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Food Supply Chains in Cities Modern Tools For Circularity and Sustainability 1St Ed Edition Emel Aktas Full Chapter PDF
Food Supply Chains in Cities Modern Tools For Circularity and Sustainability 1St Ed Edition Emel Aktas Full Chapter PDF
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Edited by
Emel Aktas · Michael Bourlakis
Food Supply
Chains in Cities
Modern Tools for
Circularity and
Sustainability
Food Supply Chains in Cities
Emel Aktas • Michael Bourlakis
Editors
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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Foreword
v
vi Foreword
This book successfully showcases some of the recent studies that have
been done on this vitally important subject. It illustrates the thematic,
methodological and geographical breadth of the research currently under-
way. The chapter authors address many different aspects of the subject
including food security, supply chain collaboration, the digitalisation of
food logistics, the optimised routing of food deliveries, the creation of
food hubs, the development of new reverse logistics networks to maxi-
mise the recycling of food waste and the costs and benefits of ‘vertical
farming’ within urban areas. Many of the studies are linked by a common
interest in promoting the long-term sustainability of food distribution.
In the course of their research the authors have deployed many different
approaches and techniques and drawn data from a variety of sources,
thereby setting a good example to future researchers in this field. The
have also provided an invaluable service in reviewing the extensive litera-
ture that has already emerged at the interface between food distribution,
supply chain management and city logistics.
The book’s geographical coverage is particularly impressive as it focuses
on cities in five continents and in countries at very different levels of eco-
nomic development. The cities themselves, such as Athens, Istanbul,
New York, Sao Paulo, Beijing and Beirut, vary enormously in their size,
structure, wealth and food supply systems, giving the reader a sense of the
extent to which business and policy innovations need to be adapted to
local circumstances. There will clearly be no-one-size-fits-all in the
upgrading of food supply chains to meet the culinary needs of the next
generation of urban dwellers.
We are excited to present you this edited volume on food supply chains
in cities. Our interest in food supply chains dates several decades, includ-
ing projects on agricultural supply chains, food retail, and food distribu-
tion. We have decided to edit this volume on food supply chain
management with specific focus on urban environments owing to the
increasing urbanisation and the permanent need to feed the populations
that reside in our cities. At the time of completing this project, the popu-
lation projections suggest that we will have 8.5 billion people living on
Earth by 2030 and 9.7 billion by 2050 (United Nations, 2019). Since
urban areas are anticipated to grow with increasing population, we face
the challenge of making our cities sustainable and food supply chains
play a key role in addressing this challenge. The Sustainable Development
Goal 11 is dedicated to making cities and human settlements inclusive,
safe, resilient, and sustainable and the reader will find several papers in
the edited volume that are aligned with this goal.
We open the book with a chapter entitled ‘Towards inclusive food sup-
ply chains’ authored by Virva Toumala. This chapter addresses the grow-
ing concern around food security, highlighting the links between food
supply chain management and urban food security. Synthesising the lit-
erature, Virva concludes five themes that affect urban food security: Rural
bias, urban political ecology, urban poverty, food supply chain manage-
ment, and food retail. Food security indicators are grouped under dietary
vii
viii Preface
Reference
United Nations. (2019). World population prospects. Retrieved from https://pop-
ulation.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Highlights.pdf.
Contents
xiii
xiv Contents
Index347
Notes on Contributors
xv
xvi Notes on Contributors
mental issues with a focus on ecological and energy transition. She holds a
PhD (2001) and an energy and environmental engineering degree from
INSA Lyon. She is currently involved in the social and environmental
responsibility delegation of Mines Saint-Etienne. She has co-authored 31
articles in peer-reviewed journals (Ecological Indicators, International
Journal of Sustainable Development, Journal of Cleaner Production,
among others). She co-authored 3 books, among which one which is often
quoted as a reference for ecological footprint, and 9 chapters of books.
Jesus Gonzalez-Feliu is associate professor at École des Mines de Saint-
Étienne, Environment, City and Society. He holds a MSc. in Civil
Engineering (INSA Lyon, France), a PhD. in Computers and Systems
Engineering (Politecnico di Torino, Italy) and is Dr. Hab. in Transport
Economics (Université Paris Est). He is also member of the Institute of
Urban Transport and Mobility (Lyon, France), and has led various proj-
ects on sustainable logistics systems. His main research interests are sus-
tainable urban logistics actions and policies, sustainability evaluation and
sustainable dashboards, group decision support, consensus search and
social evaluation of transport systems and logistics organizations. He is a
recognized expert in the field of sustainable urban logistics. He is co-
editor more than 10 special issues of peer-reviewed journals and partici-
pates actively on other editorial activities.
Kale Harbick studied computer science and robotics at the University
of Southern California, earning a PhD in 2008. He researched crater
detection for Mars landers and autonomous helicopters at NASA-JPL,
before shifting his career focus to energy. Kale taught many courses in
physics and energy management for over 10 years. He managed a pro-
gram at Oregon Department of Energy which implemented energy effi-
ciency measures in over 800 K-12 schools. He was twice asked to testify
for the Oregon State Legislature on residential energy efficiency p
rograms.
His current research in the CEA group at Cornell focuses on environ-
mental controls and modeling of energy and light.
A. Klueter is a full-time Ph.D. Student at the department of IT in
Production and Logistics at the TU Dortmund University. She holds two
B.Sc. from the faculty of mechanical engineering and the faculty of
xviii Notes on Contributors
Business, Economics and Social Sciences. For her M.Sc. she focused on
the field of logistics. She graduated with a master thesis on a concept for
the implementation of a collaborative route planning approach using a
data-driven supply chain simulation model.
Pingyang Liu is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Environmental Science and Engineering, and Director of the Center for
Land and Resource Economics Studies, at Fudan University, China. He
holds a PhD in economics, and his current research interests include
rural environmental management and economic transition, collective
action and natural resource management, and regional sustainable devel-
opment under the context of rapid urbanization. As Principal Investigator,
Dr Liu has undertaken over 20 research projects sponsored by NSFC,
WWF China, FORHEAD, Central and local governments of China.
João Roberto Maiellaro has a Ph.D. (in progress) in Production
Engineering at Universidade Paulista, Master’s degree in Production
Engineering at Methodist University of Piracicaba (2004), Post-
graduation in Production Engineering at the Polytechnic School of the
University of São Paulo, and Bsc. in Production Management at
Universidade São Judas Tadeu. Coordinator of Logistics Technology
course and Full Professor of Operational Research and Simulation
Modelling, Quality Management and Supply Chain Management in
Centro Estadual de Educação Tecnológica Paula Souza. Large manage-
ment experience in production engineering, with emphasis on planning,
designing, and control of manufacturing and quality systems.
Louise Manning, Professor in Agri-food and Supply Chain Security at
the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester has worked for over
30 years in the agri-food supply chain in a range of roles. She lives on a
mixed-enterprise family farm in Herefordshire. Her expertise is in the
area of food integrity including food safety, food quality, food crime, and
governance, social and corporate responsibility. She advises both govern-
ment and corporate businesses on supply chain risk assessment tech-
niques and associated mitigation strategies. Louise has published over 65
publications in a range of peer-reviewed journals and regularly presents at
conferences and writes books, book chapters and for trade press and elec-
tronic media.
Notes on Contributors xix
xxv
xxvi List of Figures
Shortening the Supply Chain for Local Organic Food in Chinese Cities
Fig. 1 Location of Shared Harvest Farm (Shunyi Base and Tongzhou
base). (Source: Drawn by authors) 175
Fig. 2 Weibo (L) and WeChat (R) of Shared Harvest Farm online
platform. (Source: Mobile phone screen shot of the official
Weibo site and the online wechat store of Shared Harvest, by
authors)177
Fig. 3 Supply chains for fresh produce in Shanghai. (Source: Drawn by
authors)180
Fig. 4 Sources of information. (Source: Drawn by authors) 184
Fig. 5 Timeline of Shared Harvest Farm. (Source: Drawn by authors) 185
List of Figures xxvii
Fig. 6 Online products from Shared Harvest Farm (left) and other
farms (right, usually marked by fair trade 公平贸易). (Source:
Mobile phone screen shot of the online wechat store of Shared
Harvest, by authors) 188
Fig. 7 Integrated organization structure at Shared Harvest Farm.
(Source: Liu, Ravenscroft, Ding, & Li, 2019) 189
How Digital Business Platforms Can Reduce Food Losses and Waste?
Fig. 1 DBP as promoters of coordination mechanisms to reduce food
waste. (Source: Authors’ own elaboration) 210
Fig. 2 Retail-rejected food returned to producer for failing to meet
aesthetic standards. (Source: Authors’ own elaboration) 215
Fig. 3 Potatoes reject by retail. (Source: Authors’ own elaboration) 215
Fig. 4 Disposal of food on land due to the lack of marketing channels.
(Source: Authors’ own elaboration) 216
The Role of Food Hubs in Enabling Local Sourcing for School Canteens
Fig. 1 The flow of information among institutional catering stakehold-
ers. (Adapted from Lessirard et al., 2017). (a) The consumer
could be the parent or the student who eats at the school
canteen; the patient in the hospital; or the employee in the
enterprise, among others. (b) The customer or purchaser could
be a territorial authority, public institution, or private enterprise 236
Fig. 2 Food Hub Stakeholders. (Adapted from Palacios-Argüello &
Gonzalez-Feliu, 2016) 239
Fig. 3 FH distribution scenarios. (Source: Authors’ own elaboration) 253
Fig. 4 Producers’ allocations based on administrative subdivision.
(Source: Authors’ own elaboration) 254
Fig. 5 Producers’ allocations based on geographical proximity, using
QGIS. (Source: Authors’ own elaboration) 255
Fig. 6 Producers’ allocations based on geographical proximity using
VRP. (Source: Authors’ own elaboration) 256
xxix
xxx List of Tables
How Digital Business Platforms Can Reduce Food Losses and Waste?
Table 1 Framework to analyze inter-organisational relationships
providing solutions to food waste 207
Table 2 Interviews in data collection 213
Table 3 Summary of the results in phases 1 and 2 222
The Role of Food Hubs in Enabling Local Sourcing for School Canteens
Table 1 Considerations of FH 240
Table 2 Information about interviewees 242
Table 3 FHs characteristics 245
Table 4 Stakeholder focus of regional FH 247
Table 5 Structure of regional FH 248
Table 6 Functions of regional FH 248
Table 7 Economic impacts of regional FH 250
Table 8 Social impacts of regional FH 250
Table 9 Environmental impacts of regional FH 250
Table 10 Producers per department 252
Table 11 FH locations, product origins and customer locations 252
Table 12 Distance results for producers’ allocations based on
administrative subdivision 254
Table 13 Distance results for producers’ allocations based on
geographic proximity 257
1 Introduction
Urban food insecurity is a complex issue with multiple levels and con-
texts. The FAO (2009) defines food security as “a situation that exists
when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to suffi-
cient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food
preferences for an active and healthy life”. The concept is further divided
into four pillars: availability, access, utilisation and stability. Urban food
security is particularly concerned with access to food rather than its fun-
damental availability. As urbanites are generally dependent on the market
for food, the stability of the market in terms of e.g. prices is also an
important consideration. As such, food insecurity affects the urban poor
disproportionally, creating a challenge for food supply chains.
This chapter uses an interdisciplinary perspective to explore food secu-
rity in an urban context. Through a literature review of three fields in the
V. Tuomala (*)
Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: virva.tuomala@hanken.fi
2 Review Method
Literature reviews are an essential part of academic research and consti-
tute what empirical work is derived from to locate its relevance in the
discipline. However, they can also be a self-standing academic contribu-
tion that produces an overview of a discipline and synthesis of a poten-
tially scattered collection of literature (Seuring & Gold, 2012). Tranfield,
Denyer, and Smart (2003) present two aims for literature reviews: first,
they map the discipline being researched through existing literature to
gain a holistic picture of it. Second, they identify gaps in the body of
knowledge that need to be addressed for the discipline to develop.
Towards Inclusive Urban Food Supply Chains 3
The methodology for our paper draws mainly from the principles of a
systematic literature review (SLR) (Tranfield et al., 2003) and content
analysis (Seuring & Gold, 2012), forming a critical review of the extant
literature on supply chain management (SCM), urban/human geogra-
phy, and development/food studies. The SLR approach is an efficient
choice in performing initial searches within existing research and select-
ing the most relevant articles to be included (Colicchia & Strozzi, 2012).
The content analysis method for literature reviews then provides a more
robust technique of categorising and evaluating the collected material
through interpretation of the underlying arguments presented in the lit-
erature (Seuring & Gold, 2012). This combination was inspired by the
methodology presented by Colicchia and Strozzi (2012), which used an
SLR with citation network analysis. Content analysis was chosen for this
review as the research areas are interdisciplinary and as such cross-
disciplinary citations would be lacking. The review methodology is pre-
sented in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 Review methodology. (Source: Adapted from Colicchia & Strozzi, 2012)
4 V. Tuomala
• Rural bias
• Urban political ecology
• Urban poverty
• SCM in diverse contexts
• Urban food retail
The following section discusses the findings from the literature, with
the subsections further indicating a subtheme and how it relates to urban
food insecurity.
Towards Inclusive Urban Food Supply Chains 7
25
20
15
10
0
Geography SCM/Business Dev. Studies etc Other sources
10
0
1996 1999 2003 2005 2006 2007 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Food security is defined to include all people having physical, social and
economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to maintain a
healthy and active life (FAO, 2009). According to the United Nations
(2015), over half of the global population resides in urban areas and the
number is estimated to reach 66% by 2050. Considering these statis-
tics, when referring to “all people” as in the FAO definition of food
security, the urban population should be prominently featured.
Nevertheless, policy and planning still consider food security issues to
affect mainly rural communities. In an exhaustive overview of both
international and specifically African food security agendas, Crush and
Frayne (2011) found very little reference to the urban context of food
security or the different dynamics of malnutrition among the urban
poor as opposed to the rural poor.
Cities worldwide face the challenge of planning and managing their
resources to meet the needs of their inhabitants (Lynch, Maconachie,
Binns, Tengbe, & Bangura, 2013). As opportunities for livelihoods
become scarce in rural areas, people flock to urban centres in search of
employment and increased quality of life (Zezza, Carletto, Davis, &
Winters, 2011) Often urbanisation happens at such a pace that it is
impossible for planning to keep up, placing poverty and urbanization
among the biggest development challenges of the twenty-first century
(Frayne, Crush, & McLachlan, 2014). Urban environments cannot be
considered as merely physical spaces, but rather they are a nexus of social,
environmental and economic activities brought together by a myriad of
people from all strata of society (Battersby & Marshak, 2013). The con-
texts explored here are consequences of the various factors at play in an
urban setting that lead to food insecurity and other manifestations of
inequality.
While the widely accepted FAO (2009) definition of food security
mentions access to food as an explicit factor, it is ensuring availability to
food through increased agricultural production that garners attention in
food security discourse (Battersby & Crush, 2014). Maxwell (1999)
credits this focus to a rural bias, wherein urban dwellers’ nutritional
Towards Inclusive Urban Food Supply Chains 9
The United Nations (2015) predicts that over two-thirds of the global
population will reside in cities by 2050 and most of this urbanization will
occur among the poorer members of society. However, official statistics
referencing generally agreed upon indicators for poverty (e.g. daily
income) commonly show that very few urban dwellers are counted as
poor in financial terms (Floro & Swain, 2013). A lack of reliable data on
urban poverty is both a cause and an effect of these biased indicators and
consequently influences research on issues such as urban food insecurity
and informality, both direct consequences of urban poverty (Fox, 2014;
Weatherspoon, Oehmke, Dembele, & Weatherspoon, 2015). Many cit-
ies in the Global South, e.g. Bangkok and Manila, have seen substantial
economic growth in terms of per capita consumption, but the growth
does not portray the widening gap between the wealthy and poor cohab-
iting the same urban space (Floro & Swain, 2013).
Statistically, urbanites may not be considered poor, but there is an
inherent contradiction when it comes to the number of people living
in informal settlements. The United Nations (2015) estimates that 870
million people reside in urban informal settlements, or slums, which
amounts to approximately one third of all urban residents in developing
nations. Informal settlements are characterized by precarious dwelling
structures, lack of access to services, overcrowding and inadequate water
and sanitation facilities (Fox, 2014). As infrastructure is one of the most
visible ways to ‘measure’ development, the prevalence of slums leaves
many cities in the Global South wanting in this respect (Frayne &
McCordic, 2015). The shortcomings of urban infrastructure and its
inability to meet rapid urbanization patterns of many developing coun-
tries contributes to the environmental context of urban poverty (Tolossa,
2010), which goes further than measuring mere income.
Informality is at the heart of urban poverty, encompassing habitat,
employment, and nourishment. Informal settlements have been tradi-
tionally treated as by-products of modernization, where rural migrants
are forced to initially dwell before being integrated into urban society as
their wealth increases. However, this view is heavily criticized due to the
12 V. Tuomala
people at the bottom of the pyramid, i.e. the poorest members of society,
has to be considered whenever the informal sector is concerned (Brown
& McGranahan, 2016).
Whereas Brown and McGranahan (2016) and Chen (2012) treat the
informal economy as an opportunity for innovation and research, some
view informality as a hindrance to development that should be contained
(Elbahnasawy et al., 2016). Proponents of this latter approach have a
similar aim to understand the informal economy, but rather than learn
from it they wish to develop policies to hinder its spread and adverse
effects. Characteristics of the informal economy they wish to forestall are
its distorting macroeconomic effects, inefficient resource use, and small-
scale, low-return production (Elbahnasawy et al., 2016). This school of
thought subscribes to the voluntarist view of the informal economy,
which maintains that actors choose to remain informal for example to
avoid paying taxes or dealing with bureaucracy for registering a company.
In addition to the voluntarist view, there are three other schools of
thought described by Chen (2012). Dualists consider informality as com-
pletely separate from the formal sector, existing as a side effect of insuffi-
cient economic growth. The legalists consider stringent state regulations
and persistent entrepreneurs to be the main drivers of the informal econ-
omy. Unlike the voluntarists, legalists view entrepreneurs as being forced
to come up with alternative ways to function due to e.g. anti-poor legisla-
tion and policies. The final school are the structuralists, who consider
informality as being driven by capitalist growth via formal companies
exploiting cheap informal labour to maximize their profits (Chen, 2012).
None of these schools provides definitive answers, as the informal econ-
omy derives from a multifaceted set of circumstances, but help in under-
standing it. In a developing world urban context, informality cannot be
bypassed. Brown and McGranahan (2016) even claim that no endeavour
seeking social or environmental transformation of the global economy
can ignore informality, a view that is echoed in this paper. The dynamics
of the informal food sector are extremely relevant in urban food insecu-
rity research and its potential solutions. In line with this view, Brown and
McGranahan (2016) suggest adding a fifth element to the four schools of
thought on informality suggested by Chen (2012): the inclusionist school.
This approach emphasizes initiatives whereby marginalized communities
can partake in decisions that concern their everyday lives and rights.
14 V. Tuomala
Urban populations are net food buyers and spend a majority of their
income on food (Maitra, 2016) so it is prudent to analyse the existing
retail network in conjunction with urban food insecurity. Food security
as such is not discussed much in SCM literature, but there is an active
stream of literature on supermarkets spreading as the dominant form of
food retail in developing or emerging economies. Due to its multifaceted
effects on society, this stream is not limited to the retail or SCM litera-
ture, but discussed in multiple disciplines across the social sciences and
while the research in these different disciplines often overlaps, an inter-
disciplinary discourse on the subject has not been established (Nguyen,
Wood, & Wrigley, 2013).
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badly wounded in the head while serving in the navy; he never fully
recovered, and died soon after the war ended.
Chapter XI.
MINE RUN.
We wait for the bugle, the night winds are cold,
The limbs of the soldiers feel jaded and old.
The field of our bivouac is windy and bare,
There is lead in our joints, there is frost in our hair,
The future is veiled, and its fortune unknown,
As we lie with hushed breath till the bugle is blown.
Thomas B. Higginson.
We crossed the river near Berlin, keeping east of the Blue Ridge. At
Manassas Gap on July 23rd, we saw some pretty fighting by the
Third Corps, and on the 8th of August, we went into camp at Beverly
Ford, and remained five weeks, enjoying our well earned rest. Here I
saw five deserters shot. Sept. 15th we moved to Culpepper, where I
saw a bounty jumper drummed out of camp, branded with the letter
D. Here we received 180 recruits, and between October 10th and
29th, we were marching back and forth, to one point and then
another, as though our generals thought we needed exercise.
November 29th, 1863 found us in line of battle at Mine Run. For
three days and nights we faced the enemy, and awaited the signal to
open the battle. I shall never forget one night, the coldest I ever saw
in Virginia. Mine Run was a little stream of water made formidable by
the rebels, whose works were back of it. The stream was filled with
thorny bushes and brush, now frozen in; when across that, there was
a strong abattis made of sharpened timber, that must be removed
before we could charge the enemy, strongly entrenched behind
earthworks. Not much charging could be done in that situation, and
we old soldiers knew the hopelessness of such an attempt.
We knew that the order had been given to charge on the enemy’s
works at daybreak. We felt rather gloomy, for we knew that death
was certain, if we made that desperate attempt. For my part, I had
faced many dangers, had been under fire many times, but had never
felt, as I did then, that death stared me in the face. The horrors of
that bitter cold night can never be told. All night long we had to keep
in motion to avoid freezing to death, for no fire could we have, lest
we be discovered by the enemy; more than one poor fellow was
frozen to death in the rifle pits.
Morning came at last, but we heard no order to charge. All honor to
General Meade, who has been censured for his failure to charge
across Mine Run. With all his bravery, he was too humane to order
such a useless sacrifice of life, though he knew he incurred censure
and probably disgrace, in ordering a retreat instead. Silently we
retreated out of our dangerous situation, and made our way towards
Stephensburg. Hungry and cold as we were, we hurried along,
halting now and then just long enough to build a little fire and boil
some coffee, the soldier’s best friend.
Towards night it grew warmer, and when the order came to halt for
the night on an open plain, we were too tired to do anything but drop
in our tracks, rolled up in our rubber blankets. When we awoke in the
morning, we found that several inches of snow had fallen during the
night, and covered that vast body of sleeping men as with a white
and fleecy blanket. We soon had fires and a warm breakfast. By ten
o’clock the snow had melted, and we took up our march with
renewed courage.
Our army crossed to the north side of the Rappahannock river, and
two days after found us encamped at Liberty, near Bealton Station,
on the Orange and Alexandria railroad, and here we had a brief
respite from our toils and dangers.
Chapter XII.
A LETTER FROM THE FRONT.
“Halt! Who goes there?” My challenge cry,
It rings along the watchful line,
“Relief!” I hear a voice reply;
“Advance and give the countersign!”
Unknown.
J. B. C.
L. M. J.
James B. Congdon.
M. B. Duffie.
General Grant now took command of the army, and on April 30th
1864, we broke camp at Liberty, and began the hardest, most bloody
campaign of the war. Our division gathered near Rappahannock
Station; crossed the river for the fifteenth time, and marched to
Brandy Station, marching almost constantly. We crossed the
Rapidan at Germania Ford, marched all the next day, camping at
night in the Wilderness, very near the enemy. May 5th we threw up
earthworks, but at noon advanced, leaving our works to other troops.
We were soon heavily engaged, and so began Bloody May.
From this time forward, day and night, marching, fighting, digging
earthworks, there was no rest for us. From losses in battle, and from
sickness, our regiment again dwindled down to a company in
numbers.
On May 8th we supported the 5th Massachusetts battery, with some
pretty smart fighting. On the 9th we again went to the front, and
threw up works, behind which we kept pretty close most of the day.
Sharpshooters were plenty in the rebel lines, not far from us. One of
my company, George Erskine, who was near me in the works, sat on
a cracker box, and turned his head to speak to me, thereby exposing
himself a little, and as I was looking at him, I saw a bullet strike the
side of his head, go through it, and strike the ground. He gave one
sigh, and fell dead at my feet. It was the work of a rebel
sharpshooter.
A little later in the day, the orderly sergeant asked—
“Who will go out on the skirmish line?”
The skirmish line was about a third of a mile in front of us, and to
reach it, one had to run the gauntlet, for the enemy had a fair view of
the whole field, and they improved it, you may be sure.
Several comrades volunteered, and went under a sharp fire. I felt a
little ashamed of myself for not going too, so I said to my chum,
“If he calls for more, I am going!”
“I go if you do,” said dear old Dwight, and soon the word
came again,
“Who will volunteer?”
“I will go for one!” Said I, and Dwight said the same.
Over the works we went, the minie balls singing and zipping at us as
we made our best time over that open field. We reached the line all
right, and settled down to business.
After a time I found my ammunition was getting low, and by the time
it was all gone, it was growing dark, so that we could move round
with less danger, for we could not show ourselves without drawing
the fire of the sharpshooters, so at dark I went round among the
dead, and took all the ammunition I could find, and began again
where I left off. We remained within two hundred yards of the
enemy’s works all night. During the night, our officers sent us plenty
of ammunition, and informed us that we were to charge at noon next
day, and that we were to fall into line as they advanced, but for some
reason, the expected charge was delayed.
Chapter XVI.
LAUREL HILL.
Through a vista bright of the years long fled,
By the flag-decked graves of our comrades dead,
By the tints of summer, and the winter’s white,
By the sheen of noon, and the shades of night,
There hangs a scene of the olden days,
With a warp of blue, and a woof of gray.
I will cut the web from out the loom,
And place it today ’mid the May-day bloom.
S. D. Richardson.
For two or three days we remained on the skirmish line, digging rifle
pits to protect ourselves from the fire of the enemy. These were
holes in the ground deep enough for one or more men to stand in,
and if we showed our heads we were pretty sure to draw their
attention, so we kept out of sight as much as possible. But our
greatest peril was from our own line, a quarter of a mile in the rear of
us, for there were several pieces of artillery continually sending
shells and solid shot over our heads into the enemy’s lines, and
some of them were too near us for comfort and safety, for we were
on slightly rising ground in front of them, and the gunners, to do
more execution, depressed their pieces so much that every now and
then a shot or shell would skim by, or over us, as we hugged the
ground.
We would watch for the flash of the guns, and drop to the ground, so
the shot generally went over us. In the rifle pit with me were two of
my comrades, one of whom had taken off his haversack, and laid it
near by. A shot from our line struck that haversack, and sent it flying
in every direction.
Comrade Flint was fairly peppered with pieces of tin plate, cup, knife,
fork and spoon, which wounded him severely in several places. He
stood the pain as long as he could, and finally said he was going
back to the lines; we advised him to wait until dark, but the pain was
so great that he could not, and he started on the run across the open
field, back to our main line. Instantly he was a target for the rebel
sharpshooters. We watched him anxiously, and once saw him go
down, but he was up and off in a moment, and reached our lines,
where he went into the hospital.
He received a wound in the leg, from which he never fully recovered.
The other wounds healed after a while, but left indelible scars.
Soon after, the firing ceased, and we felt better, when we were no
longer in danger from our own artillery.
At last, on the morning of the 12th came the order to attack, and our
gallant little brigade commanded by Colonel Prescott, dashed across
the field as far as the foot of Laurel Hill. How our brave boys charged
those works under that heavy shower of grape and canister, none
who survived will ever forget!
But we could not take the works, and had to fall back, under a galling
fire from their whole line. Oh! What a shower of death came down
upon us! Before we got our colors back to our old position, the 32nd
had lost five color bearers, and one hundred and three, out of one
hundred and ninety men, killed or wounded. A number of the boys of
our company lay killed or wounded upon the field we had charged
over, and the constant firing along the whole line of the enemy’s
works, made it dangerous business going out to bring them in; but
several of us determined to do so, in spite of the risk we incurred.
Before leaving home we had made a solemn promise to each other,
that no man should be left unburied or uncared for on the field; that
we would risk life and limbs that our wounded should be cared for,
and our dead comrades tenderly laid in the bosom of mother earth.
We usually waited until night before going out after our fallen
comrades, but we could see the poor fellows lying there under the
scorching sun, and felt that some of them would not hold out until
night.
Taking a blanket for a stretcher, four of us started out on the run,
drawing upon us a deadly fire from the enemy. One of our party fell,
wounded in the leg, but the rest managed to take him along in our
hasty retreat. Again and again we made the attempt, succeeding in
getting most of our wounded under cover.
Night came, and we started out to bury our dead. Many a poor fellow
lying upon his face, did I turn over in my search for my comrades
that night. Suddenly I came upon one of my company, still living, but
mortally wounded. He had been shot through the spine, and could
not be moved, so I made him as comfortable as possible by putting a
blanket under his head, and giving him some water. His sufferings
were terrible, but soon over; he knew his time had come, and gave
me messages for his folks and friends at home.
I promised him that I would write and let them know how, and when
he died, and that I would see that he was buried. I remained with him
until death released him from his agony, then closed his eyes, and
covered him with his blanket.
Sadly I left him, and moved on to where I could hear a well known
voice calling for help. It was another of my company badly wounded,
but able to be moved, so I hastily rolled him into a blanket, and we
soon had him within our line.
Busy all night, when daylight came, we had buried our dead, and
gathered in our wounded, thus fulfilling the compact that was never
broken when it was possible for us to keep it. What a comfort it was
to us, that solemn promise, for, far worse than death, was the
thought of lying exposed and unburied on the battlefield. That night
was a sad one, never to be forgotten by me, when we rolled our
comrades up in their blankets, and laid them in graves that will
forever remain unknown.
Chapter XVII.
THE WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN.
Yes, it all appears to my mind like a dream,
How we filed out of camp, and forded that stream.
Through the storm we have struggled, by day and by night;
For our flag and our country, we wrought with our might.
On that dangerous post, through the dews and the damp,
We have guarded from ill, our slumbering camp.
M. B. D.
From the 12th to the 23rd, our regiment was constantly under fire
from the enemy in front of us, at Spotsylvania Courthouse, and
vicinity, continually changing our location, throwing up earthworks
each night after a weary day’s march, before we could roll ourselves
in our blankets, and take our short night’s rest.
On the morning of the 23rd, we took up our line of march towards the
North Anna river, crossing it at Jericho Ford, our brigade advancing
at once in line of battle into a piece of woods, where we had a
skirmish with the enemy, who fell back, and we proceeded to fell
trees, and build a line of works.
Before we had finished them, the enemy in force, under General Hill,
attacked us, and endeavored to drive us out of our works and into
the river. The assault fell mainly upon our division. Our regiment was
on the left of the line of battle, and we did our best to give them a
warm reception. For the first time since the campaign began, we
fought in our works. It was a short, sharp fight, and the enemy was
repulsed.
We remained in our works until morning, when we moved on
towards Hanover Junction, but on May 26th we received orders to
retire, which we did during the night, and once more crossed the