Oakford responds returning his compliments to General Kimball and says
"his order directing so and so has been received and shall be
immediately obeyed."

The quartermaster's department was charged with all matters connected
with transportation; with the supplying of clothing, canvas, and
equipage of all sorts. Both the commissary and the ordnance departments
were dependent upon the quartermaster for the transportation of their
respective stores. The wagon trains required by the Army of the Potomac
for all this service were prodigious. They were made up of four and six
mule teams with heavy "prairie schooners" or canvas-covered wagons. I
have seen two thousand of them halted for the night in a single park,
and such trains on the march six to ten miles long were not unusual. It
will readily be seen that to have them within easy reach, and prevent
their falling into the hands of an alert enemy, was a tremendous problem
in all movements of the army.

The army mule has been much caricatured, satirized, and abused, but the
soldier had no more faithful or indispensable servant than this same
patient, plodding, hard-pulling, long-eared fellow of the roomy voice
and nimble heels. The "boys" told a story which may illustrate the
mule's education. A "tenderfoot" driver had gotten his team stalled in a
mud hole, and by no amount of persuasion could he get them to budge an
inch. Helpers at the wheels and new hands on the lines were all to no
purpose. A typical army bummer had been eying the scene with
contemptuous silence. Finally he cut loose:

"Say! You 'uns dunno the mule language. Ye dunno the dilec. Let a
perfesser in there."

He was promptly given the job. He doffed cap and blouse, marched up to
those mules as if he weighed a ton and commanded the army. Clearing away
the crowd, he seized the leader's line, and distending his lungs, he
shot out in a voice that could have been heard a mile a series of
whoops, oaths, adjectives, and billingsgate that would have silenced the
proverbial London fish vender. The mules recognized the "dilec" at once,
pricked up their ears and took the load out in a jiffy.

"Ye see, gents, them ar mules is used to workin' with a perfesser."

The commissary department supplied the rations, and the ordnance
department the arms and ammunition, etc. Still another branch of the
service was the provost-marshal's department. This was the police force
of the army. It had the care and custody of all pri