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

[362] barrels of coffee, or ten barrels of sugar. Forty boxes of hardtack was a load, not so much because of its weight as because a wagon would hold no more. It even excluded the forage to carry this number. In the final campaign against Lee, Grant allowed for baggage and camp equipage three wagons to a regiment of over seven hundred men, two wagons to a regiment of less than seven hundred and more than three hundred, and one wagon to less than three hundred. One wagon was allowed to a field battery. But, notwithstanding the reductions ordered at different times, extra wagons were often smuggled along. One captain, in charge of a train, tells of keeping a wagon and six mules of his own more than orders allowed, and whenever the inspecting officer was announced as coming, the wagon, in charge of his man, Mike, was driven off under cover and not returned till the inspection was completed. This enabled him to take along quite a personal outfit for himself and friends. But his experience was not unique. There were many other “contraband” mule-teams smuggled along in the same way for the same object.

In leaving Chattanooga to advance into Georgia, General Sherman reduced his transportation to one baggage-wagon and one ambulance for a regiment, and a pack-horse or mule for the officers of each company. His supply trains were limited in their loads to food, ammunition, and clothing; and wall tents were forbidden to be taken along, barring one for each headquarters, the gallant old veteran setting the example, by taking only a tent-fly, which was pitched over saplings or fence rails. The general has recorded in his “Memoirs” that his orders were not strictly obeyed in this respect, Thomas being the most noted exception, who could not give up his tent, and “had a big wagon, which could be converted into an office, and this we used to call “Thomas's circus.”” In starting on his “march to the sea,” Sherman issued Special Field Orders No. 120; paragraph 3 of this order reads as follows:--