William A. Crafts, Life of Ulysses S. Grant: His Boyhood, Campaigns, and Services, Military and Civil.

[98] within such easy communication with the great cities and the manufacturing States of the Atlantic coast, that it was supplied with some comforts and luxuries which were not enjoyed by the western armies. The nature of its campaigns, too, and frequent communication with Washington, had gradually introduced customs which were unknown in western campaigns. The amount of officers' baggage, especially during the months of comparative inactivity, had materially increased, and was much larger than that carried in the campaigns at the west. In the Vicksburg campaign Grant had ordered the amount of baggage, both of officers and regiments, to be reduced to the smallest possible amount, and it was facetiously said that all that the general allowed himself was “a pocket-comb, a tooth-brush, and a brier-wood pipe.”

Another custom had grown up at the east for officers to use ambulances, and even more luxurious carriages, for transportation from one point to another, and many horses and vehicles were thus used without any legitimate authority, sometimes much to the dissatisfaction of the soldiers, who were precluded from such privileges, and not much to the advantage of the officers.

Sutlers, too, and other camp followers, were numerous, making discipline more lax, and interfering with the efficiency of the army in active service.

When Grant assumed the direction of the movements of the army, his first action was quietly to reform these abuses, to reduce the quantity of baggage allowed to officers and regiments, to prohibit the use of ambulances and carriages by officers on ordinary