The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1891-07-25
FEEDING VERSUS FIGHTING.
What II Means to Keep the Army's I'm.
mense Stomach FiIled-The Glory.

What II Means to Keep tho Army's I'm
mense stomach FiIled-The Glory.
There is one feature in active military
operations. said an old Union veteran in
the course of a long war reminiscence.
THAT the general run of people little
realize, and that is, what it means to feed
an army. and especially an army pushed
far in advance of its base of supplies. An
army is a terrible creature to feed 1t
fights occasionally; it feeds all the time.
1t is an immense stomach with thousands
of mouths always crying for more 1t
can't be put off or ordered not to be
hungry. With 1000 or 10000 men in a
thinly settled. mountainous country--an
enemys country at that-and with that
enemy in possession of part of the only
rickety railroad running through it, and
his cavalry gallivanting around. you know
not exactly where, between you and the
place you draw your tons of supplies
from, your only means of getting these
tons on tons of bread and salt beef or
pork and other things is to have them
hauled over this half made mountain road,
which man brought up in a finished
country would hardly dare to travel on
anyway
You have creeks to cross or rickety
bridges, or you find the bridges destroyed
You have small rivers to ford, liable to
be swollen at any time in few hours by
rain. You have only a single wagon
track to travel on, running up and down
hills and mountains, or along their sides,
not kept in repair, and if wagon brenlSs
down your whole procession of vehicles
is stopped until it can be got out of the
way. You don't know at what moment
in this country, new and strange to you,
a squad of guerrillas, TO whom every road
and pass has been familiar from their
youth, will swoop down or fire from an
ambuscade upon some portion of your
long drawn out, struggling train of
wagons, all of which, from the narrow
ness of the road. it is impossible fully to
guard. You must drive along, also, pos
sibly, herd of half wild, half starved
cattle, who will dash off or stray off in
the woods through which they are pass
ing at every chance they can get.
You have sixty or eighty miles of this
sort of country to pass through before
you can reach the 10000 hungry men, liv-
ing now on a cracker per day You may
advance ten miles day. You may
twenty. You may make only five. Dis
tances in an up and down country like this
are very uncertain. You can't go at a
gallop with a wagon train. And you are
the officer in charge of this SLOW lumber
ing, long drawn out, clumsy procession.
You are responsible for it's safe delivery
to the hungry army. You've got your
hands full and your head full, and when
you've bossed road repairs, built bridges,
pushed everybody and everything to keep
them moving, and then, half worn out
and half dead through care and the strain
of the responsibility. you get your train
through in safety, and for a few days
more feed this collective stomach which
otherwise would have starved, how much
glory awaits you?
"Well, search our pictorial military an
nails and see how much of the pomp. cir
cumstance and sensation of war you find
illustrated about wagon train. But
society would tumble to pieces today
without cooks, kitchens and beef cutting
men with white frocks and cleavers, and
all the epauletted figures on horseback
about an army dwindle down, man and
beast, to very poor critters in very few
/ hours if they've no crackers to nibble on
or hay to chew. tell you, war means
feeding as well as fighting and there's a
/ great deal of unrecorded glory due the
! quartermasters and sergeants who had to
look after the bread and beef which gives
men strength to stand on their legs and
pull triggers. Prentice milford in New
+ York Star