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So the quartermaster-general and the governor of Sluys, much to the detriment of their dignity, were forced once more to tramp through the muddy streets.
Sending a telegraphic message to General Meigs, Quartermaster-General at Washington, to the effect that the mules furnished to Burnside's army were of such bad quality that he was embarrassed in taking the waggons he had captured into the Confederate lines, and requesting that a better class of animal might be supplied in future, he returned by long marches through Warrenton to Culpeper Court House, escaping pursuit, and bringing with him a large amount of plunder and many prisoners.
The view thence inland was more extended, and at no great distance a road crossed, along which was seen a long line of native carts, toiling painfully, and escorted by a few of the enemy's horse. "We must have those carts." The speaker was a staff-officer, the quartermaster-general, an eagle-eyed, decisive-speaking, short, slender man, who was riding a splendid charger, which he sat to perfection.
Another bridge was in course of construction at Chattanooga, under the immediate direction of Quartermaster-General Meigs, but at the time all wagons, etc., had to be ferried across by a flying-bridge.
His Sovereign continued, nevertheless, to employ him in different armies; and in January, 1797, he was appointed a Field-marshal lieutenant and a quartermaster-general of the army of the Rhine.
Even when plundering was avoided there were short commons for those who clung to the General. Buckwheat, common wheat, Rye and Indn. Corn was the composition of the Meal which made their bread. Even the horses suffered, and Washington wrote to the quartermaster-general, "Sir, my horses I am told have not had a mouthful of long or short forage for three days.
The proposition drew an angry reply from the general, indignant, very probably, that a young provincial officer should presume to school a veteran like himself. He was followed, at some distance, by Sir John St. Clair, quartermaster-general, with a working party of two hundred and fifty men, to make roads for the artillery and baggage.
Orme and Morris, his aides-de-camp, Sinclair, the quartermaster-general, Gates and Gage, both afterwards conspicuous on opposite sides in the War of the Revolution, and Gladwin, who, eight years later, defended Detroit against Pontiac, were all wounded.
At some period before 1796, probably before 1794, he had read and thoroughly digested the remarkable treatise on the principles of mountain war which had been left in manuscript by General Bourcet, an officer who during the campaigns of half a century had assisted as Quartermaster-General a number of the best Generals of France.
When the Duke left Brussels for the front on the morning of the 16th he took with him a singularly optimistic paper styled "Disposition of the British Army at 7 A.M., 16th June," which was "written out for the information of the Commander of the Forces by Colonel Sir W. de Lancey," his Quartermaster-General.
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