Hardtack and coffee

by John Davis Billings

2. Knapsacks shall not be carried in the wagons except on the written recommendation of the surgeon, which shall be given in case of sickness.

3. Tent-floors shall not be transported in public wagons, and hereafter no lumber shall be issued for tent-floors except upon the recommendation of the medical director for hospital purposes.”

This order was issued before the corps were organized, while the wagons were yet with their regiments, and while the men yet had their big knapsacks, which they were always ready to ride with or toss into a wagon when the regiment moved. This was the time of transporting tent-floors, the luxurious fault-finding period before carpets, feather-beds, and roast beef had entirely lost their charm; when each man was, in his own way and belief, fully the size of a major-general; when the medical director of the army had time, unaided as yet by subordinates, to decide the question of tent-floors versus no tent-floors for individuals. Ah, the freshness and flavor of those early war days come back to me as I write—each day big with importance, as our letters, yet preserved to us, so faithfully record.

Not many months elapsed before it became apparent that the necessities of stern warfare would not permit and should not have so many of the equipments of civil life, when the shelter tent, already described, took the place of the larger varieties; when camp-fires superseded the stoves, and many other comfortable but unnecessary furnishings disappeared from the baggage. Not how little but how much could be dispensed with then became the question of the hour. The trains must be reduced in size, and they must be moved in a manner not to hamper the troops, if possible; but the war was more than half finished before they were brought into a satisfactory system of operation.

The greater number of the three-years regiments that arrived in Washington in 1861 brought no transportation of any kind. After McClellan assumed command, a depot of transportation was established at Perryville on the Susquehanna; by this is meant a station where wagons and ambulances were kept, and from which they were supplied.

From there Captain Sawtell, now colonel and brevet brigadier general U. S. A., fitted out regiments as rapidly as he could, giving each six wagons instead of twenty-five, one of which was for medical supplies. Some regiments, however, by influence or favor at court, got more than that. A few wagons were supplied from the quartermaster’s depot at Washington. A quartermaster is an officer whose duty it is to provide quarters, provisions, clothing, fuel, storage, and transportation for an army. The chief officer in the quartermaster’s department is known as the quartermaster-general. There was a chief quartermaster of the army, and a chief quartermaster to each corps and division; then, there were brigade and regimental quartermasters, and finally the quartermaster-sergeants, all attending in their appropriate spheres to the special duties of this department.

During the march of the army up the Peninsula in 1862, the fighting force advanced by brigades, each of which was followed by its long columns of transportation. But this plan was very unsatisfactory, for thereby the army was extended along forest paths over an immense extent of country, and great delays and difficulties ensued in keeping the column closed up; for such was the nature of the roads that after the first few wagons had passed over them they were rendered impassable in places for those behind. At least a quarter of each regiment was occupied in escorting its wagons, piled up with ammunition, provisions, tents, etc.; and long after the head of the column had settled in bivouac could be heard the loud shouting of the teamsters to their jaded and mire-bedraggled brutes, the clatter of wagon and artillery wheels, the lowing of the driven herds, the rattling of sabres, canteens, and other equipments, as the men strode along in the darkness, anxious to reach the spot selected for their uncertain quantity of rest.

At times in this campaign it was necessary for the wagon-trains to be massed and move together, but, for some reason, no order of march was issued, so that the most dire confusion ensued. A struggle for the lead would naturally set in, each division wanting it and fighting for it. Profanity, threats, and the flourishing of revolvers were sure to be prominent in the settling of the question, but the train which could run over the highest stumps and pull through the deepest mud-holes was likely to come out ahead.

The verdancy which remained after the first fall of the Union army at Bull Run was to be utterly overshadowed by the baptism of woe which was to follow in the Peninsular Campaign; and on arriving at Harrison’s Landing, on the James, McClellan issued the following order, which paved the way for better things:—