CHAPTER XIX.

ARMY WAGON TRAINS.

Grant’s Military Railroad—The Impedimenta—An Army Wagon—An Army Minstrel Troupe—The Transportation of a Regiment—What They Originally Carried—Baggage Trains on the Peninsula—Chaos Illustrated—The Responsibility of Train Officers—What They had to Contend with—The Struggle for the Lead—Depot of Transportation—The Officers of the Quartermaster’s Department—What Wagons Took Into the Wilderness—The Allowance on the Final Campaign—Incident—Early Order of McClellan—General Orders, No. 153—The Beginning of the Supply Trains—What General Rufus Ingalls Did—Meade’s General Orders, No. 83—Strength of a Corps Supply Train—Of the Army—Its Extent—Its Place on the March—A Reminiscence of the Race for Centreville—General Wadsworth’s Bull Train—Its Rise and Fall—Trials of a Train Quartermaster—He Runs Counter to Meade and Sheridan in the Discharge of his Duty 350