many of the men
would throw away blankets, rations, and equipments, and then make up
in camp by stealing. Severe punishment was meted out when ammunition
was thrown away. The debris on the line of march, and the waste, was
tremendous. Only strict military discipline made property respected.
Even then, the new conscript had to look out for his bright and
serviceable musket when the old veteran's arms were lost or out of
order. The newspaper correspondent owning a good horse had to keep
watch and ward, while so many dismounted cavalrymen whose horses had
been shot were as restless as fish out of water. It was hard enough
even for the soldiers to get rations during the Wilderness campaign,
harder often for the men of letters. Had it not been for kind
quartermasters, and the ability of the correspondents to find the
soft side of their hearts, they must have starved. Yet the rapidity
with which soldiers on their forced marches could turn fences into
fires and coffee into a blood-warmer was amazing. The whole process
from cold rails to hot coffee inside the stomach often occupied less
than twenty minutes. In these "ramrod days," "pork roasts"--slices of
bacon warmed in the flame or toasted over the red coals--made, with
hard tack, a delicious breakfast.

Once when the Second Corps had captured several thousand Confederate
prisoners, who were corralled in an open field in order to be safely
guarded, and their commander brought into the presence of General
Grant, the former remarked that his men had had nothing to eat for the
past twenty-four hours. Instantly Grant gave the order for several
wagon-loads of crackers to be brought up and distributed to the
hungry. Thereupon appeared a spectacle that powerfully impressed young
Carleton. The six-muled teams appeared in a few moments and were
whipped up alongside of the Virginia rail fence. Then the stalwart
teamsters, aided by some of the boys in blue, stood beside the wagons
to distribute boxes. Two men, taking each the end of a box in hand,
after two or three preparatory swings, heaved the box full of biscuit
up in the air and off into the field. Within the observation of young
Carleton, no box, while full, ever reached the ground, but was seized
while yet in the air, gripped and ripped open by the men that waited
like hungry wolves. They tore open the packed rows of crackers and
fairly jammed them down their famished mouths, breaking up the hard
pieces in their hands while wai