The common, ordinary, extraordinary army mule


Over the last three years, I have written extensively about heroic deeds undertaken to preserve the Union and have focused on regiments, batteries, and individuals to help chronicle the story of the Civil War. It recently came to my attention that there is one class of Union supporters who I have neglected in my chronicles, and upon his strong back and hooves belongs some mead of the measure of credit. He was a most reluctant volunteer, and he bucked and complained for much of his service, was a loud and obnoxious presence in every army camp, but proved to be the backbone of the army. He was singularly the most craven and heroic of individuals, as noted for his stamina as he was lampooned for his propensity to panic under fire. I write not of the sunshine patriot, summer soldier, or the much-maligned substitute. I am writing of the common, ordinary, extraordinary army mule.
 
Edwin Forbes created this sketch of an army mule in 1863, no doubt located a safe distance from the deadly rear hooves of this grumpy quadruped. The shaggy, long-eared army mule bore the weight of Union victory upon his back, and resented every minute of it!

That is not to say that the army mule and his service was completely ignored in the pantheon of Civil War literature. John D. Billings of the 10th Massachusetts Light Artillery devoted an entire chapter to the army mule in his classic work Hardtack & Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life. From Billing’s work we gain a great deal of insight into where the army mule came from, how he adapted to the stresses and strains of the service, and where he found his true measure of usefulness. [1]

The primary source of mules was Kentucky, and one could argue that its importance as a mule-raising center underscored its logistical value to both the Union and Confederate armies. The primary service rendered by the army mule was to haul wagons, whether they carried rations, ammunition, forage, camp equipment, a pontoon bridge, etc. As the war progressed, the availability of horses diminished and it was decided to concentrate horseflesh in the cavalry and artillery portions of the army, as his muleship had aptly demonstrated his unsteadiness under fire. “If he found himself under fire at the front, he was wont to make a stir in his neighborhood until he got out of such inhospitable surroundings,” Billings commented. “The explosion of a shell or two over or among them would drive the long-ears wild and render them utterly unmanageable.”
 
A four mule team pulling a typical army wagon, sometimes called a "prairie schooner."

However, mules had a big advantage over the horse: they were extraordinarily tough. Billings recounted that mules would “better stand hard usage, bad feed, or no feed, and neglect generally. They could travel over rough ground unharmed where horses would be lamed or injured. They will eat brush. When forage was short, the drivers were wont to cut branches and throw those before them for nourishment,” he wrote. Mules could go where horses could not, and survived on much less, but they were not indestructible. Disease killed off mules the same as it did horses, glanders and black tongue claiming the lives of many.[2]

The mule, being a smaller cousin to the horse, quickly replaced four horse teams in the army, six mules taking the place of four horses. When the mule team driver arranged his team, he took care to place the tallest mules nearest the wagon, called the pole team, a somewhat shorter team in the middle called the swing team, while the smallest pair selected to be the leaders. The driver usually rode on one of the pole mules, holding the reigns to the other five in his hand to guide the team.

A six-mule team in front of Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia in April 1865. The lead horse has a small U.S. flag attached to his bridle and other flags are visible upon the other mules. 

The army mule was noted for his obstinance, but the mule driver (they objected to the term mule whacker but were universally called such by the infantry) possessed a fine tool to motivate the mule: the black snake or whip. “It was a badge of authority with which the mule driver enforced his orders,” recounted Billings. “It was the panacea for all the ills to which mule-flesh was heir.” The quickest way to get his muleship’s attention was to give him a nice hit around his long floppy ears, the portion of the mule’s anatomy “through which his reasoning faculties could be the most quickly and surely reached, accompanied by the driver’s expressive ejaculation in the mule tongue, which I can only describe as a cross between an unearthly screech and a groan,” Billings stated. The mule himself spoke in a voice Billings described as “nothing short of rattling, crashing thunder” and every army camp across the country echoed with the obnoxious braying of the army mules.
The Mule Driver
"As competent a disciplinarian as a colonel of a regiment."

The mule drivers themselves are worthy of notice. Freed slaves or contrabands often worked as mule team drivers and performed this challenging service in the Union cause. “An educated mule driver was, in his little sphere, as competent a disciplinarian as the colonel of a regiment,” Billings noted. When the mules resisted his drivers’ directions and demonstrated his legendary obstinacy, the mule driver had one more weapon in his arsenal. “The propulsive power of the mule driver was increased many fold by the almost unlimited stock of profanity with which he greeted the sensitive ears of his muleship. I have seen mules, but now most obdurate, jump into their collars the next moment with the utmost determination to do their whole duty when one of these Gatling guns of curses opened fire upon them.” In defense of the mule drivers, one can imagine few more frustrating and challenging assignments in the war than driving six obstinate quadrupeds through wind, rain, heat, cold, and enemy fire.

Regardless of their treatment, the army mule carried upon his back the weight of the Union war effort, ensuring that the army in the field was well-supplied with rations, ammunition, and equipment. There was not a single campaign in which the mule did not perform this important if often forgotten service: whether it was at Shiloh, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg. Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Atlanta, or Petersburg, the army mule rendered his service and helped make the difference between victory and defeat.
 
A four-mule team crossing a stream. Mules were noted for the hardiness and sure-footedness over the harshest of terrain. 

The Civil War veterans themselves recognized the value of his muleship’s service during the war. “I have often wondered how we could have carried on that war without mules,” wrote Captain Henry C. Greiner of the 31st Ohio. “I cannot imagine how his place could have been filled by a substitute, yet history never mentions him; no one gives him any credit, nor was he shown much kindness. How ungrateful this republic was when it did not bring the patient, persistent, long-suffering, long-eared mules home when the war was over to be cared for in good pastures, with rest and plenty for a few years! The mule, after the long and weary pull of a hot or cold day would hear only the abuse of his driver and received only beatings and thumps from cruel teamsters.”[3]
 
A played out mule at the hospital as depicted by Edwin Forbes

Following the conclusion of the Chattanooga campaign, the length and severity of such cost the Army thousands of mules, a Federal soldier wrote of the “cemetery” constructed for the dead mules. “Not far from the place where I now write is a cemetery in which are deposited the remains of hundreds of dead animals who died an inglorious death from starvation,” wrote Joseph B. Newton of the 14th Ohio. “The highways and byways around Chattanooga are embellished with innumerable carcasses of dead mules and horses. The future historian who undertakes to narrate the events of the present war will prove an unfaithful chronicler if he neglects to devote one page to the privations and sufferings of the gallant army at Chattanooga, and to donate one line of pity to the poor, famished animals that moaned their lives away in their fruitless cries for food.”[4]

Where this mule cemetery resides is lost to history, and no monument marks the resting place of these faithful if stubborn defenders of the Union, so let this post serve as an epitaph for the common, ordinary, extraordinary army mule.



[1] Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993, pgs. 279-297
[2] Billings, op. cit.
[3] Greiner, Henry C. General Phil Sheridan as I Knew Him: Playmate, Comrade, Friend. Chicago: J.S. Hyland and Co., 1908, pgs. 205-206
[4] “Letter from Chattanooga,” Daily Toledo Blade, February 4, 1864, pg. 2

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on their way to
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of how Confederate jacke
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true warrior, for then comes the harvest of gain.
Read more

The Cannons are Now Silent: The Field of Death of Tupelo

Image
       The smoke of battle had drifted away from the battlefield at Tupelo, Mississippi on the hot afternoon of July 14, 1864, but the carnage of war lay spread across the open fields. “Scattered at intervals over the field of a few yards are dull gray blotches half shaded by grass,” an officer from the 7 th Minnesota Infantry recorded. “These are the Rebel dead. They have fought their last battle and lie generally in attitudes of rest; some of them look as if they had welcomed death. On the faces of two is imprinted a smile. One is a boy of 16 with delicate features, almost girlish in their beauty. His last gaze seems to have been directed toward his hand on the forefinger of which was a ring. A circle of purer white indicates its place; the ring was carried off as a trophy of the field.” The following account of the Battles of Tupelo and Old Town Creek was written by an unknown officer of the 7 th Minnesota Infantry, his account appearing in the August 5 th 1864 edition of the
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on securing all the Enfi
Read more

Straw Already Threshed: Sherman on Shiloh

Image
  W illiam Tecumseh Sherman was enjoying retired life in New York City when just before Christmas in 1889 he was presented with an article written by John Cockerill, a former drummer boy in the 24 th Ohio who was visiting his father Colonel Joseph Cockerill of the 70 th Ohio of Sherman’s division when the Battle of Shiloh began. Cockerill’s article, originally published in the New York Journalist and later featured in the January 1893 issue of Blue & Gray Magazine, Sherman later pronounced as “the best war story ever written” and the truest account of Shiloh.           On New Year’s Day 1890, General Sherman composed the following letter to his friend Marshall P. Wilder thanking him for sending along Cockerill’s article and giving his own explanation of Shiloh. “This to me is straw already threshed for we have fought this battle on paper several times, a much more agreeable task than to fight with bullets,” he concluded. “When in England some years ago I was gratified to liste
Read more

Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign

Image
  T he following list, constructed after many years of research, lists unit by unit which type of weapons were carried by the Army of the Cumberland during the Stones River campaign. A number of sources were consulted including state ordnance reports, Federal quarterly ordnance reports (thank you Research Arsenal ), Ken Baumann’s Arming the Suckers, regimental histories and memoirs, captured ordnance reports, and consultation with knowledgeable experts in the field of firearms. Some of this information has been shared on the blog before in “ Rosy’s Heavy Metal: Artillery of the Army of the Cumberland ” or “ Shoulder Arms: How Sheridan’s and Davis’s Divisions Were Armed at Stones River ” but this is the first time the army as a whole has been presented. The overall conclusion I drew from looking at this data is that the Army of the Cumberland in December 1862 was an organization in the midst of transformation as far as arms. Many of the regiments still retained their original issue
Read more

Escape of Captain Henry H. Alban of the 21st Ohio Infantry

Image
Captain Henry H. Alban was among the dozen officers of the 21 st Ohio Volunteer Infantry who were captured on September 20, 1863 at the Battle of Chickamauga. The regiment had held its position atop Snodgrass Hill against repeated Confederate assaults and now battered and without ammunition, with the darkness of evening enveloping the hill, the remainder of that gallant band found themselves at the mercy of the 54 th Virginia. A total of 12 officers and 121 enlisted men surrendered; the regiment’s colors were taken, and the men marched off the field into captivity. Captain Henry Harvey Alban, Co. F, 21st O.V.I. Captain Alban along with the rest went through a series of Confederate prison camps before arriving at Columbia, South Carolina in October 1864. Determined to make an escape, he watched for his chance and one night made his leap for freedom, successfully eluding the local camp guard and setting out along the railroad to head for the mountains of eastern Tennessee and
Read more

Knapsack Compression: Wilbur Hinman recalls the first step of becoming a veteran

Image
L ooking back on his experiences during the war, Captain Wilbur Hinman of the 65 th Ohio (perhaps best known as the author of Si Klegg and His Pard ) recalled that the first road along which his regiment marched was strewn “with debris. A pair of six-mule wagonloads might have been gathered of notions that had been flung aside by a thousand suffering “tenderfeet.” “The average young patriot started for the war with a wheelbarrow load of clothing, a bed quilt or two, books, photograph albums, toilet articles, and gimcracks of every sort,” he wrote. “Neither he nor the good homefolks had the slightest conception of the capacity of a knapsack, nor did they for a moment imagine that before the close of his first day upon the road every pound he carried would seem a hundred.” To the true mark of a veteran soldier was one who “learned to dispense with every unnecessary ounce of weight, and just in the ratio that he did this he increased his efficiency as a soldier. It was of the highest
Read more

Federal Arms in the Chickamauga Campaign

Image
T he ordnance returns of the Army of the Cumberland at the end of September 1863 show the results of a transformational year in weaponry. Since taking command of the army at the end of October 1862, General William S. Rosecrans had repeatedly pestered the War Department to supply his regiments with better firearms both to improve the command’s efficiency as well as expand its striking power. The results speak for themselves: for the infantrymen at the end of September 1863, 90% of them now carried Class I long arms (36,058 out of 39,959), 8.3% carried Class II arms, and a mere 1.5% carried Class III weapons. Most of the foreign-made weapons (except Enfields) were gone, and by and large the army had settled on a single common .58 caliber ammunition, although a few .54 caliber and .69 caliber weapons remained within the ranks. The English-made Enfield rifle musket was by far the most common arm, carried by 56% of the men while the second-most common arm was the .58 caliber M1861 Spring
Read more