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

Wednesday, 11th–I was in a detail of a hundred men, with my corporal’s squad, to go out on cattle guard. We had to herd about a thousand head of our beef cattle. At noon we were called in and our regiment, together with the Twentieth Illinois, was ordered to strap on our knapsacks, strike our tents and drive the cattle out about five miles farther on. We left our camp at 2 o’clock and at 3 reached Hardin’s creek, in the direction of Huntsville, Alabama, where we found better range for the cattle, which was the object. There is more danger here of the rebel cavalry’s making a raid and stampeding the herd, but it is thought our force is sufficiently large to guard the cattle.