running over the head of the mule before him, through a ring fastened to
his headstall, and dividing on the back of the leader, and fastening to
his bit. The mule is directed to one side or another by the driver
twitching the rein and shouting. There were some few wagons driven from
the box, but in all these cases that we noticed, the animals were
horses, four in number, and their drivers were white. The mules and
horses were generally in good condition, and quite a contrast to those
in the cavalry service, which, even in a crack regiment, like the sixth
regular, presented a most sorry appearance of overwork and terribly hard
usage. The baggage trains and camp followers are a necessary portion of
every army, and its efficiency depends in a great measure upon the
perfect organization of this essential part. In the French army this
organization is carried to a high degree of perfection. A small army of
ten or twenty thousand men can get along with a fewer proportional
number of followers, as it lives more upon the country, than a great
army of one hundred thousand.

Every regiment has its own baggage wagons to carry its tents, cooking
apparatus, officers' mess chests, and personal baggage. At the beginning
of the war, each of the Massachusetts regiments was fitted out with from
fifteen to twenty-four wagons. A recent United States regulation has
limited the number to six for one regiment. The personal baggage of the
regiments, however, forms a small part of the great transportation of an
army. The spare ammunition is no small matter; every cannon having a
supply of round shot, shell, canister, and grape: all these may be
needed by each piece in a battle, as the shot used depends upon the
distance of the foe. A full regiment of infantry may fire in one battle
sixty thousand rounds of ammunition, weighing nearly three tons. The
pontoon trains, the baggage of the staff, the forage for the horses of
the artillery and of the generals, field officers, and their staffs, the
food of the army, and the food and forage for this further army of camp
followers--all have to be transported. The cavalry are expected to
forage for their horses from off the country; all the rest have to be
provided for. To carry the subsistence of a regiment of nine hundred men
for one day, requires one of the six-mule teams: for a march of twenty
days there must be twenty wagons. One will see from this that, next to
the general, the quartermaster has the