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

[341] begins or ends. It begins with a field officer and ends with a mule. Originally it ended with several army wagons; but now that portion of regimental headquarters baggage which has not gone to the wagon-train is to be found stowed about the mule, that is led along by a contraband. Yes, the head, ears, and feet which you see are the only visible externals of a mule. He is “clothed upon” with the various materials necessary to prepare a “square meal” for the colonel and other headquarters officers. His trappings would, seemingly, fit out a small family in household goods of a kind. There is a mess-kettle, a fry-pan, messpans, tent-poles, a fly (canvas), a valise, a knapsack and haversack, a hamper on each side, a musket, and other matter which goes to make the burden at least twice the size of the animal. Four mules were regarded as having the carrying capacity of one army wagon. At the end of the brigade you will see two or three of these mules burdened with the belongings of brigade headquarters.

The mule had other company than the negro ofttimes. That man who seems to be flour and grease from head to heels, who needs no shelter nor rubber blanket because he is waterproof already, perhaps, inside and out, whose shabby, well-stuffed knapsack furnishes the complement to the mule's lading, who shuffles along with “no style about him,” is the cook, perhaps, for the regiment, probably for headquarters, certainly not for Delmonico. It is singular, but none the less true, that if a man made a slovenly, indifferent soldier he was fully as likely to get a berth in the cook-house as to have any other fate befall him. This remark applies to men who drifted into the business of “army caterer” after trying other service, and not those who entered at once upon it.

Here comes a light battery at the rear of the division. Possibly it is to remain with this part of the corps for the campaign. Such was sometimes the case, but later a battery was often used anywhere within the limits of a corps that