Hardtack and coffee

by John Davis Billings

And groom off your horses, and give them some corn;

For if you don’t do it the captain will know it,

And then you will rue it, as sure as you’re born.

This call summoned all the drivers in the company to assemble at the grain pile with their pair of canvas nose-bags, where the stable sergeant, so called (his rank was that of a private, though he sometimes put on the airs of a brigadier-general), furnished each with the usual ration of grain, either oats or corn. With this forage, and a curry-comb and brush, they at once proceeded to the picket rope, where, under the inspection of the six sergeants, supervised also by the officer of the day and orderly, the horses were thoroughly groomed. At a given signal, the grooming ceased, and the nose-bags were strapped on. Sometimes the feed was given while the grooming was in progress.

AT THE GRAIN PILE.

The only amusing phase of this duty that I now recall, occurred when some luckless cannoneer, who would insist that he did not know the difference between a curry-comb and a curry of mutton, was detailed to minister to the sanitary needs of some poor, unsavory, glanders-infected, or greasy-heeled, or sore-backed, or hoof-rotten brute, that could not be entirely neglected until he was condemned by governmental authority. Now the cannoneers of a battery, who constituted what was known as the Gun Detachment, were an aristocracy. It is worthy of notice that when artillery companies received their first outfit of horses, there were always at least three men who wished to be drivers to one who cared to serve as a cannoneer, the prevailing idea among the uninitiated being that a driver’s position was a safer place in battle than that of a cannoneer. I will only say, in passing this point, that they were much disappointed at its exposures when they came to the reality; but the cannoneers, taking the recognized post of danger from choice, a post whose duties when well executed were the most showy on parade, as well as the most effective in action, upon whose coolness and courage depended the safety not only of their own company but often that of regiments, were nursed by these facts into the belief that they rightfully outranked the rest of the rank and file. The posturings and facial contortions of a cannoneer, therefore, who cherished these opinions, when called upon to perform such a task as I have specified, can readily be imagined; if they cannot, I will only say that they would have excited the risibilities of the most sympathetic heart. The four-footed patients alluded to were usually assigned to the charge of “Spare Men,” that is, men who were neither drivers nor members of the gun detachments, who, by use, had come to fill the situation meekly and gracefully. There was one service that a cannoneer would occasionally condescend to do a driver. When the army was on the march, a driver would sometimes get weary of riding and ask a cannoneer to spell him while he stretched his legs; and just to oblige him, you know, the cannoneer would get into the saddle and ride two or three miles, but beyond that he kept to his own sphere.

Following close upon the completion of stable duties came Breakfast Call, when the men prepared and ate their breakfast, or received their dipper of coffee and other rations from the company cook-house. I can add nothing in this connection to what I have already related in the chapter on Rations.