Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

Friday, 3d–It rained nearly all day and changed the dust into mud, which made the marching very heavy. We left camp at 8 o’clock and leaving the valley, traveled over a spur of Lookout mountain nine miles across. We marched eighteen miles today and bivouacked on the Chattanooga river. We passed a house of mourning today where lay the body of the head of the family, he having been killed just a few days before in a battle with Sherman’s men. I never saw a sadder sight. The wife and daughters dressed in deep, rich mourning were most pitifully bewailing their loss. But some of our boys remarked that the people of the South had brought on this war themselves.