Chapter 41

CLOTHING: ITS RAPID DETERIORATION, AND DEVICES TO REPLENISH IT--DESPERATE
EFFORTS TO COVER NAKEDNESS--"LITTLE RED CAP" AND HIS LETTER.

Clothing had now become an object of real solicitude to us older
prisoners. The veterans of our crowd--the surviving remnant of those
captured at Gettysburg--had been prisoners over a year. The next in
seniority--the Chickamauga boys--had been in ten months. The Mine Run
fellows were eight months old, and my battalion had had seven months'
incarceration. None of us were models of well-dressed gentlemen when
captured. Our garments told the whole story of the hard campaigning we
had undergone. Now, with months of the wear and tear of prison life,
sleeping on the sand, working in tunnels, digging wells, etc., we were
tattered and torn to an extent that a second-class tramp would have
considered disgraceful.

This is no reflection upon the quality of the clothes furnished by the
Government. We simply reached the limit of the wear of textile fabrics.
I am particular to say this, because I want to contribute my little mite
towards doing justice to a badly abused part of our Army organization
--the Quartermaster's Department. It is fashionable to speak of "shoddy,"
and utter some stereotyped sneers about "brown paper shoes," and
"musketo-netting overcoats," when any discussion of the Quartermaster
service is the subject of conversation, but I have no hesitation in
asking the indorsement of my comrades to the statement that we have never
found anywhere else as durable garments as those furnished us by the
Government during our service in the Army. The clothes were not as fine
in texture, nor so stylish in cut as those we wore before or since, but
when it came to wear they could be relied on to the last thread. It was
always marvelous to me that they lasted so well, with the rough usage a
soldier in the field must necessarily give them.

But to return to my subject. I can best illustrate the way our clothes
dropped off us, piece by piece, like the petals from the last rose of
Summer, by taking my own case as an example: When I entered prison I was
clad in the ordinary garb of an enlisted man of the cavalry--stout,
comfortable boots, woolen pocks, drawers, pantaloons, with a
"reenforcement," or "ready-made patches," as the infantry called them;
vest, warm, snug-fitting jacket, under and over shirts, heavy overcoat,
and a forage-cap. First my boots fell into cureless ruin, but this was
no special hardship, as the weather had become quite warm, and it was
more pleasant than otherwise to go barefooted. Then part of the
underclothing retired from service. The jacket and vest followed, their
end being hastened by having their