74 THE BKTDLE BITS. 



half its force in details, which the off-hand, extempora- 

 neous speech dispenses with, and exposes the facts with- 

 out the fogs. (See our paper on the subject to General 

 Milroy, December, 1883, and deposited in the Cavalry 

 Bureau, AVar Office, Washington, D. C, and subse- 

 quently partially acted upon in Sheridan's army, and 

 perhaps in other armies during the latter end of the war.) 

 In March, 1862, when the Army of the Potomac moved on 

 Eichmond, the First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry Regi- 

 ment took forty-eight quartermaster wagons on the 

 campaign. Three years afterwards, when with Sheridan 

 in the Valley of the Shenandoah, the regiment was 

 brigaded, and when the brigade moved again on Rich- 

 mond and on to Appomattox, it was composed of three 

 regiments — the First New York (Lincoln), and the First 

 and Third West Virginia (the Second Virginia remained 

 in the Valley) — there was but one wagon allowed to the 

 brigade, thus in stripping this veteran and experienced 

 army for the campaign, 190 wagons, 764 mules and 191 

 drivers were dispensed with, and there being none but 

 the amunition and necessary supply wagons to cut up 

 the roads and impede the progress, the army moved with 

 effective celerity. 



But this is not all. In the spring of 1864, when the 

 Army of the Shenandoah was under marching orders for 

 the summer's campaign, an order was issued by the 

 commanding general, stating in detail each article to be 

 supplied to and carried by each man and horse in the 

 cavalry arm of that army. Besides sabre, carbine, pistol, 

 twenty rounds of pistol and forty rounds of carbine car- 

 tridges, three day's rations and feed, the soldier's kit, or, 

 as they call it m the West, the "possible bag," was to 

 contain soap, towel, socks, comb, brush, knife and fork, 

 tin plate, shoe brush and blacking, and numerous other 

 articles of convenience that even the soldier himself don't 

 like to leave behind. To test the presumed capacity of 



