Saturday, 12th–Our corps marched out on the railroad between Marietta and Big Shanty and tore it up, burning all the ties and bending the irons. The iron rails were thrown into the fires and then twisted up. The last train went North about noon, and no more mail will be sent out from this part of the army for forty days. The telegraph lines between Atlanta and the North were cut soon after the last train left. The railroad from Dalton south, wherever Sherman’s army goes, is to be destroyed and all stations and public buildings burned.
The railroad from Dalton south, wherever Sherman’s army goes, is to be destroyed and all stations and public buildings burned. — Downing’s Civil War Diary.
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