Teamster Stories and Anecdotes

Tom Elmore

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During the Gettysburg campaign, several thousand teamsters were employed driving wagons that kept the armies supplied with food and ammunition, or else they hauled baggage such as cooking utensils, entrenching tools, tents, official paperwork and personal effects. Rarely are we afforded a glimpse into their mundane daily activities, which were absolutely essential to sustaining soldiers on the march and in a battle.

July 1 – This morning we are waiting for orders. Our mules are hitched into the wagons. … I stepped over to the regiment and got a letter dated June 21st, and got back just in time to start with my team. We drove 10 miles, arrived at the town of Gettysville [Gettysburg]. Fighting had commenced. I was ordered to the front with my load of ammunition, to supply the boys. Went as far as the foot of Cemetery Hill, worked lively and “scooted” back. [Comment: Late on July 1 the Eleventh Corps shared some of their small-arms ammunition with the First Corps.] … July 2 – … Was on the field most of the day, giving out ammunition. … July 3 – … At 5 o’clock this afternoon, while I was munching some fried pork and a “hard-tack,” I was ordered to go to Westminster [Maryland] for a load of ammunition; arrived about 9 p.m. … July 5 – I am still in the village of Westminster, waiting for my load of ammunition. I shall start very soon for the front. (Record of the 33d Mass. Volunteer Infantry, by Boies, Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts)

On the morning of the 3rd we went up with several wagons to issue rations to the boys. We reached the field about sundown [7:32 p.m.]. We drove our wagons to within a quarter of a mile of our brigade who were skirmishing on the right wing [Culp’s Hill]. The field in which we stood was plowed in every direction by shell. Close to us the sharpshooters were popping away. Far away on the left artillery were still engaged. … It was midnight before we got through. We slept on the field, leaving early in the morning to return to Westminster, 25 miles. … On the 5th we left Westminster about 10 o’clock at night. It was dark, raining heavily and the roads very bad. (July 8 letter from Sebastian Cabot Duncan, Jr., Company E, 13th New Jersey, to his father, Family Papers, 1861-1915, New Jersey Historical Society, Newark)

June 16, the baggage was inspected, everything except a small valise for each officer [was] thrown from the wagon – chairs, beds, mess chests, etc., [creating] considerable dissatisfaction. Teamsters are known to retain and carry along … articles of convenience and luxury just thrown out for various officers. (From the diary of Major John I. Nevin, 93rd Pennsylvania -‘On the March Again at Daybreak,’ ed. by Dana B. Shoaf, A Journal of the American Civil War, vol. 6, no. 3 (Savas Publishing Company), p. 118)

Heavy army wagons are drawn by six or eight mules … driver on the tongue drives his three span of ugly, kicking, fractious mules by a system of slapping, spurring and jerking of the line. (Autobiography of George Perry Metcalf, Company D, 136th New York, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus)

June [25], 1863, at Barnesville, Maryland. To add to our discomfort the [wagon] train came up and went into park near us … four-mule teams. And as it came up and swung into park, every one of those long eared quadrupeds set up his ehaw and [kept] it up until they got their feed. But as soon as the feed bag is adjusted to their noses, it ends that [the braying] for the night. (Avery Harris Civil War Journal, 143rd Pennsylvania, ed. by Peter Tomasak)

F. Pope Rucker, Company A, was 30 years old when he enlisted. He was a professional stage driver and hence was made a teamster. He drove my headquarters wagon while I was colonel of the regiment. (The War Between the Union and the Confederacy, by William Calvin Oates, 15th Alabama)

[Encamped at 10 p.m. on July 1, west of Gettysburg] and I surrounded by wagons, their teams of mules and noisy drivers, cursing and swearing at their tired beasts. (Diary Extracts from Robert P. Myers, Surgeon of 16th Georgia, from collections of the Museum of the Confederacy – now the American Civil War Museum, on file at Gettysburg National Military Park)

July 3 – My ordnance wagon is ordered up to the field about 8 o’clock [a.m.]. Go about a mile and a half to the first field hospital – a stone house, and wait for a detail to get ammunition. Detail comes and issue about 4,000 rounds [four boxes], supply Rodes’ division also with ammunition. Keep moving backward and forward a good deal to get out reach of shell that are flying all around pretty thick. Am edified by several reports that the Yankees in great force are flanking our position and move at once to get out of their way. … Move back after a while to our old place near Johnson’s [division] hospital. … July 4 – Wakened this morning about 3 o’clock and ordered instantly to move the train out on the Cashtown road. (Diary of Watkins Kearns, 27th Virginia, Diaries 1861-4, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond)
 
Ammunition wagons were certainly targeted, and not just by sharpshooters. After the Iron Brigade had repulsed Archer's Brigade and established its defensive line in Herbst Woods, 3 ordinance wagons came forward to resupply the brigade with ammunition. One of the wagons, driven by a man only identified as "Indiana", was hit multiple times. One of its mules had 2 legs shot off, necessitating that it be euthanized and cut out of the harness before the wagon could proceed. The wagon also lost an axle and returned into town after delivering its cargo with only 3 mules and two wheels. [On Many a Bloody Field, by Alan Graf, p. 264]
 
Here's an anecdote I remember reading about Stonewall Jackson and a teamster with a stuck wagon. Stonewall rode up on a teamster who was lighting up the air with profanity because his mules would not budge a wagon that was stuck in the Virginia mud during a campaign. Stonewall asked the teamster " Can't you get those mules to move without using such foul language?"
The Teamster replied " No, I can not, it's the only way to get them to move."
Stonewall then said " Let me try to get that wagon going". Despite his loudest yelling and pleading, the mules didn't move an inch.
Stonewall then looked at the teamster and said " I suppose you will have to have your way then." After a few curses and oaths, the teamster had the wagon back on the road and moving again.
 
Here's an anecdote I remember reading about Stonewall Jackson and a teamster with a stuck wagon. Stonewall rode up on a teamster who was lighting up the air with profanity because his mules would not budge a wagon that was stuck in the Virginia mud during a campaign. Stonewall asked the teamster " Can't you get those mules to move without using such foul language?"
The Teamster replied " No, I can not, it's the only way to get them to move."
Stonewall then said " Let me try to get that wagon going". Despite his loudest yelling and pleading, the mules didn't move an inch.
Stonewall then looked at the teamster and said " I suppose you will have to have your way then." After a few curses and oaths, the teamster had the wagon back on the road and moving again.
That was, I believe, Major John A. Harmon, who was also at Gettysburg as Quartermaster of Ewell's Second Corps.
 
In June 1862 while going thru Manassas Gap, a driver of a team from Battery L, 1st Ohio "repeatedly drove the tongue or pole of his wagon into the flanks of the wagon-master's horse."The wagon-master was William W. Holliday of the 1st Va. Infantry US (but not officially enlisted in that regiment), and he warned the Battery L driver not to do it again. On the next occurrence, Holliday got so infuriated that he took a stone and "hurled it at the driver, just missing his head. The man sitting with the driver, Bollman, said at the time to be from Portsmouth, Ohio, pulled out an old-style holster pistol, and, taking deliberate aim, fired at Holliday." which struck him in the temple. Bollman was forced to flee into the woods while Co. A, 1st Va. scoured the woods in an unsuccessful attempt to find him. "It was well for him that he was not caught." Holliday was loaded onto a rail car and eventually was taken to Wheeling, (west) Virginia where he died on July 3, 1862.
Although there was no soldier by the name of Bollman listed on the Ohio Battery L roster, there was a soldier by the name of James Boldman, age 37, who enlisted in Oct. 1861. He died in 1892 and is buried in Kentucky. See findagrave#78232459.
 
In the wee hours of New Years Day 1863, a teamster named Stansel popped his whip & headed back to Nashville on the Macadamized pike. Earlier, he had delivered a load of vitally needed supplies to the men of the 14th Army Corps who had stopped the Confederate onslaught short of the poke that connected Murfreesboro with Nashville.

During the day, Wheeler’s troopers had attacked a large park of wagons at what is now Smyrna Airport ten miles from Murfreesboro. They burnt many wagons & killed hundreds of miles. A group of thirty three black teamsters were gathered onto the pike & shot down in cold blood. Wheeler made no attempt to hold the pike & rode off.

Stansel & his fellow teamsters took advantage of Wheeler’s critical error & resupplied Rosecrans during the night of Dec31-Jan 1. Stansel’s wagon was filled with a group of wounded Inion officers. The agony of bumping along in an unsprung army wagon was epic. As if suffering from wounds was not enough, the wagons were attacked by straggling cavalrymen & banditti. Some of the teamsters cut loose from their wagons & fled in panic back to Nashville. Not Stansel, he drove on in the most determined manner possible.

The officers that he saved published an account of his bravery in a Nashville paper. A short time after the Army of Tennessee retreated, Stansel was encamped at Readyville, ten miles east of Murfreesboro. In an argument about a card game, Stansel was struck on the head by a piece of fire wood & died. He is buried in the northwest corner of the Haven Brigade Monument at Stones River National Battlefield.
 
Wasn't there an incident in which Grant berated or threatened a teamster who Grant came across whipping recalcitrant mules? This was probably during the Overland Campaign but I can't remember all the details.
 
A fair number of Union teamsters were actually civilians who were hired by the Quartermaster's Department. Besides the other dangers, they could be taken prisoner if they were discovered by the enemy. About 100 Civilian teamsters ended up at Andersonville, where a fair number of them remain. Perhaps saddest of all, because they were not technically in the Army, their dependents were not eligible for an pensions or government assistant. I've read the pension applications filed by some of the widows, and they were always turned down because "there is no provision made for such a case."
 
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