THE man behind the gun risks his life on his faith in the ammunition train to keep him supplied with powder and shell. An old warrior estimates that an army of 60,000 men, comprising a fair average of infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineers must be provided with no less than 18,000,000 ball cartridges for small arms, rifles, muskets, carbines and pistols for six months' operation. In the field an infantry soldier usually carries about sixty rounds. The lives of the men depend upon the promptness of the ammunition trains. To supply these 60,000 men requires one thousand ammunition wagons and 3,600 horses. The wagon constructed for this service will carry 20,000 rounds of small-arm munition. The cartridges are packed in boxes and the wagon is generally drawn by four to six horses or mules. Several wagons are organized into an "equipment," moving under the charge of an artillery, and there are several such "equipments" for an army of this magnitude, one for each division of infantry, a small portion for the cavalry, and the rest in reserve. Early in the Civil War a chemist suggested to General McClellan that he could throw shells from a mortar that would discharge streams of fire "most fearfully in all directions." McClellan replied: "Such means of destruction are hardly within the category of civilized warfare. I could not recommend their employment until we have exhausted the ordinary means of warfare." The Government preferred to depend largely upon these silent, ghost-like wagons, with their deadly loads of millions of cartridges, pressing toward the battle lines throughout the conflict. This picture shows an ammunition train of the Third Division Cavalry Corps in motion with the army encamped on the distant hills. It is one of Brady's best negatives.
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AS AMMUNITION TRAINS WERE MOVING
SLAVE pens were common institutions in the days of negro bondage in America. The system had developed from the early days of colonization and was for many generations a legitimate occupation throughout the country. So many rumors, false and true, were told of the "pens" that Brady schemed to secure photographs of some of them. Early in 1861 he succeeded in gaining entrance to one of the typical institutions in Alexandria, Virginia. The results are here shown. The cell rooms with their iron-barred doors and small cage windows relate their own story. While they were installed by the larger slave traders they were wholly unknown on most of the old Southern plantations. A picture is also here shown of the exterior of the "slave pen" kept at Alexandria with the inscription over the door, "Price, Birch & Co., Dealers in Slaves." This shows the proportions to which the system had grown in the greatest republic in the world. Enormous fortunes were being accumulated by some dealers who had thrown aside sentiment and humanity and were herding black men for the market. With the outbreak of the war many of the slaves sought the protection of the Union Army, while others, who had kind masters, were willing to remain on the plantations. Mr. Brady secured several photographs of these typical slave groups. The one here shown is a party of "contrabands" that had fled to the Union lines. Another familiar scene in 1861 was the pilgrimage of poor whites to the Union ranks. When the troops passed through many of the mountain villages, these frightened white sympathizers would hastily gather their scanty belongings, pile them onto an old wagon, desert their homes and follow the army, to be passed on from line to line until they reached the North.
IRON-BARRED CELLS IN AN OLD SLAVE PEN