"Sherman's march to the sea was a picnic to 16-year-old J.C. Arbuckle, now a retired Baptist minister, 1255 Sunbury Road.

When Rev. Arbuckle enlisted in Company K, 4th Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry, in 1864, he immediately was sent to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where General Sherman was preparing for the Atlanta campaign. From this time forward he was with Sherman's army through the Atlanta campaign, the march to the sea, and the Carolina campaign until the end of the war and the grand review at Washington.

Atlanta was 140 miles from Chattanooga and it took Sherman's army 120 days to reach the city. During this time there was fighting along some part of the advancing army every day.

After all this hard fighting it was kind of a picnic to go through Georgia Rev. Arbuckle said. We foraged everywhere and lived on the fat of the land.
He insisted that to his knowledge the Union soldiers did not wantonly destroy any property or terrify the Southern people. They took what they needed- hams, chickens, eggs, butter, flour and other provisions- but did not molest the unfortunate owners.

On Thanksgiving day the army camped at the plantation of a prominent Confederate leader who did much to stir up the war. He had about 3,000 sheep on his plantation, which soon began to disappear as the Union soldiers go ready for their Thanksgiving dinners.

When an offical of the plantation complained to General Sherman that he saw the soldiers making away with the mutton the general asked him: Do you raise many turkeys in this country? No, the official answered, I guess we haven't many turkeys here. Well then, General Sherman replied if you can't supply my men with turkeys for their Thanksgiving dinner I suspect they'll have to eat Georgia mutton.

The day after Thanksgiving, Rev. Arbuckle said, there were hardly any of the sheep left on the plantation."