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.