ars to increase in arithmetical proportion as
the wagons successively approach, and teamsters in the rear find their
ingenuity taxed to preserve their reputation for the vice with their
fellows.

Why negroes are not more generally employed as teamsters is a mystery.
They are proverbially patient and enduring. Both the interests of
humanity and horseflesh would be best subserved by such employment, and
the ranks would not be reduced by the constant and heavy details of
able-bodied men for that duty. Capital and careful horsemen are to be
found among the contrabands of Virginia, and many a poor beast, bad in
harness because badly treated, would rejoice at the change.

Quarter-masters, Wagon-masters, Commissaries, _et id genus omne_, have
their peculiar troubles. Our Regiment was particularly favored in a
Quarter-Master of accomplished business tact, whose personal supervision
over the teams during a march was untiring, and whose tongue was equally
tireless in rehearsing to camp crowds, after the march was over, the
troubles of the day, and how gloriously he surmounted them. In his
department he held no divided command.

"Get out of my train with that ambulance. You can't cut me off in that
style," he roared in an authoritative manner to an ambulance driver, who
had slipped in between two of his wagons on the second day of our march.

"My ambulance was ordered here, sir! I have General ----" The driver's
reply was here interrupted by the abrupt exclamation of the
Quarter-Master--

"I don't care a d--n if you have Old Joe himself inside. I command this
train and you must get out." And get out the driver did, at the
intimation of his passenger, who, to the surprise of the Quarter-Master,
notwithstanding his assertion, turned out to be no less a personage than
General Hooker himself.

"It is the law of the road," said the General, good-humoredly--candid to
his own inconvenience--"and we must obey it."

This ready obedience upon the part of the General was better in effect
than any order couched in the strongest terms for the enforcement of
discipline. The incident was long a frequent subject of conversation,
and added greatly to his popularity as a commander. The men were fond
of contrasting it with the conduct of the General of Division, who but a
few days later cursed a poor teamster with all manner of profanely
qualifying adjectives because he could not give to the General and his
Staff the best part of a difficult