Right and Left Wings of our forces. The next day (March 20) the First Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, succeeded, in getting within 200 yards of the bridge over Mill Creek, on the Smithfield road, and the Fifteenth Corps carried and held the entire line of the enemy's skirmish pits in its front. Again the enemy ran away during the night. We pursued him two miles beyond Mill Creek. On the 14th of August I transmitted to the Engineer Bureau a map* which was intended to illustrate this battle.

The trains meanwhile had never stopped their movement toward Goldsborough, and the troops now following soon begun to pour into that town, already occupied by the troops of General Schofield, and the most wonderful campaign of the war was ended. Two pontoon bridges were built over the Neuse at Cox's and two more near the country bridge, upon which everything crossed.

Supplies of all kinds were they badly needed, and, amongst the rest, the canvas covers of the pontoon boats needed renewal. In the train attached to the Right Wing this was particularly the case, since many of the covers had been in the water an aggregate of sixty days. Attention is especially directed to this train, because the material had been hauled from Nashville to Goldsborough upon wagons and had been in constant use, and yet the train was serviceable. Indeed, all that was required to make it perfectly efficient was a new set of canvas covers.

Fully one-eighth of the whole army was without shoes, and nearly as badly off for the other articles of clothing, having now marched through the heart of the enemy's country, over swamps and through forests, nearly if not quite 500 mils, occupying sixty days of time, during which they drew but little more than their sugar and coffee from the Government, gathering subsistence for themselves an animals from the enemy's country. During our march from Atlanta to Savannah our line of march was parallel to the large water-courses. On this it lead at right angles to them all, and, as we expected, the difficulties encountered by us were greatly increased. Our line of march was chosen near the junction between the clay of the uplands with the sand of the lower country, which may be tolerably well defined by tracing a line through the lower rapids on each of the streams we crossed. It was hoped and expected that along this line we would find the best roads and the minimum amount of mud and swamp, while at the same time it passed through or in the vicinity of the towns it was considered important to strike. Our supposition was entirely correct, as proven whenever we deflected much from this line, as at the crossing of the Catawba. There are but few of us who will not remember the labor, hardship, and exposure of the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th of February. Still our route, at this best, involved an immense amount of bridging of every kind known in active campaigning, besides some 400 miles of corduroying. The latter was a very simple affair where there were plenty of fence rails, but in their absence involved and severest labor. We found that two good fences furnished enough rails to corduroy a strip of road as long as one of them so as to make it passable. I estimate the amount of corduroying on this campaign at fully 100 miles to each army corps, making an aggregate of 400 miles. This is a moderate estimate. This kind of work was rarely done by the cavalry, since their trains moved with the infantry columns. The Right Wing built fifteen pontoon bridges, having an aggregate length of 3,720 feet. The Left Wing built about 4,000 feet, thus making a total of 7,720 feet, or nearly one mile and a half. The amount of trestle bridge built was not meas-

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*See Plate CXXXIII, Map 2 of the Atlas.

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