Terrible
accounts reached us from Bragg's army, who were without shoes,
blankets, or clothes, and suffering fearfully. Officers and men were
alike destitute. General Patton Anderson determined to make an effort
to supply his division, and for this purpose selected Lieutenant J.A.
Chalaron, Fifth Company, Washington Artillery, as one in every way
qualified to carry out such an undertaking, who was therefore ordered
to Savannah and other places to secure the needed supplies.
He cheerfully accepted the charge, although it involved deprivation of
the rest so greatly needed, and the continuance of hardship already
extended almost beyond human endurance. But the young officer was
every inch a soldier, and one of a company which had already won a
name for itself not less for invincible courage than for soldierly
bearing and devotion to duty. That so young a soldier was selected to
conduct such an undertaking proved how surely he had deserved and won
the confidence of his superior officers. In those days railroad
travelling was far from pleasant. The train upon which Lieutenant
Chalaron embarked at Knoxville was a motley affair,--perhaps a single
passenger-car, rough and dilapidated (crowded with those who, though
ill, made shift to sit up or recline upon the seats), box-cars and
_cattle-cars_ filled with suffering men helplessly sick.
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