Quarter-masters, Wagon-masters, Commissaries, et id genus omne, have their peculiar troubles. Our Regiment was particularly favored in a Quarter-Master of accomplished business tact, whose personal supervision over the teams during a march was untiring, and whose tongue was equally tireless in rehearsing to camp crowds, after the march was over, the troubles of the day, and how gloriously he surmounted them. In his department he held no divided command.
"Get out of my train with that ambulance. You can't cut me off in that style," he roared in an authoritative manner to an ambulance driver, who had slipped in between two of his wagons on the second day of our march.
"My ambulance was ordered here, sir! I have General ——" The driver's reply was here interrupted by the abrupt exclamation of the Quarter-Master—
"I don't care a d—n if you have Old Joe himself inside. I command this train and you must get out." And get out the driver did, at the intimation of his passenger, who, to the surprise of the Quarter-Master, notwithstanding his assertion, turned out to be no less a personage than General Hooker himself.
"It is the law of the road," said the General, good-humoredly—candid to his own inconvenience—"and we must obey it."
This ready obedience upon the part of the General was better in effect than any order couched in the strongest terms for the enforcement of discipline. The incident was long a frequent subject of conversation,
and added greatly to his popularity as a commander. The men were fond of contrasting it with the conduct of the General of Division, who but a few days later cursed a poor teamster with all manner of profanely qualifying adjectives because he could not give to the General and his Staff the best part of a difficult road.
But perhaps the men held their General of Division to too strict an accountability. He was still laboring under the spell of Warrenton. His nervous system had doubtless been deranged by the removal of his favorite Chief, or rather Dictator, as he had hoped he might be. "No one could command the army but McClellan," the General had said in his disgust—a disgust that would have driven him from the service, but that, fortunately for himself and unfortunately for his country, it was balanced by the pay and emoluments of a Brigadiership. Reluctant to allow Burnside quietly, a Cæsar's opportunity to "cover his baldness with laurels," his whimsical movements, now galloping furiously and purposeless from front to rear, and from rear to front of his command, cursing the officers,—and that for fancied neglect of duty,—poorly concealed the workings of his mind.
In one of these rapid rides, his eye caught sight of a brace of young hounds following one of the Sergeants.
"Where did those dogs come from?"