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

[375] ing exhausted all the strong language in the vocabulary, he rode away, leaving the poor captain in a state of distress that can be only partially imagined. When he had finally got somewhat settled after this rough stirring-up, he took a review of the situation, and, having weighed the threatened hanging by General Meade, the request to await his orders from General Ingalls, the threatened shooting of General Sheridan, and the original order of General Wilson, which. was to be on hand with the supplies at a certain specified time and place, Ludington decided to await orders from General Ingalls, and resumed the company of the ladies. At last the orders came, and the captain moved his train, spending the night on the road in the Wilderness, and when morning dawned had reached a creek over which it was necessary for him to throw a bridge before it could be crossed. So he set his teamsters at work to build a bridge. Hardly had they begun felling trees before up rode the chief quartermaster of the Sixth Corps train, anxious to cross. An agreement was entered into, however, that they should build the bridge together; and the corps quartermaster set his pioneers at work with Ludington's men, and the bridge was soon finished. Recognizing the necessity for the cavalry train to take the lead, the corps quartermaster had assented that it should pass the bridge first when it was completed, and on the arrival of that moment the train was put in motion, but just then a prompt and determined chief quartermaster of a Sixth Corps division train, unaware of the understanding had between his superior, the corps quartermaster, and Captain Ludington, rode forward and insisted on crossing first. A struggle for precedence immediately set in. The contest waxed warm, and language more forcible than polite was waking the woodland echoes when who should appear on the scene again but General Meade. On seeing Ludington engaged as he saw him the day before, it aroused his wrath most unreasonably, and, riding up to him, he shouted, with an oath: “What! Are you here again!”