General Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant

[232] was regarded as an important acquisition to the staff. Lieutenant-colonel M. R. Morgan, an efficient and experienced officer of the commissary department, was added to the staff of the general-in-chief as chief commissary; thirty years after he became commissary-general of the army. Soon after General M. R. Patrick was made provost-marshal-general, and General George H. Sharpe was assigned to duty as his assistant. The latter officer rendered invaluable service in obtaining information regarding the enemy by his employment of scouts and his skill in examining prisoners and refugees. Captain Amos Webster was placed on duty as assistant quartermaster. Assistant Surgeon E. D. W. Breneman, U. S. A., was assigned to look after the health of those at headquarters; but the particularly robust condition of nearly all the officers he was prepared to attend made his work exceedingly light.

In discussing at this time the large amount of rations which had to be supplied by the subsistence department, and the system required in its management, General Grant said: “When I first had an independent command there were so few experienced men about me that I had to sit down at night and teach officers of the staff departments how to make requisitions for supplies, and fill out the blank forms furnished by the government when such blanks could be procured. I had acted at times as quartermaster and commissary in the old army, and was of course familiar with all the forms used in preparing papers. Word was brought to me one day that a new regimental commissary had gone aboard a commissary boat on the Mississippi and presented a requisition for rations for his men. The officer in charge looked at it in amazement, and exclaimed: ‘Why, there are not half enough rations aboard this entire steamer to fill that requisition.’ The commissary, who ”