John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

[170]

This call summoned all the drivers in the company to assemble at the grain pile with their pair of canvas nosebags, 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

At the grain pile.

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.

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