Hardtack and coffee

by John Davis Billings

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.