As we approached Sandy Hook, a village of a few houses on the north side
of the Potomac, about a mile from Harper's Ferry, we saw on the road,
which ran close to the railroad track, thousands of the blue-bodied,
white-topped army wagons. In the most crowded thoroughfare of London one
would not see so many teams. From this neighborhood the great army of
the Potomac drew the most of its supplies. The ninth army corps was
moving this day to its camp, two or three miles northward; and part of
its cannon, their brazen throats still tarnished by sulphurous smoke,
added to the throng. It is surprising how large a portion of the army is
composed of these baggage trains, and of the camp followers, teamsters,
servants, and sutlers. A regiment of infantry, under the little shelter
tents is crowded, into a small space; but the bulky baggage trains cover
much ground. We spent the best part of a day, in going to and returning
from the army, in the neighborhood of a small wayside tavern in this
little village of Sandy Hook, with no other amusement than watching the
moving of the teamsters, chatting with stray officers and soldiers, and
seeing what may be called the back-stair life of the army. And we wish
here to protest against the abuse which has been so abundantly heaped
upon the teamsters: we found them, as a class, a respectable body of
men, quite skilful in the management of their animals, comparing well
with those in the same occupation in our great cities: there was
certainly not so much swearing, and not so much abuse of their mules and
horses, as one sees in New York. I remember their kind attention to me,
some days afterward, when, in my impatience to get by a long train of
teams filling up a little country road, I had imprudently urged my horse
on to a ledge of rocks, where he, not being an old warhorse, hesitated,
slipped, and fell flat on his side, among the mules of one of the
wagons; and, as the horse, with my leg under him, was rolling to recover
himself, the anxiety of the teamsters as to whether I was hurt, and then
as to my horse, a fine animal, who had cut himself a little on the
rocks. Their proffered assistance was very different from the oaths I
should have met under similar circumstances in some Northern cities.

The army wagons are large, with great white cotton coverings, and
generally drawn by six mules: the driver, usually a colored man, rides
the first nigh mule, and has _one_ rein, called the 'jerky rein,'