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

When mules were brought to the army they were enclosed in what was called a corral. To this place the driver in quest of a mule must repair to make and take his selection, having the proper authority to do so. I will illustrate how it was done. Here is a figure representing a corral, having on the inside a fence running from A to C. Ad and be are pairs of bars. The driver enters A the yard, mounted, and, having selected the mule he wants, drives him A corral. toward be. The bars at Ad being up, and those at be being down, the mule advances and the bars be are put up behind him. He is now enclosed in the small space indicated by Abde. The mule-driver then mounts the fence, bridles the brute of his choice, lets down the bars at Ad, and takes him out. Why does he bridle him from the fence? Well, because the mule is an uncertain animal.

In making his selection the driver did not always draw a prize. Sometimes his mule would be kind and tractable, and sometimes not. Of course he would saddle him, and start to ride him to camp; but the mule is not always docile under the saddle. He too often has a mind of his own. He may go along all right, or, if he is tricky, he may suddenly pause, bracing his forefeet and settling down on his hind ones, as if he had suddenly happened to think of the girl he left behind him, and was debating whether or not to go back after her. It is when the mule strikes such an attitude as this, I suppose, that Josh Billings calls him “a stubborn fact.” But the driver! Well, if at that moment he was off his guard, he would get off without previous preparation, as a man sometimes sits down on ice, and look at