The Pack-train. How Packed.
PACK-TRAINS.
Gen. Holabird says: A pack-mule carries on an average 200 pounds. Allow one pack-mule to six or seven men for detachments out scouting from five to eight days; twelve mules to two officers and sixty or seventy men for six days; eight mules to one officer and fifty men of cavalry for six days.
The above allowance does not contemplate the carrying of forage.
Cavalry drill-regulations state: With fifty packs there should be twelve packers. Each troop should have four mess-boxes, seven-eighths inch lumber, dovetailed, 11 inches by 18 inches by 26 inches, and, when packed in pack-cover, without lids.
In camp or garrison, logs of wood, 26 inches long, and sacks of corn, double-sacked and lashed to avoid breaking sacks, having the weight it is intended the mule should carry, are kept on hand for drill purposes.
Each pack should be provided with two coils of three-eighths inch rope, 18 to 28 feet long, for lashing packs.
The pack-saddle consists of the saddle proper; two pads; crupper; corona; manta or pack-cover; two pieces of canvas, each 84 inches by 22 inches, stitched together on the long edges; halter and strap; canvas cincha, 10 inches wide; sling-rope, half-inch best hand-laid manilla whale-line, 20 to 32 feet long; and leather cincha, with lash-rope, five-eighths inch whale-line 42 feet long. There should be one blind for every five packs.
The size of rope is given by the measurement of its diameter.
A "full-rigged" saddle has sling-straps and cargo-cincha; the sling and lash ropes are then dispensed with.