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Other documents randomly have
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 To the Head-Quarters of a Division or Brigade, 1 wagon or
5 pack mules.
To every three company officers, when detached or serving
without wagons, 1 pack mule.
To every 12 company officers, when detached, 1 wagon or
4 pack mules.
To every 2 staff officers not attached to any Head-Quarters,
1 pack mule.
To every 10 staff officers serving similarly, 1 wagon or 4
pack mules.
The above will include transportation for all personal
baggage, mess chests, cooking utensils, desks, papers, &c.
The weight of officers’ baggage in the field, specified in the
Army Regulations, will be reduced so as to bring it within the
foregoing schedule. All excess of transportation now with
Army Corps, Divisions, Brigades, and Regiments, or
Batteries, over the allowances herein prescribed, will be
immediately turned in to the Quartermaster’s Department, to
be used in the trains.
Commanding officers of Corps, Divisions, &c., will
immediately cause inspections to be made, and will be held
responsible for the strict execution of this order.
Commissary stores and forage will be transported by the
trains. Where these are not convenient of access, and where
troops act in detachments, the Quartermaster’s Department
will assign wagons or pack animals for that purpose; but the
baggage of officers, or of troops, or camp equipage, will not
be permitted to be carried in the wagons or on the pack
animals so assigned. The assignment for transportation for
ammunition, hospital stores, subsistence, and forage will be
made in proportion to the amount ordered to be carried. The
number of wagons is hereinafter prescribed.
The allowance of spring wagons and saddle horses for
contingent wants, and of camp and garrison equipage, will
remain as established by circular, dated July 17, 1863.
2. For each full regiment of infantry and cavalry, of 1000
men, for baggage, camp equipage, &c., 6 wagons.
For each regiment of infantry less than 700 men and more
than 500 men, 5 wagons.
For each regiment of infantry less than 500 men and more
than 300 men, 4 wagons.
For each regiment of infantry less than 300 men, 3 wagons.
3. For each battery of 4 and 6 guns—for personal baggage,
mess chests, cooking utensils, desks, papers, &c., 1 and 2
wagons respectively.
For ammunition trains the number of wagons will be
determined and assigned upon the following rules:
1st. Multiply each 12 pdr. gun by 122 and divide by 112.
2d. Multiply each rifle gun by 50 and divide by 140.
3d. For each 20 pdr. gun, 1½ wagons.
4th. For each siege gun, 2½ wagons.
5th. For the general supply train of reserve ammunition of
20 rounds to each gun in the Army, to be kept habitually with
Artillery Reserve, 54 wagons.
For each battery, to carry its proportion of subsistence,
forage, &c., 2 wagons.
4. The supply train for forage, subsistence, quartermaster’s
stores, &c., to each 1000 men, cavalry and infantry, 7
wagons.
To every 1000 men, cavalry and infantry, for small arm
ammunition, 5 wagons.
To each 1500 men, cavalry and infantry, for hospital
supplies, 3 wagons.
 To each Army Corps, except the Cavalry, for entrenching
tools, &c., 6 wagons.
To each Corps Head-Quarters for the carrying of
subsistence, forage and other stores not provided for herein,
3 wagons.
To each Division Head-Quarters for similar purpose as
above, 2 wagons.
To each Brigade Head-Quarters for similar purpose as
above, 1 wagon.
To each Brigade, cavalry and infantry, for commissary
stores for sales to officers, 1 wagon.
To each Division, cavalry and infantry, for hauling forage for
ambulance animals, portable forges, &c., 1 wagon.
To each Division, cavalry and infantry, for carrying
armorer’s tools, parts of muskets, extra arms and
accoutrements, 1 wagon.
It is expected that each ambulance, and each wagon,
whether in the baggage, supply or ammunition train, will carry
the necessary forage for its own team.
By command of Major General Meade:
S. WILLIAMS,
Assistant Adjutant General.
Official:
Ass’t Adj’t Gen’l.

As the transportation was reduced in quantity, the capacity of what

remained was put to a severer test. For example, when the Army of
the Potomac went into the Wilderness in 1864, each wagon was
required to carry five days forage for its animals (600 pounds), and if
its other freight was rations it might be six barrels of salt pork and
four 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:—

“There will be no general train of supplies, but each corps

will have its ammunition train and provision train distributed
habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one
wagon and one ambulance; behind each brigade should
follow a due proportion of ammunition-wagons, provision-
 wagons and ambulances. In case of danger each corps
commander should change this order of march, by having his
advance and rear brigades unencumbered by wheels. The
separate columns will start habitually at 7 a.m., and make
about fifteen miles per day, unless otherwise fixed in orders.”

I presume the allowance remained about the same for the

Wilderness Campaign as that given in Orders No. 83. General
Hancock says that he started into the Wilderness with 27,000 men.
Now, using this fact in connection with the general order, a little
rough reckoning will give an approximate idea of the size of the train
of this corps. Without going into details, I may say that the total train
of the Second Corps, not including the ambulances, could not have
been far from 800 wagons, of which about 600 carried the various
supplies, and the remainder the baggage—the camp equipage of the
corps.
When the army was in settled camp, the supply trains went into
park by themselves, but the baggage-wagons were retained with
their corps, division, brigade, or regimental headquarters. When a
march was ordered, however, these wagons waited only long
enough to receive their freight of camp equipage, when away they
went in charge of their respective quartermasters to join the corps
supply train.
I have alluded to the strength of a single corps train. But the
Second Corps comprised only about one-fifth of the Union army in
the Wilderness, from which a little arithmetic will enable one to get a
tolerably definite idea of the impedimenta of this one army, even
after a great reduction in the original amount had been made. There
were probably over 4000 wagons following the Army of the Potomac
into the Wilderness. An idea of the ground such a train would cover
may be obtained by knowing that a six-mule team took up on the
road, say, forty feet, but of course they did not travel at close
intervals. The nature of the country determined, in some degree,
their distance apart. In going up or down hill a liberal allowance was
made for balky or headstrong mules. Colonel Wilson, the chief
commissary of the army, in an interesting article to the United
Service magazine (1880), has stated that could the train which was
requisite to accompany the army on the Wilderness Campaign have
been extended in a straight line it would have spanned the distance
between Washington and Richmond, being about one hundred and
thirty miles. I presume this estimate includes the ambulance-train
also. On the basis of three to a regiment, there must have been as
many as one hundred and fifty to a corps. These, on ordinary
marches, followed immediately in the rear of their respective
divisions.
When General Sherman started for the sea, his army of sixty
thousand men was accompanied by about twenty-five hundred
wagons and six hundred ambulances. These were divided nearly
equally between his four corps, each corps commander managing
his own train. In this campaign the transportation had the roads,
while the infantry plodded along by the roadside.
The supply trains, it will now be understood, were the travelling
depot or reservoir from which the army replenished its needs. When
these wagons were emptied, they were at once sent back to the
base of supplies, to be reloaded with precisely the same kind of
material as before; and empty wagons had always to leave the road
clear for loaded ones. Unless under a pressure of circumstances, all
issues except of ammunition were made at night. By this plan the
animals of the supply consumed their forage at the base of supplies,
and thus saved hauling it.
It was a welcome sight to the soldiers when rations drew low, or
were exhausted, to see these wagons drive up to the lines. They
were not impedimenta to the army just then.
 COMMISSARY DEPOT AT CEDAR LEVEL.—FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

It has sometimes been thought that the wagon-train was a glorious

refuge from the dangers and hard labors endured at the front, but
such was not the case. It was one of the most wearing departments
of the service. The officers in immediate charge were especially
burdened with responsibility, as the statement above illustrates. They
were charged to have their trains at a given point at or before a
specified time. It must be there. There was no “if convenient” or “if
possible” attached to the order. The troops must have their rations,
or, more important still, the ammunition must be at hand in case of
need. Sometimes they would accomplish the task assigned without
difficulty, but it was the exception. Of course, they could not start until
the army had got out of the way. Then, the roads, already cut up
somewhat by the artillery, were soon rendered next to impassable by
the moving trains. The quartermaster in charge of a train would be
called upon to extricate a wagon here that was blocking the way, to
supply the place of a worn-out horse or mule there; to have a stalled
wagon unloaded and its contents distributed among other wagons; to
keep the train well closed up; to keep the right road even by night,
when, of necessity, much of their travelling was done. And if, with a
series of such misfortunes befalling him, the quartermaster reached
his destination a few hours late, his chances were very good for
being roundly sworn at by his superior officers for his delinquency.
During the progress of the train, it may be said, the quartermaster
would ease his nervous and troubled spirit by swearing at careless
or unfortunate mule-drivers, who, in turn, would make the air blue
with profanity addressed to their mules, individually or collectively, so
that the anxiety to get through was felt by all the moving forces in the
train. A large number of these drivers were civilians early in the war,
but owing to the lack of subordination which many of them showed,
their places were largely supplied later by enlisted men, upon whom
Uncle Sam had his grip, and who could not resign or “swear back”
without penalty.
The place of the trains on an advance was in the rear of the army;
on the retreat, in front, as a rule. If they were passing through a
dangerous section of country, they were attended by a guard,
sometimes of infantry, sometimes cavalry. The strength of the guard
varied with the nature of the danger expected. Sometimes a
regiment, sometimes a brigade or division, was detailed from a corps
for the duty. The nature of Sherman’s march was such that trains
and troops went side by side, as already referred to. The colored
division of the Ninth Corps served as train-guard for the
transportation of the Army of the Potomac from the Rapidan to the
James in 1864.
When ammunition was wanted by a battery or a regiment in the
line of battle, a wagon was sent forward from the train to supply it,
the train remaining at a safe distance in the rear. The nearness of
the wagon’s approach was governed somewhat by the nature of the
ground. If there was cover to screen it from the enemy, like a hill or a
piece of woods, it would come pretty near, but if exposed it would
keep farther away. When it was possible to do so, supplies both of
subsistence and ammunition were brought up by night when the
army was in line of battle, for, as I have said elsewhere, a mule-team
or a mule-train under fire was a diverting spectacle to every one but
the mule-drivers.
 A MULE-TEAM UNDER FIRE.

One of the most striking reminiscences of the wagon-train which I

remember relates to a scene enacted in the fall of ’63, in that
campaign of manœuvres between Meade and Lee. My own corps
(Third) reached Centreville Heights before sunset—in fact, was, I
think, the first corps to arrive. At all events, we had anticipated the
most of the trains. At that hour General Warren was having a lively
row with the enemy at Bristoe Station, eight or nine miles away. As
the twilight deepened, the flash of his artillery and the smoke of the
conflict were distinctly visible in the horizon. The landscape between
this stirring scene and our standpoint presented one of the most
animated spectacles that I ever saw in the service. Its most attractive
feature was the numerous wagon-trains, whose long lines, stretching
away for miles over the open plain, were hastening forward to a
place of refuge, all converging towards a common centre—the high
ground lying along the hither side of Bull Run. The officers in charge
of the trains, made somewhat nervous by the sounds of conflict
reaching them from the rear, impatiently urged on the drivers, who, in
turn, with lusty lungs uttered vigorous oaths at the mules, punctuated
by blows or cracks of the black snake that equalled in volume the
intonations of a rifle; and these jumped into their harnesses and took
the wagons along over stumps and through gullies with as great
alacrity as if the chief strain and responsibility of the campaign
centred in themselves. An additional feature of animation was
presented by the columns of infantry from the other corps, which
alternated in the landscape with the lines of wagons, winding along
into camp tired and footsore, but without apparent concern. I do not
now remember any other time in my experience when so large a
portion of the matériel and personnel of the army could have been
covered by a single glance as I saw in the gathering twilight of that
October afternoon.
The system of designating the troops by corps badges was
extended to the transportation, and every wagon was marked on the
side of the canvas covering with the corps badge, perhaps eighteen
inches in diameter, and of the appropriate color to designate the
division to which it belonged. In addition to this, the number of its
division, brigade, and the nature of its contents, whether rations,
forage, clothing, or ammunition,—and, if the latter, the kind, whether
artillery or musket, and the calibre,—were plainly stencilled in large
letters on the cover. All this and much more went to indicate as
perfect organization in the trains as in the army itself, and to these
men, who were usually farthest from the fray, for whom few words of
appreciation have been uttered by distinguished writers on the war, I
gladly put on record my humble opinion that the country is as much
indebted as for the work of the soldiers in line. They acted well their
part, and all honor to them for it.
A regular army officer, who had a large experience in charge of
trains, has suggested that a bugler for each brigade or division train
would have been a valuable auxiliary for starting or halting the trains,
or for regulating the camp duties as in artillery and cavalry. It seems
strange that so commendable a proposition was not thought of at the
time.
 THE “BULL TRAIN.”

In 1863, while the army was lying at Belle Plain after the
memorable Mud March, large numbers of colored refugees came
into camp. Every day saw some old cart or antiquated wagon, the
relic of better days in the Old Dominion, unloading its freight of
contrabands, who had thus made their entrance into the lines of
Uncle Sam and Freedom. As a large number of these vehicles had
accumulated near his headquarters, General Wadsworth, then
commanding the first division of the First Corps, conceived the novel
idea of forming a supply train of them, using as draft steers, to be
selected from the corps cattle herd, and broken for that purpose. His
plan, more in detail, was to load the carts at the base of supplies with
what rations they would safely carry, despatch them to the troops
wherever they might be, issue the rations, slaughter the oxen for
fresh beef, and use the wagons for fuel to cook it. A very practical
scheme, at first view, surely. A detail of mechanics was made to put
the wagons in order, a requisition was drawn for yokes, and Captain
Ford of a Wisconsin regiment, who had had experience in such
work, was detailed to break in the steers to yoke and draft.
 The captain spent all winter and the following spring in perfecting
the “Bull Train,” as it was called. The first serious set-back the plan
received resulted from feeding the steers with unsoaked hard bread,
causing several of them to swell up and die; but the general was not
yet ready to give up the idea, and so continued the organization.
Chancellorsville battle came when all the trains remained in camp.
But the day of trial was near. When the army started on the
Gettysburg campaign, Captain Ford put his train in rear of the corps
wagon-train, and started, with the inevitable result.
The mules and horses walked right away from the oxen, in spite of
the goading and lashing and yelling of their drivers. By nightfall they
were doomed to be two or three miles behind the main train—an
easy prey for Mosby’s guerilla band. At last the labor of keeping it up
and the anxiety for its safety were so intense that before the
Potomac was reached the animals were returned to the herd, the
supplies were transferred or issued, the wagons were burned, and
the pet scheme of General Wadsworth was abandoned as
impracticable.
Quite nearly akin to this Bull Train was the train organized by
Grant after the battle of Port Gibson. His army was east of the
Mississippi, his ammunition train was west of it. Wagon
transportation for ammunition must be had. Provisions could be
taken from the country. He says: “I directed, therefore, immediately
on landing, that all the vehicles and draft animals, whether horses,
mules, or oxen, in the vicinity should be collected and loaded to their
capacity with ammunition. Quite a train was collected during the
30th, and a motley train it was. In it could be found fine carriages,
loaded nearly to the top with boxes of cartridges that had been
pitched in promiscuously, drawn by mules with plough-harness,
straw collars, rope lines, etc.; long-coupled wagons with racks for
carrying cotton-bales, drawn by oxen, and everything that could be
found in the way of transportation on a plantation, either for use or
pleasure.” [Vol. i., p. 488.]
Here is another incident which will well illustrate the trials of a train
quartermaster. At the opening of the campaign in 1864, Wilson’s
cavalry division joined the Army of the Potomac. Captain Ludington
(now lieutenant-colonel, U. S. A.) was chief quartermaster of its
supply train. It is a settled rule guiding the movement of trains that
the cavalry supplies shall take precedence in a move, as the cavalry
itself is wont to precede the rest of the army. Through some
oversight of the chief quartermaster of the army, General Ingalls, the
captain had received no order of march, and after waiting until the
head of the infantry supply trains appeared, well understanding that
his place was ahead of them on the march, he moved out of park
into the road. At once he encountered the chief quartermaster of the
corps train, and a hot and wordy contest ensued, in which vehement
language found ready expression. While this dispute for place was at
white heat, General Meade and his staff rode by, and saw the
altercation in progress without halting to inquire into its cause. After
he had passed some distance up the road, Meade sent back an aid,
with his compliments, to ascertain what train that was struggling for
the road, who was in charge of it, and with what it was loaded.
Captain Ludington informed him that it was Wilson’s cavalry supply
train, loaded with forage and rations. These facts the aid reported
faithfully to Meade, who sent him back again to inquire particularly if
that really was Wilson’s cavalry train. Upon receiving an affirmative
answer, he again carried the same to General Meade, who
immediately turned back in his tracks, and came furiously back to
Ludington. Uttering a volley of oaths, he asked him what he meant
by throwing all the trains into confusion. “You ought to have been out
of here hours ago!” he continued. “I have a great mind to hang you to
the nearest tree. You are not fit to be a quartermaster.” In this
manner General Meade rated the innocent captain for a few
moments, and then rode away. When he had gone, General Ingalls
dropped back from the staff a moment, with a laugh at the interview,
and, on learning the captain’s case, told him to remain where he was
until he received an order from him. Thereupon Ludington withdrew
to a house that stood not far away from the road, and, taking a seat
on the veranda, entered into conversation with two young ladies who
resided there. Soon after he had thus comfortably disposed himself,
who should appear upon the highway but Sheridan, who was in
command of all the cavalry with the army. On discovering the train at
a standstill, he rode up and asked:—
 “What train is this?”
“The supply train of Wilson’s Cavalry Division,” was the reply of a
teamster.
“Who’s in charge of it?”
“Captain Ludington.”
“Where is he?”
“There he sits yonder, talking to those ladies.”

GENERAL MEADE AND THE QUARTERMASTER.

“Give him my compliments and tell him I want to see him,” said
Sheridan, much wrought up at the situation, apparently thinking that
the train was being delayed that its quartermaster might spend
further time “in gentle dalliance” with the ladies. As soon as the
captain approached, the general charged forward impetuously, as if
he would ride the captain down, and, with one of those “terrible
oaths” for which he was famous, demanded to know what he was
there for, why he was not out at daylight, and on after his division. As
Ludington attempted to explain, Sheridan cut him off by opening his
battery of abuse again, threatening to have him shot for his
incompetency and delay, and ordering him to take the road at once
with his train. Having 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!” Then
shaking his fist in his face, he continued: “I am sorry now that I did
not hang you yesterday, as I threatened.” The captain, exhausted
and out of patience with the trials which he had encountered, replied
that he sincerely wished he had, and was sorry that he was not
already dead. The arrival of the chief quartermaster of the Sixth
Corps, at this time, ended the dispute for precedence, and Ludington
went his way without further vexatious delays to overtake his cavalry
division.

“OLD CRONIES”
 CHAPTER XX.
ARMY ROAD AND BRIDGE BUILDERS.

“A line of black, which bends and floats

On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.”

Longfellow.

If there is one class of men in this country who more than all
others should appreciate spacious and well graded highways, or
ready means of transit from one section into another, that class is the
veterans of the Union Army; for those among them who “hoofed it”
from two to four years in Rebeldom travelled more miles across
country in that period than they did on regularly constituted
thoroughfares. Now through the woods, now over the open, then
crossing a swamp, or wading a river of varying depth, here tearing
away a fence obstructing the march, there filling a ditch with rails to
smooth the passage of the artillery,—in fact, “short cuts” were so
common and popular that the men endured the obstacles they often
presented with the utmost good-nature, knowing that every rood of
travel thus saved meant fewer foot-blisters and an earlier arrival in
camp.
But there was a portion of the army which could not often indulge
in short cuts, which must “find a way or make it,” or have it made for
them by others; and as some time and much skill and labor were
necessary in laying out and completing such a way in an efficient
manner, a body of men was enlisted for the exclusive purpose of
doing this kind of work. Such a body was the Engineer Corps, often
called the Sappers and Miners of the army; but so little sapping and
mining was done, and that little mainly by the fighting forces, I shall
speak of this body of men as Engineers—the name which, I believe,
they prefer.
In the Army of the Potomac this corps was composed of the
Fifteenth and Fiftieth New York regiments of volunteers and a
battalion of regulars comprising three companies. They started out
with McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign, and from that time till the
close of the war were identified with the movements of this army.
These engineers went armed as infantry for purposes of self-defence
only, for fighting was not their legitimate business, nor was it
expected of them. There were emergencies in the history of the army
when they were drawn up in line of battle. Such was the case with a
part of them at least at Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness,
but, so far as I can learn, they were never actively engaged.
 CORDUROYING.

The engineers’ special duties were to make roads passable for the
army by corduroying sloughs, building trestle bridges across small
streams, laying pontoon bridges over rivers, and taking up the same,
laying out and building fortifications, and slashing. Corduroying
called at times for a large amount of labor, for Virginia mud was such
a foe to rapid transit that miles upon miles of this sort of road had to
be laid to keep ready communication between different portions of
the army. Where the ground was miry, two stringers were laid
longitudinally of the road, and on these the corduroy of logs,
averaging, perhaps, four inches in diameter, was laid, and a cover of
brush was sometimes spread upon it to prevent mules from thrusting
their legs through. Where the surface was simply muddy, no
stringers were used. It should be said here that by far the greater
portion of this variety of work fell to fatigue details from the infantry,
as did much more of the labor which came within the scope of the
engineers’ duties; for the latter could not have accomplished one-fifth
of the tasks devolved upon them in time. In fact, if I except the laying
and taking-up of pontoon bridges, and the laying-out and
superintending of the building of forts, there were none of the
engineers’ duties which were not performed by the fighting force to a
large extent. I state this not in detraction of the engineers, who
always did well, but in justice to the infantry, who so often
supplemented the many and trying duties of their own department
with the accomplishments of the engineer corps. The quartermaster
of the army had a large number of wagons loaded with intrenching
tools with which to supply the troops when their services were
required as engineers.

A TRESTLE BRIDGE, NO. 1.

The building of trestle bridges called for much labor from the
engineers with the Army of the Potomac, for Virginia is gridironed
with small streams. These, bear in mind, the troops could ford easily,
but the heavily loaded trains must have bridges to cross on, or each
ford would soon have been choked with mired teams. Sometimes
the bridges built by the natives were still standing, but they had
originally been put up for local travel only, not to endure the tramp
and rack of moving armies and their thousands of tons of
impedimenta; wherefore the engineers would take them in hand and
strengthen them to the point of present efficiency. So well was much
of this work done that it endures in places to-day as a monument to
their thoroughness and fidelity, and a convenience to the natives of
those sections.