Our duty now was to break up any nuclei of concentration that the Rebels
might attempt to form, and to guard our foragers--that is, the teamsters
and employee of the Quartermaster's Department--who were loading grain
into wagons and hauling it away.

This last was an arduous task. There is no man in the world that needs
as much protection as an Army teamster. He is worse in this respect than
a New England manufacturer, or an old maid on her travels. He is given
to sudden fears and causeless panics. Very innocent cedars have a
fashion of assuming in his eyes the appearance of desperate Rebels armed
with murderous guns, and there is no telling what moment a rock may take
such a form as to freeze his young blood, and make each particular hair
stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine. One has to be
particular about snapping caps in his neighborhood, and give to him
careful warning before discharging a carbine to clean it. His first
impulse, when anything occurs to jar upon his delicate nerves, is to cut
his wheel-mule loose and retire with the precipitation of a man having an
appointment to keep and being behind time. There is no man who can get
as much speed out of a mule as a teamster falling back from the
neighborhood of heavy firing.

This nervous tremor was not peculiar to the engineers of our
transportation department. It was noticeable in the gentry who carted
the scanty provisions of the Rebels. One of Wheeler's cavalrymen told me
that the brigade to which he belonged was one evening ordered to move at
daybreak. The night was rainy, and it was thought best to discharge the
guns and reload before starting. Unfortunately, it was neglected to
inform the teamsters of this, and at the first discharge they varnished
from the scene with such energy that it was over a week before the
brigade succeeded in getting them back again.