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[213] this army finds itself separated from its base of operations by three days march, 3760 wagons, drawn by 22,000 animals, will be found indispensable for that service. This calculation does not take into account the difficulties in the way of transportation; for if these wagons are necessary to convey the materials as far as the depots of the division, the others are required to distribute them afterwards among the regiments; an army, in fact, is obliged to keep a number of such wagons constantly with it in order to secure a certain degree of mobility and to be able to send a few detachments forward, accompanied by a wagon-train carrying several days' provisions. Thus an American army of 100,000 men with nearly 4000 wagons, from 2000 to 3000 of which pass and repass over three or four parallel roads, the distance of two days march, or about forty or fifty kilometres, had established for it, during the war, the .utmost distance to which it could venture from its base of operations, while continuing to receive its supplies from that source. In an offensive campaign, therefore, an army cannot go beyond two days march without at the same time removing its depots. If it follows a line of railway, it must stop and wait for the repairing of the track as far as the new point where it wishes to establish them. If its line of march lies contiguous to a river, it is generally accompanied by a fleet of transports, which, by reason of their flat bottoms, can be run upon any beach and their cargoes speedily landed. If it has to pass through a country deprived of easy communications, it may abandon the base of operations upon which it has rested and go in search of another; this apparently bold movement proved successful with all those who tried it, either for the purpose of striking the head of some railway already occupied by friendly troops, or for securing new positions on the margin of some distant river, where the fleet could again overtake the army and revictual it. By thus advancing its base of operations on the same line, or by changing from one line to another, the wagons were relieved of two trips; and by taking them along loaded with provisions, it doubled the number of days during which the troops could march in an enemy's country. A certain number of rations in the haversack of each soldier increased the number of days, while herds of cattle, at the season of the
Philadelphia, Jos. H. Coates and co., 1876.
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