and the trains are increased in order to supply the horses of the cavalry, artillery, and of the trains themselves with forage. A horse requires nearly twenty-six pounds per day of food, while a soldier's ration weighs but three pounds.

In our armies the requisitions for transportation have been enormous. The Army of the Potomac in July, at Harrison's Landing, when less than 100,000 strong, after its losses in the retreat to the James River, had 2,578 wagons and 415 ambulances, drawn by 5,899 horses and 8,708 mules-14,607 animals employed in the trains. In addition to these there were 12,378 cavalry and artillery horses, making 26,985 horses and mules to be fed. The supply of these animals with forage, almost entirely shipped from the Northern ports, was very costly. The position of the army did not allow of more than a few days" supply being landed at any time, and the vessels in which it had been shipped were kept in some cases for months on demurrage at enormous expense.

This same army was moved to Washington, re-enforced, and marching to Sharpsburg, fought the battles of South Mountain, Crampton's Gap, and Antietam, and lay for some weeks along the Upper Potomac. On the 31st of October, from reports in this office, its nominal strength was 176,000, but so many men were absent sick, prisoners, or absent on leave that its effective strength is supposed not to have exceeded 130,000. It had with it 3,798 wagons, drawn by 19,558 animals, of which 7,673 were horses and 11,885 mules.

In November the main body of the Army of the Potomac had advanced to Warrenton; a large force remained on the Upper Potomac, upon the communications with Washington, and within the lines of the defenses of this city. The nominal strength of the army was 227,000; its effective strength probably did not exceed 200,000. Its wagons were 5,051 in number, drawn by 24,705 animals, of which 10,295 were horses and 14,410 mules. It had 1,008 ambulances, drawn by 2,016 horses. The whole number of horses and mules, cavalry, artillery, and transportation with the army was 52,573. This is exclusive of 968 wagons and 146 ambulances, drawn by 1,370 horses and 1,610 mules, attached to the general depot of Washington, and though employed in supplying the army, not attached thereto.

The army then at Harrison's Landing had, to 1,000 men, 26 wagons; at Sharpsburg, to 1,000 men, 29 wagons; when advanced to Warrenton, and occupying Washington and Harper's Ferry, to 1,000 men, about 25 wagons. Napoleon's rule was 12 wagons to 1,000 men.

The army was at each of these periods operating within a few miles of railroad and water communication. When at Warrenton it occupied a country ravaged by the repeated passage of armies, and affording no supplies, not even forage.

An army moving rapidly through a cultivated country, with trains sufficient to transport only the food of the soldiers, and with only a fair proportion of cavalry and artillery, can generally find forage on its march, and with twelve wagons to a thousand men may start with between twenty and t-horse wagon can transport through a country destitute of forage only food for its own team for from twenty to thirty days. It cannot on such a march transport forage for the horses of the cavalry and artillery, or of the baggage and subsistence and ammunition trains. Had our armies been able to move more rapidly they would have needed smaller trains, and their maintenance would have been much less costly. A great part of the duty of the thousands of horses and mules with the army has been to transport their own food.