Shippers were deeply interested when it became known for a certainty that the German government had representatives purchasing horses in the West. Wood Brothers, the largest horse dealers in Nebraska, were asked to bid on a 25,000-head shipment. Ruling prices for the grade of horses desired by foreign buyers have ranged from $175 to $200 per head.
The stockyards in New Orleans, where these animals were assembled, cover about eight acres and shed 3,500 animals. Horses were thoroughly examined as to their fitness for service, both at the point of purchase and at New Orleans.
The last step before placing the horses on shipboard was to adjust special halters to them, so that, as in the case of many horses purchased by France, it was only necessary, when the animal reached the other side, to snap two straps to his head-stalls and make him instantly ready to be hitched to a gun limber or a wagon of a transport train.
CHAPTER XXXIV
SCOURGES THAT FOLLOW IN THE WAKE OF BATTLE
[THE COMMON ENEMY, DISEASE] — [SCOURGES OF MODERN WARFARE] — [RAVAGES OF TYPHUS IN SERVIA] — [NO WORD OF COMPLAINT] — [AMERICA TO THE RESCUE.]
In many campaigns of the past, disease has slain its thousands where bullets and shells have killed hundreds, and even the twentieth century with its marvelous science of sanitation has not defeated the direful common enemies of allies and foes. Why disease should attack masses of men in the prime of life, living in the open air, and on the whole well fed and clothed, at first sight seems strange, but when we remember that modern fighting begets an intolerable thirst, which the soldier is naturally tempted to slake as best he can and when he can, at least one reason is not hard to find.
All modern armies, since the striking experience of Japan in the Manchurian campaign, pay special attention to the drinking water, and with good results. But an irremovable source of disease remains in the typhus-carrying vermin, in the myriads of flies bred in the rotting carcases of men and horses and in the filth that inevitably collects around perpetually shifting camps and bivouacs. As everyone now knows, these insects are ceaseless and tireless carriers of infection, and it is difficult to see how, under conditions of war, the plague of them can be utterly wiped out.