Foragers quartered the country, sweeping it bare of cattle, poultry,
fodder and corn. For both man and beast of the great army fed upon
the land as they passed through it, the rations with which they had
come provided being kept in case of need. Indeed the troops fed so
well that the march, it was said, was like a "continuous Thanksgiving."
What they did not eat they destroyed.
Thus right across the fertile land a stretch of waste and desolation
was created about sixty miles wide. Yet it was not done in wantonness,
but as a terrible necessity of war. It clove the Confederacy from
east to west as thoroughly as the Mississippi clove it from north
to south. It rifled and well-nigh exhausted the rich granary which
fed the Confederate army, and by destroying the railroads prevented
even what was left being sent to them. Grant meant to end the war,
and it seemed to him more merciful to destroy food and property
than to destroy men.
Through all this great raid there was little fighting done. And
as the army marched day by day through the sunny land a sort of
holiday spirit pervaded it. The work was a work of grim destruction,
but it was done in the main with good temper. The sun shone, the
men led a free and hardy life, growing daily more brown and sinewy,
and at the end of the march of nearly three hundred miles, far
from being worn out, they were more fit and strong than when they
set forth.
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