Hardtack and coffee

by John Davis Billings

CORPS BADGES.

What are corps badges? The answer to this question is somewhat lengthy, but I think it will be considered interesting. The idea of corps badges undoubtedly had its origin with General Philip Kearny, but just how or exactly when is somewhat legendary and uncertain. Not having become a member of Kearny’s old corps until about a year after the idea was promulgated, I have no tradition of my own in regard to it, but I have heard men who served under him tell widely differing stories of the origin of the “Kearny Patch,” yet all agreeing as to the author of the idea, and also in its application being made first to officers. General E. D. Townsend, late Adjutant-General of the United States Army, in his “Anecdotes of the Civil War,” has adopted an explanation which, I have no doubt, is substantially correct. He says:—

“One day, when his brigade was on the march, General Philip Kearny, who was a strict disciplinarian, saw some officers standing under a tree by the roadside; supposing them to be stragglers from his command, he administered to them a rebuke, emphasized by a few expletives. The officers listened in silence, respectfully standing in the ‘position of a soldier’ until he had finished, when one of them, raising his hand to his cap, quietly suggested that the general had possibly made a mistake, as they none of them belonged to his command. With his usual courtesy, Kearny exclaimed, “Pardon me; I will take steps to know how to recognize my own men hereafter.” Immediately on reaching camp, he issued orders that all officers and men of his brigade should wear conspicuously on the front of their caps a round piece of red cloth to designate them. This became generally known as the ‘Kearny Patch.’”

I think General Townsend is incorrect in saying that Kearny issued orders immediately on reaching camp for all “officers and men” to wear the patch; first, because the testimony of officers of the old Third Corps to-day is that the order was first directed to officers only, and this would be in harmony with the explanation which I have quoted; and, second, after the death of Kearny and while his old division was lying at Fort Lyon, Va., Sept. 4, 1862, General D. B. Birney, then in command of it, issued a general order announcing his death, which closed with the following paragraph:—

“As a token of respect for his memory, all the officers of this division will wear crape on the left arm for thirty days, and the colors and drums of regiments and batteries will be placed in mourning for sixty days. To still further show our regard, and to distinguish his officers as he wished, each officer will continue to wear on his cap a piece of scarlet cloth, or have the top or crown-piece of the cap made of scarlet cloth.”

The italics in the above extract are my own; but we may fairly infer from it:—

First, that up to this date the patch had been required for officers alone, as no mention is made of the rank and file in this order.

Second, that General Kearny did not specify the lozenge as the shape of the badge to be worn, as some claim; for, had such been the case, so punctilious a man as General Birney would not have referred in general orders to a lozenge as “a piece of scarlet cloth,” nor have given the option of having the crown-piece of the cap made of scarlet cloth if the lamented Kearny’s instructions had originally been to wear a lozenge. This being so, General Townsend’s quoted description of the badge as “a round piece of red cloth” is probably erroneous.

As there were no red goods at hand when Kearny initiated this move, he is said to have given up his own red blanket to be cut into these patches.

Soon after these emblems came into vogue among the officers there is strong traditional testimony to show that the men of the rank and file, without general orders, of their own accord cut pieces of red from their overcoat linings, or obtained them from other sources to make patches for themselves; and, as to the shape, there are weighty reasons for believing that any piece of red fabric, of whatsoever shape, was considered to answer the purpose.

ST. ANDREW’S CROSS.

These red patches took immensely with the “boys.” Kearny was a rough soldier in speech, but a perfect dare-devil in action, and his men idolized him. Hence they were only too proud to wear a mark which should distinguish them as members of his gallant division. It was said to have greatly reduced the straggling in this body, and also to have secured for the wounded or dead that fell into the Rebels’ hands a more favorable and considerate attention.

There was a special reason, I think, why Kearny should select a red patch for his men, although I have never seen it referred to. On the 24th of March, 1862, General McClellan issued a general order prescribing the kinds of flags that should designate corps, division, and brigade headquarters. In this he directed that the First Division flag should be a red one, six feet by five; the Second Division blue, and the Third Division a red and blue one;—both of the same dimensions as the first. As Kearny commanded the First Division, he would naturally select the same color of patch as his flag. Hence the red patch.

The contagion to wear a distinguishing badge extended widely from this simple beginning. It was the most natural thing that could happen for other divisions to be jealous of any innovation which, by comparison, should throw them into the background, for by that time the esprit de corps, the pride of organization, had begun to make itself felt. Realizing this fact, and regarding it as a manifestation that might be turned to good account, Major-General Joseph Hooker promulgated a scheme of army corps badges on the 21st of March, 1863, which was the first systematic plan submitted in this direction in the armies. Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac Jan. 26, 1863. General Daniel Butterfield was made his chief-of-staff, and he, it is said, had much to do with designing and perfecting the first scheme of badges for the army, which appears in the following circular:—

Headquarters Army of the Potomac.

Circular.

March 21, 1863.

For the purpose of ready recognition of corps and divisions of the army, and to prevent injustice by reports of straggling and misconduct through mistake as to their organizations, the chief quartermaster will furnish, without delay, the following badges, to be worn by the officers and enlisted men of all the regiments of the various corps mentioned. They will be securely fastened upon the centre of the top of the cap. The inspecting officers will at all inspections see that these badges are worn as designated.

First Corps—a sphere: red for First Division; white for Second; blue for Third.

Second Corps—a trefoil: red for First Division; white for Second; blue for Third.

Third Corps—a lozenge: red for First Division; white for Second; blue for Third.

Fifth Corps—a Maltese cross: red for First Division; white for Second; blue for Third.

Sixth Corps—a cross: red for First Division; white for Second; blue for Third. (Light Division, green.)

Eleventh Corps—a crescent: red for First Division; white for Second; blue for Third.

Twelfth Corps—a star: red for First Division; white for Second; blue for Third.

The sizes and colors will be according to pattern.

By command of

Major-General Hooker,
S. Williams, A.A.G.

Accompanying this order were paper patterns pasted on a fly-leaf, illustrating the size and color required. It will be seen that the badges figured in the color-plates are much reduced in size. Diligent inquiry and research in the departments at Washington fail to discover any of the patterns referred to, or their dimensions; but there are veterans living who have preserved the first badge issued to them in pursuance of this circular, from which it is inferred that the patterns were of a size to please the eye rather than to conform to any uniform scale of measurement. A trefoil which I have measured is about an inch and seven-eighths each way. It is a copy of an original. The stem is straight, turning neither to the right nor left.

The arms of the Fifth Corps badge are often figured as concave, whereas those of a Maltese cross are straight. This is believed to be a deviation from the original in the minds of many veterans who wore them, and they are changed accordingly in the color-plate.

The Sixth Corps wore a St. Andrew’s cross till 1864, when it changed to the Greek cross figured in the plate.

PLATE II.

McIndoe Bros., Printers, Boston.

That this circular of Hooker’s was not intended to be a dead letter was shown in an order issued from Falmouth, Va., May 12, 1863, in which he says:—

“The badges worn by the troops when lost or torn off must be immediately replaced.”

And then, after designating the only troops that are without badges, he adds:—

“Provost-marshals will arrest as stragglers all other troops found without badges, and return them to their commands under guard.”

There was a badge worn by the artillery brigade of the Third Corps, which, so far as I know, had no counterpart in other corps. I think it was not adopted until after Gettysburg. It was the lozenge of the corps subdivided into four smaller lozenges, on the following basis: If a battery was attached to the first division, two of these smaller lozenges were red, one white, and one blue; if to the second, two were white, one red, and one blue; and if to the third, two were blue, one red, and one white. They were worn on the left side of the cap.

The original Fourth Corps, organized by McClellan, did not adopt a badge, but its successor of the same number wore an equilateral triangle prescribed by Major-General Thomas, April 26, 1864, in General Orders No. 62, Department of the Cumberland, in which he used much the same language as that used by Hooker in his circular, and designated divisions by the same colors.

The badge of the Seventh Corps was a crescent nearly encircling a star. It was not adopted until after the virtual close of the war, June 1, 1865. The following is a paragraph from the circular issued by Major-General J. J. Reynolds, Department of Arkansas, regarding it:—

“This badge, cut two inches in diameter, from cloth of colors red, white, and blue, for the 1st, 2d, and 3d Divisions respectively, may be worn by all enlisted men of the Corps.”

This was an entirely different corps from the Seventh Corps, which served in Virginia, and which had no badge. The latter was discontinued Aug. 1, 1863, at the same time with the original Fourth Corps.

The Eighth Corps wore a six-pointed star. I have not been able to ascertain the date of its adoption. There was no order issued.

AN ORIGINAL NINTH CORPS BADGE.

The Ninth Corps was originally a part of the Army of the Potomac, but at the time Hooker issued his circular it was in another part of the Confederacy. Just before its return to the army, General Burnside issued General Orders No. 6, April 10, 1864, announcing as the badge of his corps, “A shield with the figure nine in the centre crossed with a foul anchor and cannon, to be worn on the top of the cap or front of the hat.” This corps had a fourth division, whose badge was green. The corps commander and his staff wore a badge “of red, white, and blue, with gilt anchor, cannon, and green number.”

December 23, 1864, Major-General John G. Parke, who had succeeded to the command, issued General Orders No. 49, of which the following is the first section:—

“1. All officers and enlisted men in this command will be required to wear the Corps Badge upon the cap or hat. For the Divisions, the badges will be plain, made of cloth in the shape of a shield—red for the first, white for the second, and blue for the third. For the Artillery Brigade, the shield will be red, and will be worn under the regulation cross cannon.”

ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CORPS BADGES COMBINED.

This order grew out of the difficulty experienced in obtaining the badge prescribed by General Burnside. The cannon, anchor, etc., were made of gold bullion at Tiffany’s, New York City, and as it was scarcely practicable for the rank and file to obtain such badges, they had virtually anticipated the order of General Parke, and were wearing the three plain colors after the manner of the rest of Potomac’s army. The figures in the color-plate, however, are fashioned after the direction of General Burnside’s order. The annexed cut is a fac-simile of one of the original metallic badges worn by a staff officer. This corps had a fourth division from April 19 to Nov. 29, 1864.

The Tenth Corps badge was the trace of a four-bastioned fort. It was adopted by General Orders No. 18 issued by Major-General D. B. Birney, July 25, 1864.

The Eleventh and Twelfth Corps have already been referred to, in General Hooker’s circular. On the 18th of April, 1864, these two corps were consolidated to form the Twentieth Corps, and by General Orders No. 62 issued by Major-General George H. Thomas, April 26, “a star, as heretofore worn by the Twelfth Corps,” was prescribed as the badge.

The annexed cut shows the manner in which many of the corps combined the two badges in order not to lose their original identity.

PLATE III.

McIndoe Bros., Printers, Boston.

The Thirteenth Corps had no badge.

The badge of the Fourteenth Army Corps was an acorn. Tradition has it that some time before the adoption of this badge the members of this corps called themselves Acorn Boys, because at one time in their history, probably when they were hemmed in at Chattanooga by Bragg, rations were so scanty that the men gladly gathered large quantities of acorns from an oak-grove, near by which they were camped, and roasted and ate them, repeating this operation while the scarcity of food continued. Owing to this circumstance, when it became necessary to select a badge, the acorn suggested itself as an exceedingly appropriate emblem for that purpose, and it was therefore adopted by General Orders No. 62, issued from Headquarters Department of the Cumberland, at Chattanooga, April 26, 1864.

The badge of the Fifteenth Corps derives its origin from the following incident:—During the fall of 1863 the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps were taken from Meade’s army, put under the command of General Joe Hooker, and sent to aid in the relief of Chattanooga, where Thomas was closely besieged. They were undoubtedly better dressed than the soldiers of that department, and this fact, with the added circumstance of their wearing corps badges, which were a novelty to the Western armies at that time, led to some sharp tilts, in words, between the Eastern and Western soldiers. One day a veteran of Hooker’s command met an Irishman of Logan’s Corps at the spring where they went to fill their canteens. “What corps do you belong to?” said the Eastern veteran, proud in the possession of the distinguishing badge on his cap, which told his story for him. “What corps, is it?” said the gallant son of Erin, straightening his back; “the Fifteenth, to be sure.” “Where is your badge?” “My badge, do ye say? There it is!” said Pat, clapping his hand on his cartridge-box, at his side; “forty rounds. Can you show me a betther?”

On the 14th of February, 1865, Major-General John A. Logan, the commander of this corps, issued General Orders No. 10, which prescribe that the badge shall be “A miniature cartridge-box, one-eighth of an inch thick, fifteen-sixteenths of an inch wide, set transversely on a field of cloth or metal, one and five-eighths of an inch square. Above the cartridge-box plate will be stamped or worked in a curve ‘Forty Rounds.’” This corps had a fourth division, whose badge was yellow, and headquarters wore a badge including the four colors. Logan goes on to say:—

“It is expected that this badge will be worn constantly by every officer and soldier in the corps. If any corps in the army has a right to take pride in its badge, surely that has which looks back through the long and glorious line of ... [naming twenty-nine different battles], and scores of minor struggles; the corps which had its birth under Grant and Sherman in the darker days of our struggle, the corps which will keep on struggling until the death of the Rebellion.”

FIRST AND FIFTH CORPS BADGES COMBINED.

The following correct description of the badge worn by the Sixteenth Army Corps is given by the assistant-inspector general of that corps, Colonel J. J. Lyon:—“The device is a circle with four Minie-balls, the points towards the centre, cut out of it.” It was designed by Brevet Brigadier-General John Hough, the assistant adjutant-general of the corps, being selected out of many designs, submitted by Major-General A. J. Smith, the corps commander, and, in his honor, named the “A. J. Smith Cross.” It is easily distinguished from the Maltese cross, in being bounded by curved instead of straight lines. No order for its adoption was issued.

The badge of the Seventeenth Corps, said to have been suggested by General M. F. Ford, and adopted in accordance with General Orders issued by his commander, Major-General Francis P. Blair, was an arrow. He says, “In its swiftness, in its surety of striking where wanted, and its destructive powers, when so intended, it is probably as emblematical of this corps as any design that could be adopted.” The order was issued at Goldsboro, N. C., March 25, 1865. The order further provides that the arrow for divisions shall be two inches long, and for corps headquarters one and one-half inches long, and further requires the wagons and ambulances to be marked with the badge of their respective commands, the arrow being twelve inches long.

A circular issued from the headquarters of the Eighteenth Army Corps June 7, 1864, and General Orders No. 108, from the same source, dated August 25, 1864, furnish all the information on record regarding the badge of this body. While both are quite lengthy in description and prescription, neither states what the special design was to be. It was, however, a cross with equi-foliate arms. The circular prescribed that this cross should be worn by general officers, suspended by a tri-colored ribbon from the left breast. Division commanders were to have a triangle in the centre of the badge, but brigade commanders were to have the number of their brigade instead; line officers were to suspend their badges by ribbons of the color of their division; cavalry and artillery officers also were to have distinctive badges. The whole system was quite complex, and somewhat expensive as well, as the badges were to be of metal and enamel in colors. Enlisted men were to wear the plain cross of cloth, sewed to their left breast. This order was issued by General W. F. Smith.

General Orders 108 issued by General E. O. C. Ord simplified the matter somewhat, requiring line-officers and enlisted men both to wear the plain cross the color of their respective divisions, and enlisted men were required to wear theirs on the front of the hat or top of the cap.

PLATE IV.

McIndoe Bros., Printers, Boston.

By General Orders No. 11 issued by General Emory Nov. 17, 1864, the Nineteenth Corps adopted “a fan-leaved cross, with an octagonal centre.” The First Division was to wear red, the Second blue, and the Third white—the exception in the order of the colors which proved the rule. The badge of enlisted men was to be of cloth, two inches square, and worn on the side of the hat or top of the cap, although they were allowed to supply themselves with metallic badges of the prescribed color, if so minded.

The Twenty-First Corps never adopted a badge.

The Twenty-Second adopted (without orders) a badge quinquefarious in form, that is, opening into five parts, and having a circle in the centre. This was the corps which served in the defence of Washington. Its membership was constantly changing.

The badge adopted by the Twenty-Third Corps (without General Orders) was a plain shield, differing somewhat in form from that of the Ninth Corps, with which it was for a time associated, and which led it to adopt a similar badge.

The following General Order tells the story of the next Corps’ badge:—

Headquarters Twenty-Fourth Army Corps,
Before Richmond, Va., March 18, 1865.

[General Orders No. 32.]

By authority of the Major-General commanding the Army of the James, the Heart is adopted as the badge of the Twenty-Fourth Army Corps.

The symbol selected is one which testifies our affectionate regard for all our brave comrades—alike the living and the dead—who have braved the perils of the mighty conflict, and our devotion to the sacred cause—a cause which entitles us to the sympathy of every brave and true heart and the support of every strong and determined hand.

The Major-General commanding the Corps does not doubt that soldiers who have given their strength and blood to the fame of their former badges, will unite in rendering the present one even more renowned than those under which they have heretofore marched to battle.

By command of Major-General John Gibbon.

A. Henry Embler, A. A. A. General.

This corps was largely made up of re-enlisted men, who had served nine months or three years elsewhere. Here is another General Order which speaks for itself:—

Headquarters Twenty-Fifth Army Corps, Army of the James,
In the Field, Va., Feb. 20, 1865.

[Orders.]

In view of the circumstances under which this Corps was raised and filled, the peculiar claims of its individual members upon the justice and fair dealing of the prejudiced, and the regularity of the troops which deserve those equal rights that have been hitherto denied the majority, the Commanding General has been induced to adopt the Square as the distinctive badge of the Twenty-Fifth Army Corps.

Wherever danger has been found and glory to be won, the heroes who have fought for immortality have been distinguished by some emblem to which every victory added a new lustre. They looked upon their badge with pride, for to it they had given its fame. In the homes of smiling peace it recalled the days of courageous endurance and the hours of deadly strife—and it solaced the moment of death, for it was a symbol of a life of heroism and self-denial. The poets still sing of the “Templar’s Cross,” the “Crescent” of the Turks, the “Chalice” of the hunted Christian, and the “White Plume” of Murat, that crested the wave of valor sweeping resistlessly to victory.

Soldiers! to you is given a chance in this Spring Campaign of making this badge immortal. Let History record that on the banks of the James thirty thousand freemen not only gained their own liberty but shattered the prejudice of the world, and gave to the Land of their birth Peace, Union, and Liberty.

Godfrey Weitzel,
Major-General Commanding.

[Official.]

W. L. Goodrich,
A. A. A. General.

This corps was composed wholly of colored troops.

In the late fall of 1864, Major-General W. S. Hancock resigned his command of the Second Corps to take charge of the First Veteran Corps, then organizing. The badge adopted originated with Colonel C. H. Morgan, Hancock’s chief-of-staff.

The centre is a circle half the diameter of the whole design, surrounded by a wreath of laurel. Through the circle a wide red band passes vertically. From the wreath radiate rays in such a manner as to form a heptagon with concave sides. Seven hands spring from the wreath, each grasping a spear, whose heads point the several angles of the heptagon.

Sheridan’s Cavalry Corps had a badge, but it was not generally worn. The device was “Gold crossed sabres on a blue field, surrounded by a glory in silver.”

The design of Wilson’s Cavalry Corps was a carbine from which was suspended by chains a red, swallow-tail guidon, bearing gilt crossed sabres.

The badge of the Engineer and Pontonier Corps is thus described: “Two oars crossed over an anchor, the top of which is encircled by a scroll surmounted by a castle; the castle being the badge of the U. S. corps of engineers.” As a fact, however, this fine body of men wore only the castle designed in brass.

The badge of the Signal Corps was two flags crossed on the staff of a flaming torch. This badge is sometimes represented with a red star in the centre of one flag, but such was not the typical badge. This star was allowed on the headquarters flag of a very few signal officers, who were accorded this distinction for some meritorious service performed; but such a flag was rarely seen, and should not be figured as part of the corps badge.

The Department of West Virginia, under the command of General Crook, adopted a spread eagle for a badge, Jan. 3, 1865.

The pioneers of the army wore a pair of crossed hatchets, the color of the division to which they belonged. Then, the Army of the Cumberland have a society badge. So likewise have the Army of the Potomac. There are also medals presented for distinguished gallantry, worn by a few. They are not numerous and are seldom to be seen—for this reason, if for no other, they are of precious value to the owner, and are therefore carefully treasured.

In nearly every corps whose badge I have referred to, the plan was adopted of having the first three divisions take the national colors of red, white, and blue respectively. These corps emblems were not only worn by the men,—I refer now to the Army of the Potomac,—but they were also painted with stencil on the transportation of a corps, its wagons and ambulances. And just here I may add that there was no army which became so devotedly attached to its badges as did the Army of the Potomac. There were reasons for this. They were the first to adopt them, being at least a year ahead of all other corps, and more than two years ahead of many. Then, by their use they were brought into sharper comparison in action and on the march, and, as General Weitzel says, “they looked upon their badge with pride, for to it they had given its fame.”

These badges can be seen in any parade of the Grand Army, worn on the cap or hat, possibly now and then one that has seen service. I still have such a one in my possession. But at the close of the war many of the veterans desired some more enduring form of these emblems, so familiar and full of meaning to them, and so to-day they wear pinned to the breast or suspended from a ribbon the dear old corps badge, modelled in silver or gold, perhaps bearing the division colors indicated, in enamel or stone, and some of them inscribed with the list of battles in which the bearer participated. What is such a jewel worth to the wearer? I can safely say that, while its intrinsic value may be a mere trifle, not all the wealth of an Astor and a Vanderbilt combined could purchase the experience which it records, were such a transfer otherwise possible.

PLATE V.

McIndoe Bros., Printers, Boston.

CHAPTER XIV.
SOME INVENTIONS AND DEVICES OF THE WAR.

That “necessity is the mother of invention” nothing can more clearly and fully demonstrate than war. I will devote this chapter to presenting some facts from the last war which illustrate this maxim. As soon as the tocsin of war had sounded, and men were summoned to take the field, a demand was at once made, on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line, for a new class of materials—the materials of war, for which there had been no demand of consequence for nearly fifty years. The arms, such as they were, had been largely sent South before the outbreak. But they were somewhat old-fashioned, and, now that there was a demand for new arms, inventive genius was stimulated to produce better ones. It always has been true, and always will be, that the manufactured products for which there is an extensive demand are the articles which invention will improve upon until they arrive as near perfection as it is possible for the work of human hands to be. Such was the case with the materials of warfare. Invention was stimulated in various directions, but its products appeared most numerous, perhaps, in the changes which the arms, ammunition, and ordnance underwent in their better adaptation to the needs of the hour.

The few muskets remaining in the hands of the government in 1861 were used to equip the troops who left first for the seat of war. Then manufacturing began on an immense scale. The government workshops could not produce a tithe of what were wanted, even though running night and day; and so private enterprise was called in to supplement the need. As one illustration, Grover & Baker of Roxbury turned their extensive sewing-machine workshop into a rifle-manufactory, which employed several hundred hands, and this was only one of a large number in that section. Alger, of South Boston, poured the immense molten masses of his cupolas into the moulds of cannon, and his massive steam-hammers pounded out and welded the ponderous shafts of gunboats and monitors. The descendants of Paul Revere diverted a part of their yellow metal from the mills which rolled it into sheathing for government ships, to the founding of brass twelve-pounders, or Napoleons, as they were called; and many a Rebel was laid low by shrapnel or canister hurled through the muzzle of guns on which was plainly stamped “Revere Copper Co., Canton, Mass.” Plain smooth-bore Springfield muskets soon became Springfield rifles, and directly the process of rifling was applied to cannon of various calibres. Then, muzzle-loading rifles became breech-loading; and from a breech-loader for a single cartridge the capacity was increased, until some of the cavalry regiments that took the field in 1864 went equipped with Henry’s sixteen-shooters, a breech-loading rifle, which the Rebels said the Yanks loaded in the morning and fired all day.

I met at Chattanooga, Tenn., recently, Captain Fort, of the old First Georgia Regulars, a Confederate regiment of distinguished service. In referring to these repeating rifles, he said that his first encounter with them was near Olustee, Fla. While he was skirmishing with a Massachusetts regiment (the Fortieth), he found them hard to move, as they seemed to load with marvellous speed, and never to have their fire drawn. Determined to see what sort of fire-arms were opposed to him, he ordered his men to concentrate their fire on a single skirmisher. They did so and laid him low, and afterwards secured his repeating rifle—I think a Spencer’s seven or eight shooter—which they carried along, as a great curiosity, for some time afterward.

A GUNBOAT.

In the navy Invention made equally rapid strides. When the war broke out, the available vessels were mainly a few ships-of-the-line, frigates and screw steamers; but these could be of little service in such a warfare as was evidently on hand, a warfare which must be carried on in rivers, and bays, and coastwise generally, where such clumsy and deep-draught vessels could not be used. So sloops-of-war, gunboats, mortar-boats, double-enders, and iron-clads came to the front, and the larger old-fashioned craft were used mainly as receiving ships. But with the increase in range and calibre of naval armament came a seeking by Invention for something less vulnerable to their power, and after the encounter of the little “Yankee Cheese Box,” so called, and the Rebel Ram “Virginia,” the question of what should constitute the main reliance of the navy was definitely settled, and monitors became the idols of the hour. These facts are all matters of well written history, and I refer to them now only to illustrate the truth of the maxim with which I began the chapter.

I wish now to give it still further emphasis by citing some illustrations which the historian has neglected for “nobler game.” Some of the inventions which I shall refer to were impractical, and had only a brief existence. Of course your small inventor and would-be benefactor to his kind clearly foresaw that men who were about to cut loose from the amenities of civil life would be likely to spend money freely in providing themselves before their departure with everything portable that might have a tendency to ameliorate the condition of soldier life. With an eye single to this idea these inventors took the field.

A MORTAR BOAT.

One of the first products of their genius which I recall was a combination knife-fork-and-spoon arrangement, which was peddled through the state camping-grounds in great numbers and variety. Of course every man must have one. So much convenience in so small a compass must be taken advantage of. It was a sort of soldier’s trinity, which they all thought that they understood and appreciated. But I doubt whether this invention, on the average, ever got beyond the first camp in active service.

I still have in my possession the remnants of a water-filterer in which I invested after enlistment. There was a metallic mouth-piece at one end of a small gutta-percha tube, which latter was about fifteen inches long. At the other end of the tube was a suction-chamber, an inch long by a half-inch in diameter, with the end perforated, and containing a piece of bocking as a filter. Midway of the tubing was an air-chamber. The tubing long since dried and crumbled away from the metal. It is possible that I used this instrument half a dozen times, though I do not recall a single instance, and on breaking camp just before the Gettysburg Campaign, I sent it, with some other effects, northward.

A DOUBLE-TURRETED MONITOR.

I remember another filterer, somewhat simpler. It consisted of the same kind of mouth-piece, with rubber tubing attached to a small conical piece of pumice-stone, through which the water was filtered. Neither of these was ever of any practical value.

I have spoken of the rapid improvements made in arms. This improvement extended to all classes of fire-arms alike. Revolvers were no exception, and Colt’s revolver, which monopolized the field for some time, was soon crowded in the race by Smith and Wesson, Remington, and others. Thousands of them were sold monthly, and the newly fledged soldier who did not possess a revolver, either by his own purchase, or as a present from solicitous relatives, or admiring friends, or enthusiastic business associates, was something of a curiosity. Of course a present of this kind necessitated an outfit of special ammunition, and such was at once procured. But the personal armory of many heroes was not even then complete, and a dirk knife—a real “Arkansaw toothpick”—was no unusual sight to be seen hanging from the belt of some of the incipient but blood-thirsty warriors. The little town of Ashby in Massachusetts, at one of its earliest war-meetings, voted “that each volunteer shall be provided with a revolver, a bowie-knife, and a Bible, and shall also receive ten dollars in money.” The thought did not appear to find lodgement in the brain of the average soldier or his friends that by the time the government had provided him with what arms, ammunition, and equipments it was thought necessary for him to have, he would then be loaded with about all he could bear, without adding a personal armory and magazine. Nor did he realize that which afterwards in his experience must have come upon him with convincing force, that by the time he had done his duty faithfully and well with the arms which the government had placed in his hands there would be little opportunity or need, even if his ambition still held out, to fall back on his personal arsenal for further supplies. Members of the later regiments got their eyes open to this fact either through correspondence with men at the front, or by having been associated with others who had seen service. But the troops of ’61 and ’62 took out hundreds of revolvers only to lose them, give them away, or throw them away; and as many regiments were forbidden by their colonels to wear them, a large number were sent back to the North. Revolvers were probably cheaper in Virginia, in those years, than in any other state in the Union.

There was another invention that must have been sufficiently popular to have paid the manufacturer a fair rate on his investment, and that was the steel-armor enterprise. There were a good many men who were anxious to be heroes, but they were particular. They preferred to be live heroes. They were willing to go to war and fight as never man fought before, if they could only be insured against bodily harm. They were not willing to assume all the risks which an enlistment involved, without securing something in the shape of a drawback. Well, the iron tailors saw and appreciated the situation and sufferings of this class of men, and came to the rescue with a vest of steel armor, worth, as I remember it, about a dozen dollars, and greaves. The latter, I think, did not find so ready a market as the vests, which were comparatively common. These iron-clad warriors admitted that when panoplied for the fight their sensations were much as they might be if they were dressed up in an old-fashioned air-tight stove; still, with all the discomforts of this casing, they felt a little safer with it on than off in battle, and they reasoned that it was the right and duty of every man to adopt all honorable measures to assure his safety in the line of duty. This seemed solid reasoning, surely; but, in spite of it all, a large number of these vests never saw Rebeldom. Their owners were subjected to such a storm of ridicule that they could not bear up under it. It was a stale yet common joke to remind them that in action these vests must be worn behind. Then, too, the ownership of one of them was taken as evidence of faint-heartedness. Of this the owner was often reminded; so that when it came to the packing of the knapsack for departure, the vest, taking as it did considerable space, and adding no small weight to his already too heavy burden, was in many cases left behind. The officers, whose opportunity to take baggage along was greater, clung to them longest; but I think that they were quite generally abandoned with the first important reduction made in the luggage.

One of the first supposed-to-be useful, if not ornamental stupidities, which some of the earlier troops took to themselves by order, was the Havelock. True, its invention antedated the time of which I speak. It was a foreign conception, and derived its name from an English general who distinguished himself in the war in India, where they were worn in 1857. It was a simple covering of white linen for the cap, with a cape depending for the protection of the neck from the sun. They may have been very essential to the comfort of the troops in the Eastern climate, but, while whole regiments went South with them, if one of these articles survived active service three months I have yet to hear of it.

A HAVELOCK.

Then there were fancy patent-leather haversacks, with two or three compartments for the assortment of rations, which Uncle Sam was expected to furnish. But those who invested in them were somewhat disgusted at a little later stage of their service, when they were ordered to throw away all such “high-toned” trappings and adopt the regulation pattern of painted cloth. This was a bag about a foot square, with a broad strap for the shoulder, into which soldiers soon learned to bundle all their food and table furniture, which, I think I have elsewhere stated, after a day’s hard march were always found in such a delightful hodge-podge.

A HAVERSACK AND DIPPER.

Now and then an invention was to be found which was a real convenience. I still have in my possession such a one, an article which, when not in use, is a compact roll eight and one-half inches long and two inches in diameter, and designed to hold pens, ink, and paper. Unrolled, it makes a little tablet of the length given and five and one-half inches wide, which was my writing-desk when no better was to be had.

The Turkish fez, with pendent tassel, was seen on the heads of some soldiers. Zouave regiments wore them. They did very well to lie around camp in, and in a degree marked their owner as a somewhat conspicuous man among his fellows, but they were not tolerated on line; few of them ever survived the first three months’ campaigning.

And this recalls the large number of the soldiers of ’62 who did not wear the forage cap furnished by the government. They bought the “McClellan cap,” so called, at the hatters’ instead, which in most cases faded out in a month. This the government caps did not do, with all their awkward appearance. They may have been coarse and unfashionable to the eye, but the colors would stand. Nearly every man embellished his cap with the number or letter of his company and regiment and the appropriate emblem. For infantry this emblem is a bugle, for artillery two crossed cannons, and for cavalry two crossed sabres.

A ZOUAVE.

One other item occurs to me, not entirely germane to the chapter, yet interesting enough to warrant its insertion. This was the great care exercised to have all equipments prominently marked with the regiment, company, and State to which the owner belonged. For example, on the back of the knapsack of every man in a regiment appeared in large lettering something like this: Co. B, 33d New York Regiment; or, if it was light artillery, this, 10th Mass. Battery. Nor did the advertising stop here, for the haversacks and canteens were often similarly labelled, and yet, at the time, it seemed necessary to somebody that it should be done. At any rate, nobody found any fault with it; and if it had been thought desirable that each article of apparel should be similarly placarded, there would have been a general acquiescence on the part of the untutored citizen soldiery, who were in the best of humor, and with Pope (Alexander not John) seemed to agree that “Whatever is is right.” But how many of these loudly marked equipments survived the strife? Perhaps not one. The knapsack may have been thrown aside in the first battle, and a simple roll composed of the woollen and rubber blanket substituted for it. The haversacks and canteens were soon lost, and new ones took their place; and they lasted just as long and were just as safe as if conspicuously marked. One of the comical sights of the service was to see Rebel prisoners brought in having strapped on their backs knapsacks bearing just such labelling as that which I have quoted. Of course, these were trophies which they had either taken from prisoners or had picked up on some battlefield or in the wake of the Union army, and appropriated to their own use.

Light-artillerymen went to the front decorated with brass scales on their shoulders, but, finding an utter absence of such ornaments on the persons of soldiers who had been in action, and feeling sensitive about being known as recruits, these decorations soon disappeared. Theoretically, they were worn to ward off the blows of a sabre aimed by cavalrymen at the head; practically, it is doubtful whether they ever served such a purpose.

A SPENCER RIFLE

CHAPTER XV.
THE ARMY MULE.

“Two teamsters have paused, in the shade of the pool,

Rehearsing the tricks of the old army mule;

They have little to say

Of the blue and the gray,

Which they wore when the garments meant shedding of blood—

They’re discussing the mule and ‘Virginia mud.’”

It has often been said that the South could not have been worsted in the Rebellion had it not been for the steady re-enforcement brought to the Union side by the mule. To just what extent his services hastened the desired end, it would be impossible to compute; but it is admitted by both parties to the war that they were invaluable.

It may not be generally known that Kentucky is the chief mule-producing State of the Union, with Missouri next, while St. Louis is perhaps the best mule-market in the world; but the entire South-west does something at mule-raising. Mules vary more in size than horses. The largest and best come from Kentucky. The smaller ones are the result of a cross with the Mexican mustang. These were also extensively used. General Grant says, in his Memoirs (vol. 1. p. 69), that while Taylor’s army was at Matamoras, contracts were made for mules, between American traders and Mexican smugglers, at from eight to eleven dollars each. But the main source of supply for the Western States, where they are very generally used, for the South, and for the government, during war time, was Kentucky. When the war broke out, efforts were made by Governor Magoffin of that State—or rather by the Legislature, for the Governor was in full sympathy with the Rebels—to have that commonwealth remain neutral. For this reason when the general government attempted to purchase mules there in 1861, they were refused; but in the course of a few weeks the neutrality nonsense was pretty thoroughly knocked out of the authorities, Kentucky took its stand on the side of the Union, and the United States government began and continued its purchase of mules there in increasing numbers till the close of the war.

A SIX-MULE TEAM.

What were these mules used for? Well, I have related elsewhere that, when the war broke out, thousands of soldiers came pouring into Washington for its defence, and afterwards went by thousands into other sections of Rebeldom. To supply these soldiers with the necessary rations, forage, and camp equipage, and keep them supplied, thousands of wagons were necessary. Some of the regiments took these wagons with them from their native State, but most did not. Some of the wagons were drawn by mules already owned by the government, and more mules were purchased from time to time. The great advantage possessed by these animals over horses was not at that period fully appreciated, so that horses were also used in large numbers. But the magnitude of the Rebellion grew apace. Regiments of cavalry, each requiring twelve hundred horses, and light batteries one hundred and ten, were now rapidly organizing, calling for an abundance of horse-flesh. Then, disease, exposure, and hard usage consumed a great many more, so that these animals naturally grew scarcer as the demand increased. For certain kinds of work horses must be had, mules would not do. The horse was good for any kind of service, as a beast of burden, up to the limits of his endurance. Not so his half-brother the mule. The latter was more particular as to the kind of service he performed. Like a great many bipeds that entered the army, he preferred to do military duty in the safe rear. As a consequence, if he found himself under fire at the front, he was wont to make a stir in his neighborhood until he got out of such inhospitable surroundings.

A MULE EATING AN OVERCOAT.

This nervousness totally unfitted him for artillery or cavalry service; he must therefore be made available for draft in the trains, the ammunition and forage trains, the supply and bridge trains. So, as rapidly as it could conveniently be done, mules took the place of horses in all the trains, six mules replacing four horses.

Aside from this nervousness under fire, mules have a great advantage over horses in being better able to stand hard usage, bad feed, or no feed, and neglect generally. They can travel over rough ground unharmed where horses would be lamed or injured in some way. They will eat brush, and not be very hungry to do it, either. When forage was short, the drivers were wont to cut branches and throw before them for their refreshment. One m. d. (mule driver) tells of having his army overcoat partly eaten by one of his team—actually chewed and swallowed. The operation made the driver blue, if the diet did not thus affect the mule.

In organizing a six-mule team, a large pair of heavy animals were selected for the pole, a smaller size for the swing, and a still smaller pair for leaders. There were advantages in this arrangement; in the first place, in going through a miry spot the small leaders soon place themselves, by their quick movements, on firm footing, where they can take hold and pull the pole mules out of the wallow. Again, with a good heavy steady pair of wheel mules, the driver can restrain the smaller ones that are more apt to be frisky and reckless at times, and, assisted by the brake, hold back his loaded wagon in descending a hill. Then, there was more elasticity in such a team when well trained, and a good driver could handle them much more gracefully and dexterously than he could the same number of horses.

It was really wonderful to see some of the experts drive these teams. The driver rides the near pole mule, holding in his left hand a single rein. This connects with the bits of the near lead mule. By pulling this rein, of course the brutes would go to the left. To direct them to the right one or more short jerks of it were given, accompanied by a sort of gibberish which the mule-drivers acquired in the business. The bits of the lead mules being connected by an iron bar, whatever movement was made by the near one directed the movements of the off one. The pole mules were controlled by short reins which hung over their necks. The driver carried in his right hand his black snake, that is, his black leather whip, which was used with much effect on occasion.

A CORRAL.

When mules were brought to the army they were enclosed in what was called a corral. To this place the driver in quest of a mule must repair to make and take his selection, having the proper authority to do so. I will illustrate how it was done. Here is a figure representing a corral, having on the inside a fence running from A to C. AD and BE are pairs of bars. The driver enters the yard, mounted, and, having selected the mule he wants, drives him toward BE. The bars at AD being up, and those at BE being down, the mule advances and the bars BE are put up behind him. He is now enclosed in the small space indicated by ABDE. The mule-driver then mounts the fence, bridles the brute of his choice, lets down the bars at AD, and takes him out. Why does he bridle him from the fence? Well, because the mule is an uncertain animal.

DISMOUNTED.

In making his selection the driver did not always draw a prize. Sometimes his mule would be kind and tractable, and sometimes not. Of course he would saddle him, and start to ride him to camp; but the mule is not always docile under the saddle. He too often has a mind of his own. He may go along all right, or, if he is tricky, he may suddenly pause, bracing his forefeet and settling down on his hind ones, as if he had suddenly happened to think of the girl he left behind him, and was debating whether or not to go back after her. It is when the mule strikes such an attitude as this, I suppose, that Josh Billings calls him “a stubborn fact.” But the driver! Well, if at that moment he was off his guard, he would get off without previous preparation, as a man sometimes sits down on ice, and look at the mule. If, however, he was on the alert, and well prepared, the mule, in the end, would generally come off second best. I have referred to the Black Snake. It was the badge of authority with which the mule-driver enforced his orders. It was the panacea for all the ills to which mule-flesh was heir. It was a common sight to see a six-mule team, when left to itself, get into an entanglement, seeming inextricably mixed, unless it was unharnessed; but the appearance of the driver with his black wand would change the scene as if by magic. As the heel-cord of Achilles was his only vulnerable part, so the ears of the mule seemed to be the development through which his reasoning faculties could be the most quickly and surely reached, and one or two cracks of the whip on or near these little monuments, accompanied by the driver’s very expressive ejaculation in the mule tongue, which I can only describe as a kind of cross between an unearthly screech and a groan, had the effect to disentangle them unaided, and make them stand as if at a “present” to their master. When off duty in camp, they were usually hitched to the pole of their wagon, three on either side, and here, between meals, they were often as antic as kittens or puppies at play, leaping from one side of the pole to the other, lying down, tumbling over, and biting each other, until perhaps all six would be an apparently confused heap of mule. If the driver appeared at such a crisis with his black “ear-trumpet,” one second was long enough to dissolve the pile into its original mule atoms, and arrange them again on either side of the pole, looking as orderly and innocent as if on inspection.

OATS FOR SIX.

An educated mule-driver was, in his little sphere, as competent a disciplinarian as the colonel of a regiment. Nor did he always secure the prompt and exact obedience above described by applications of the Black Snake alone, or even when accompanied by the sternest objurgations delivered in the mule dialect. He was a terror to his subjects in yet another way: and old soldiers will sustain me in the assertion that the propulsive power of the mule-driver was increased many fold by the almost unlimited stock of profanity with which he greeted the sensitive ears of his muleship when the latter was stubborn. I have seen mules, but now most obdurate, jump into their collars the next moment with the utmost determination to do their whole duty when one of these Gatling guns of curses opened fire upon them. Some reader may prefer to adjudge as a reason for this good behavior the fear of the Black Snake, which was likely to be applied close upon the volley of oaths; but I prefer to assign as a motive the mule’s interest in the advancement of good morals.

In all seriousness, however, dealing only with the fact, without attempting to prove or deny justification for it, it is undoubtedly true that the mule-drivers, when duly aroused, could produce a deeper cerulean tint in the surrounding atmosphere than any other class of men in the service. The theory has been advanced that if all of these professional m. d.’s in the trains of the Army of the Potomac could have been put into the trenches around Petersburg and Richmond, in the fall of 1864, and have been safely advanced to within ear-shot of the enemy, then, at a signal, set to swearing simultaneously at their level-worst, the Rebels would either have thrown down their arms and surrendered then and there, or have fled incontinently to the fastnesses of the Blue Ridge. There may have been devout mule-drivers in Sherman’s army, but I never saw one east. They may have been pious on taking up this important work. They were certainly impious before laying it down. Nevertheless, in these later days, when they are living better lives, any twinge of conscience which they may occasionally feel must be relieved by the knowledge that General Grant has given them credit for being able to swear a mule-team out of the mud when it could not be moved by any other process.

I have stated that the mule was uncertain; I mean as to his intentions. He cannot be trusted even when appearing honest and affectionate. His reputation as a kicker is worldwide. He was the Mugwump of the service. The mule that will not kick is a curiosity. A veteran relates how, after the battle of Antietam, he saw a colored mule-driver approach his mules that were standing unhitched from the wagons, when, presto! one of them knocked him to the ground in a twinkling with one of those unexpected instantaneous kicks, for which the mule is peerless. Slowly picking himself up, the negro walked deliberately to his wagon, took out a long stake the size of his arm, returned with the same moderate pace to his muleship, dealt him a stunning blow on the head with the stake, which felled him to the ground. The stake was returned with the same deliberation. The mule lay quiet for a moment, then arose, shook his head, a truce was declared, and driver and mule were at peace and understood each other.

Here is another illustration of misplaced confidence. On the road to Harper’s Ferry, after the Antietam campaign in 1862, the colored cook of the headquarters of the Sixtieth New York Regiment picked up a large and respectable looking mule, to whom, with a cook’s usual foresight and ambition, he attached all the paraphernalia of the cook-house together with his own personal belongings, and settled himself down proudly on his back among them. All went on serenely for a time, the mule apparently accepting the situation with composure, until the Potomac was reached at Harper’s Ferry. On arriving in the middle of the pontoon bridge upon which the army was crossing, from some unexplained reason—perhaps because, on looking into the water, he saw himself as others saw him—the mule lifted up his voice in one of those soul-harrowing brays, for which he is famous—or infamous—and, lifting his hind legs aloft, in the next moment tossed his entire burden of cook and cook-house into the river, where, weighted down with mess-kettles and other utensils of his craft, the cook must have drowned had not members of the regiment come to his rescue. Not at all daunted by this experience, the cookey harnessed the mule again as before, led him across the remaining portion of the bridge, where he remounted and settled himself among his household goods once more, where all was well till the Shenandoah was reached. Here, with another premonitory blast of his nasal trumpet, the mule once more dumped his load into the rapid rolling river, when the cook lost all confidence in mules as beasts of burden, and abandoned him.

DUMPED INTO THE POTOMAC.

Josh Billings says somewhere that if he had a mule who would neither kick nor bite he would watch him dreadful “cluss” till he found out where his malice did lay. This same humorist must have had some experience with the mule, for he has said some very bright and pat things concerning him. Here are a few that I recall:—

“To break a mule—begin at his head.”

“To find the solid contents of a mule’s hind leg, feel of it clussly.”

“The man who wont believe anything he kant see aint so wise az a mule, for they will kick at a thing in the dark.”

“The only thing which makes a mule so highly respectable is the great accuracy of his kicking.”

“The mule is a sure-footed animal. I have known him to kick a man fifteen feet off ten times in a second.”

These are a few samples, most all of which have reference to his great ability as a kicker. Unquestionably he had no equal in this field of amusement—to him. His legs were small, his feet were small, but his ambition in this direction was large. He could kick with wonderful accuracy, as a matter of fact. Mule-drivers tell me he could kick a fly off his ear, as he walked along in the team, with unerring accuracy. This being so, of course larger objects were never missed when they were within range. But the distance included within a mule’s range had often to be decided by two or three expensive tests. One driver, whom I well knew, was knocked over with a mule’s hind foot while standing directly in front of him. This shows something of their range.

I have remarked, in substance, that the mule was conquered only by laying hold of or striking his ears. It may be asked how he was shod if he was such a kicker. To do this, one of two methods was adopted; either to sling him up as oxen are slung, then strap his feet; or walk him into a noose, and cast him, by drawing it around his legs. Of course, he would struggle violently for a while, but when he gave in it was all over for that occasion, and he was as docile under the smith’s hands as a kitten. Being surer-footed and more agile than a horse, of course he gets into fewer bad places or entanglements; but once in, and having made a desperate struggle for his relief, and failing, he seems utterly discouraged, and neither whip nor persuasion can move him. Then, as in the shoeing, the driver can handle him with the utmost disregard of heels; but when once on his feet again, stand aside! He has a short memory. He lives in the future, and his heels are in business, as usual, at the old stand.

I need not comment on the size of the mule’s ears. Of course, everybody who has seen them knows them to be abnormal in size. But disproportionately large though they may be, there is one other organ in his possession which surpasses them; that is his voice. This is something simply tremendous. That place which the guinea-fowl occupies among the feathered bipeds of the barn-yard in this respect, the mule holds facile princeps among the domestic quadrupeds. The poets who lived in the same time with Pericles said of the latter that “he lightened, thundered, and agitated all Greece,” so powerful was his eloquence. So, likewise, when the mule raised his voice, all opposition was silent before him, for nothing short of rattling, crashing thunder, as it seemed, could successfully compete for precedence with him.

THE REAR GUARD OF THE REGIMENT.

In addition to his great usefulness in the train, he was used a good deal under a pack-saddle. Each regiment usually had one, that brought up the rear on the march, loaded with the implements of the cook-house—sometimes with nothing to be seen but head and tail, so completely was he covered in. They were generally convoyed by a colored man. Sometimes these strong-minded creatures, in crossing a stream, would decide to lie down, all encumbered as they were, right in the middle, and down they would settle in spite of the ludicrous opposition and pathetic protests of the convoy. Of course, it was no balm to his wound to have the passing column of soldiers keep up a running fire of banter. But there was no redress or relief to be had until his muleship got ready to move, which was generally after every ounce of his burden had been stripped off and placed on terra firma.

When the army was lying in line of battle in such close proximity to the enemy that the ammunition wagons could not safely approach it, two boxes were taken and strapped on a mule, one on each side, “to keep his balance true,” and thus the troops were supplied when needed.

At the terrible battle of Spottsylvania, May 12, 1864, a steady line of pack-mules, loaded with ammunition, filed up the open ravine, opposite the captured salient, for nearly twenty hours, in that way supplying our forces, who were so hotly engaged there.

Rations were furnished in the same manner under similar circumstances. But now and then a mule would lie down under his burden, and refuse to budge.

Grant says (vol. i. p. 106): “I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in my life, but I would have the charity to excuse those who may have done so if they were in charge of a train of Mexican pack-mules at the time,” alluding to an experience in the Mexican War.

I believe I have stated that the mule much preferred to do military duty in the safe rear; but if there was anything which the war proved with the utmost clearness to both Yanks and Rebs, it was that there was surely no safe rear. This being so, the vivacious mule did not always have a plain and peaceful pilgrimage as a member of the wagon-train. I vividly recall the enjoyment of my company, during Lee’s final retreat, whenever our guns were unlimbered, as they were again and again, to be trained on the columns of retreating wagon-trains. The explosion of a shell or two over or among them would drive the long-ears wild, and render them utterly unmanageable, and the driver’s best and often his only recourse was to let them go if there was room ahead. But one demoralized, disorganized six-mule team would sometimes so effectively block the way, when the road was narrow, and the pursuit close, as to cause the capture of that part of the train behind it. Were any ex-Johnny m. d. to read this chuckling over the misfortunes of his craft, and not quite appreciate my enjoyment, I should at once assure him that there are some Yank m. d.’s who can heartily sympathize with him, having had a like experience.

MULES LOADED WITH AMMUNITION.

From what I have stated, it will be seen that the mule would be very unreliable in cavalry service, for in action he would be so wild that if he did not dismount his rider he would carry even the most valiant from the scene of conflict, or, what was just as likely, rush madly into the ranks of the enemy. The same observations would suit equally well as objections to his service with artillery. On the 5th of April, 1865, during the retreat of Lee, we came upon a batch of wagons and a battery of steel guns, of the Armstrong pattern, I think, which Sheridan’s troopers had cut out of the enemy’s retreating trains. The guns had apparently never been used since their arrival from England. The harnesses were of russet leather and equally new; but the battery was drawn by a sorry-looking lot of horses and mules, indiscriminately mingled. My explanation for finding the mules thus tackled was that horses were scarce, and that it was not expected to use the guns at present, but simply to get them off safely; but that if it became necessary to use them they could do so with comparative safety to the mules as the guns were of very long range.

I should have pronounced these particular mules safe anywhere, even under a hot fire, if extreme emaciation had been a sure index of departed strength and nerve in this variety of brute. But that is not mule at all. The next day, at Sailor’s Creek, my corps (Second), after a short, sharp contest, made a capture of thirteen flags, three guns, thirteen hundred prisoners, and over two hundred army wagons, with their mules. And such mules! the skinniest and boniest animals that I ever saw still retaining life, I sincerely believe. For a full week they had been on the go, night and day, with rare and brief halts for rest or food. Just before their capture they would seem to have gone down a long hill into a valley, a literal Valley of Humiliation as it proved, for there they were compelled to stay and surrender, either from inability to climb the opposite hill and get away, or else because there was not opportunity for them to do so before our forces came upon them. And yet, in spite of the worn and wasted state of those teams, it is doubtful if their kicking capacity was materially reduced by it.

The question frequently raised among old soldiers is, What became of all the army mules? There are thousands of these men who will take a solemn oath that they never saw a dead mule during the war. They can tell you of the carcasses of horses which dotted the line of march, animals which had fallen out from exhaustion or disease, and left by the roadside for the buzzards and crows. These they can recall by hundreds; but not the dimmest picture of a single dead mule, and they will assure you that, to the best of their knowledge and belief, the government did not lose one of these animals during the war. I recently conversed with an old soldier who remembered having once seen, on the march, the four hoofs of a mule—those and nothing more; and the conclusion that he arrived at was that the mule, in a fit of temper, had kicked off his hoofs and gone up. Another soldier, a mule-driver, remembers of seeing a mule-team which had run off the corduroy road into a mire of quicksand. The wagon had settled down till its body rested in the mire, but nothing of the team was visible save the ear-tips of the off pole mule.

“But the noblest thing that perished there,

Was that old army mule.”

As a fact, however, the mules, though tough and hardy, died of disease much as did the horses. Glanders took off a great many, and black tongue, a disease peculiar to them, caused the death of many more. But, with all their outs, they were of invaluable service to the armies, and well deserve the good opinions which came to prevail regarding their many excellent qualities as beasts of burden. Here is an incident of the war in which the mule was the hero of the hour:—

CHARGE OF THE MULE BRIGADE.

On the night of Oct. 28, 1863, when General Geary’s Division of the Twelfth Corps repulsed the attacking forces of Longstreet at Wauhatchie, Tennessee, about two hundred mules, affrighted by the din of battle, rushed in the darkness into the midst of Wade Hampton’s Rebel troops, creating something of a panic among them, and causing a portion of them to fall back, supposing that they were attacked by cavalry. Some one in the Union army, who knew the circumstances, taking Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” as a basis, composed and circulated the following description of the ludicrous event:—

CHARGE OF THE MULE BRIGADE.

Half a mile, half a mile,

Half a mile onward,

Right through the Georgia troops

Broke the two hundred.

“Forward the Mule Brigade!

Charge for the Rebs!” they neighed.

Straight for the Georgia troops

Broke the two hundred.

“Forward the Mule Brigade!”

Was there a mule dismayed?

Not when the long ears felt

All their ropes sundered.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to make Rebs fly.

On! to the Georgia troops

Broke the two hundred.

Mules to the right of them,

Mules to the left of them,

Mules behind them

Pawed, neighed, and thundered.

Breaking their own confines,

Breaking through Longstreet’s lines

Into the Georgia troops,

Stormed the two hundred.

Wild all their eyes did glare,

Whisked all their tails in air

Scattering the chivalry there,

While all the world wondered.

Not a mule back bestraddled,

Yet how they all skedaddled—

Fled every Georgian,

Unsabred, unsaddled,

Scattered and sundered!

How they were routed there

By the two hundred!

Mules to the right of them,

Mules to the left of them,

Mules behind them

Pawed, neighed, and thundered;

Followed by hoof and head

Full many a hero fled,

Fain in the last ditch dead,

Back from an ass’s jaw

All that was left of them,—

Left by the two hundred.

When can their glory fade?

Oh, the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honor the charge they made!

Honor the Mule Brigade,

Long-eared two hundred!

The following plaint in behalf of this veteran quadruped will close this sketch:—

THE ARMY MULE IN TIME OF PEACE.

“That men are ungrateful can plainly be seen

In the case of that mule standing out on the green.

His features are careworn, bowed down is his head,

His spirit is broken: his hopes have all fled.

He thinks of the time when the battle raged sore,

When he mingled his bray with the cannon’s loud roar;

When Uncle Sam’s soldiers watched for him to come,

Hauling stores of provisions and powder and rum;

When his coming was greeted with cheers and huzzas,

And the victory turned on the side of the stars.

“These thoughts put new life into rickety bones—

He prances just once, then falls over and groans.

A vision comes over his poor mulish mind,

And he sees Uncle Sam, with his agents behind,

Granting pensions by thousands to all who apply,

From the private so low to the officer high;

To the rich and the poor, the wise man and fool,

But, alas! there is none for the ‘poor army mule.’”

CHAPTER XVI.
HOSPITALS AND AMBULANCES.

The sketch embodied in this chapter is an attempt in a limited space to give the public a more adequate idea of the medical department of the army, what it was, how it grew up, and something of what it accomplished. I enter upon it with a quasi-apology for its incompleteness, understanding fully how inadequate any mere sketch must be regarded by those whose labors in this department made its record one of the most remarkable in the history of the war; yet, like all the other topics treated in this volume, it must undergo abridgment, and I can only hope that what is presented will, in some degree, do justice to this much neglected but very interesting theme in the Rebellion’s annals.

At the time of the battle of Bull Run there was no plan in operation by which the wounded in that battle were cared for. Before this engagement took place, while the troops were lying in and around Washington, general hospitals had been established to provide for the sick. For this purpose five or six hotels, seminaries, and infirmaries, in Washington and Georgetown, and two or three in Alexandria, had been taken possession of, and these were all the hospital accommodations to be found at the end of the first three months. So general was the opinion that the war would be speedily ended no one thought of such a thing as building permanent structures for hospital purposes.

But this condition of affairs soon after changed. Preparations for war were made on a grander scale. The Army of the Potomac, under the moulding hands of McClellan, was assuming form, and the appointment by him, Aug. 12, 1861, of Surgeon Charles S. Tripler as medical director of that army indicated a purpose of having a medical department set on foot and put in completeness for active service. Let us pause and glance at the situation as he found it, and we may, perhaps, the better appreciate the full magnitude of the task which he had before him.

Army Regulations were the written law to which it was attempted to have everything conform as far as possible. But when these regulations were drafted, there was no expectation of such a war as finally came upon us, and to attempt to confine so large an army as then existed to them as a guide was as impossible and absurd as for the full-grown man to wear the suit of clothes he cast off at ten years.

“New times demand new measures and new men,”

and so in certain directions Army Regulations had to be ignored. For example, they provided only for the establishment of regimental and general hospitals. A regimental hospital is what its name indicates—the hospital of a particular regiment. But if such a hospital became full or received some patients whose ailments were not likely to submit readily to treatment, such cases were sent to a General Hospital, that is, one into which patients were taken regardless of the regiment to which they belonged. But in these early war times, in the absence of a system, any patient who was able could, at his pleasure, leave one general hospital and go to another for any reason which seemed sufficient to him, or he could desert the service entirely.

By general orders issued from the war department May 25, 1861, governors of States were directed to appoint a surgeon and assistant surgeon for each regiment. The men appointed were for the most part country physicians, many of them with little practice, who, on reaching the field, were, in some respects, as ignorant of their duties under the changed conditions as if they had not been educated to the practice of medicine; and the medical director of the army found his hands more than full in attempting to get them to carry out his wishes. So, to simplify his labors and also to increase the efficiency of his department, brigade hospitals were organized about the beginning of 1862, and by general orders from the war department brigade surgeons were appointed, with the rank of major, and assigned to the staffs of brigadier-generals. These brigade surgeons had supervision of the surgeons of their brigades, and exercised this duty under the instructions of the medical director.

The regimental hospitals in the field were sometimes tents, and sometimes dwellings or barns near camp. It was partly to relieve these that brigade hospitals were established. The latter were located near their brigade or division.

The hospital tent I have already described at some length. I may add here that those in use for hospital purposes before the war were 24 feet long by 14 feet 6 inches wide, and 11 feet 6 inches high, but, owing to their great bulk and weight, and the difficulty of pitching them in windy weather, the size was reduced, in 1860, to 14 feet by 14 feet 6 inches, and 11 feet high in the centre, with the walls 4 feet 6 inches, and a “fly” 21 feet 6 inches by 14 feet. Each of these was designed to accommodate eight patients comfortably. Army Regulations assigned three such tents to a regiment, together with one Sibley and one Wedge or A tent.

The Sibley tent I have likewise quite fully described. I will only add here that, not having a “fly,” it was very hot in warm weather. Then, on account of its centre pole and the absence of walls, it was quite contracted and inconvenient. For these reasons it was little used for hospital purposes, and not used at all after the early part of the war.

The hospital tents in the Army of the Potomac were heated, for the most part, by what was called, for some reason, the California Plan. This consisted of a pit, dug just outside of the hospital door, two and a half feet deep, from which a trench passed through the tent, terminating outside the other end in a chimney, built of barrels, or in such a manner as I have elsewhere described. This trench was covered throughout its entire extent with iron plates, which were issued by the quartermaster’s department for that purpose. The radiation of the heat from the plates kept the tent very comfortable.

The honor of organizing the first field hospital in tents is said to belong to Dr. B. J. D. Irwin, U. S. A., of the Army of the Ohio. It occurred at the battle of Shiloh. While establishing a hospital near the camp of Prentiss’ division of that army, which had been captured the day before, the abandoned tents still standing suggested themselves to him as a convenient receptacle for his wounded. He at once appropriated the camp for this purpose, and laid it out in systematic form. It was clearly shown by this and succeeding experiences during the war that the wounded treated under canvas did better and recovered more rapidly than those treated in permanent hospitals.

As fast as they could be procured, hospital tents were furnished, three to a regiment, in accordance with the provision of Army Regulations referred to. Each regiment provided its own nurses and cooks. In general hospitals one nurse was allowed to ten patients, and one cook to thirty.

The capacity of a regimental hospital tent, like a stagecoach, varied according to the demand for room. I have said they were designed to accommodate eight. An old army surgeon says, “Only six can be comfortably accommodated in one of them, three on each side.” But when the surgeons were crowded with the wounded, it was a common practice to set two long narrow boards edgewise through the centre of the tent, about twenty inches apart. If boards were wanting, two good-sized poles were cut and used instead. Between these was the passage for the surgeons and nurses. Behind the boards or poles a filling of straw or fine boughs was made and covered with blankets. On these latter could be placed twenty patients, ten on either side; but they were crowded. When six single cots were put in one of these tents, three on each side, ample space was afforded to pass among them.

A TWO-WHEELED AMBULANCE.

In the latter part of 1861, the government, realizing its pressing needs, began to build general hospitals for the comfort and accommodation of its increasing thousands of sick and wounded, continuing to build, as the needs increased, to the very last year of the war, when they numbered two hundred and five.

Before the civil war, the government had never been supplied with carriages to convey the sick and wounded. Only two years before, a board, appointed by the secretary of war, had adopted for experiment a four-wheeled and a two-wheeled carriage. The four-wheeled vehicle was tried in an expedition sent into New Mexico, and was favorably reported on; the two-wheeled was never tested, but was judged to be the best adapted to badly wounded men (though the contrary proved to be the fact), and so the board reported in favor of adopting these carriages in the ratio of five two-wheeled to one four-wheeled.

When Surgeon Tripler took charge, he found several of these two-wheeled carriages in Washington, but they were used chiefly as pleasure-carriages for officers, or for some other private purpose. This was stopped, for a time at least, and an order was issued, leaving one to a regiment and requiring the rest to be turned over to the quartermaster’s department. But the perversion of ambulances from their proper use, I will add in passing, continued, to a greater or less extent, till the end of the war. This very year McClellan issued an order for them not to be used except for the transportation of the sick and wounded, unless by authority of the brigade commander, the medical director, or the quartermaster in charge, and the provost-marshal was ordered to arrest officers and confine non-commissioned officers and privates for violation of the order.

The most important steps taken towards organizing the medical department, and placing it on that thorough basis which distinguished it in the later years of the war, were the result of the foresight, energy, and skilful management of Dr. Jonathan Letterman, who was made medical director of the Army of the Potomac on the 19th of June, 1862. His labor was something enormous. It was during the progress of the Peninsular Campaign. All was confusion. Medical supplies were exhausted. Thousands of sick and wounded men were dying for want of proper care and medicine. Yet this campaign, so disastrous in its results to our army from a military point of view, was a valuable teacher in many respects, and one of its most pointed and practical lessons was the necessity shown of having the ambulances organized and under a competent head. It remained for Dr. Letterman to appreciate this need, and effect an organization which remained practically unchanged till the close of the war. Here is the substance of the plan which he drew up, and which General McClellan approved, and published to the army in orders, Aug. 2, 1862, and which General Meade reissued, with some additions and slight changes, a little more than a year later.