weapons. A rifle-musket added another ten pounds to the load.

If the days were warm the roadsides were littered with blankets and overcoats that seemed to grow heavier with each step. Even tents were discarded, especially on a summer march. Of course what seemed like a good idea on a warm afternoon might be regretted later that night! When it rained, wagons and animals got stuck on the muddy roads and had to be pushed. The soldiers pulled rubber ponchos out of their knapsacks or put their small tents over their heads and slogged along through the mud.

When it was impossible to make any progress through the mud, a group was assigned to build timber highways called “corduroy roads.” They cut down large trees, laid them along both sides of the road, and covered them crosswise with smaller logs. They covered these with underbrush so that the men's feet and the hooves of the horses and mules wouldn't go through the cracks of the logs. If a small stream crossed the army's path, the men took off their shoes and socks, put their equipment over their heads, and waded across. If it was a deep, wide river, the engineers were put to work to construct a bridge.

Armies traveled by railroad, too. The railroads transported food, livestock, clothing, and munitions. Empty cars leaving the battlefront carried wounded soldiers back to the cities. Railroads were so important that cavalry operations concentrated on wrecking tracks, and many battles were fought over important railroad junctions. Movement of troops by rail played an important role in battles at Chickamauga and Chattanooga. Twenty thousand soldiers, their artillery, and their horses were transferred from the Army of the Potomac

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to Chattanooga in eleven days. This was the farthest and fastest any army had ever moved.

For the most part, the men marched. They marched day and night, up hills and down valleys, around and across mountains. They swam rivers, clambered over rocks, wound through dark woods. They marched on roads and across empty countryside. They marched in rain, snow, sleet, and under the burning summer sun. Sometimes they hiked for days without rations. Sometimes they slept on frozen ground. Sometimes they marched barefoot. Sometimes they practically marched in their sleep.

When they reached their destination, the soldiers made camp. They scoured the nearby countryside for downed wood or fenceposts and soon thousands of men would circle hundreds of small campfires to cook their evening meals. In