Civil War anniversary: The Army of Tennessee comes to Dalton By Marvin Sowder Dalton 150th Civil War

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Civil War anniversary: The Army of Tennessee comes to Dalton
By Marvin Sowder Dalton 150th Civil War Commission
12/21/2013 10:53 PM

After a humiliating defeat and rout at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, the Confederate Army of Tennessee on Nov. 26, 1863, retreated into the hills of North Georgia. By the end of November and early December 1863 they began settling into winter quarters in Dalton.
The weather was extremely cold with intermittent bouts of freezing rain, sleet and snow.
In his diary, John S. Jackson, a member of the Kentucky Orphan Brigade, nicknamed the “Orphans” by Gen. John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky because the soldiers of this brigade could not go home during the war as the Federal Army had captured and occupied the Blue Grass State, wrote of his tribulation during that time. “At Tunnel Hill we had to stand in line of battle, in the pelting rain until noon when General Pat Cleburne passed us. Then we marched for Dalton on the railroad six or seven miles. We stopped for night in some old hospital buildings one mile from town on the railroad. That night, November the 28th, I believe was the most disagreeable night I ever spent.”
The hospital buildings he wrote of were the ones built earlier that year on the Hamilton Plantation. All of the bunks, heat stoves and hospital equipment had been removed in September and the facilities abandoned. The writer went on to describe them in this way, “The houses were not very tight and I could not sleep on the floor inside so I went out by a fire and hovered around it all night long. I believe the keenest wind was blowing I ever felt. I had not slept for four or five nights and could hardly hold my eyes open yet I knew if I went to sleep I would freeze to death.”

For the rest: http://m.daltondailycitizen.com/TDC/pm_102788/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=kh7CLj4j
 
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