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John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 20 (search)
o 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