The soldiers
carried at the belt a tin quart-pail, in which the coffee was
crushed as well as boiled. The pail was set upon a flat stone like a
cobbler's lapstone, and the coffee berries were broken by using the
butt of the bayonet as a pestle. At break of day every camp was
musical with the clangor of these primitive coffee-mills. The coffee
was fed to the mill a few berries at a time, and the veterans had
the skill of gourmands in getting just the degree of fineness in
crushing which would give the best strength and flavor. The cheering
beverage was the comfort and luxury of camp life, and we habitually
spoke of halting to make coffee, as in the French army they speak of
their _soupe_.