A standard U.S. Army wagon was 120 inches long (inside measurement), 43 inches wide, and 22 inches high. Such a vehicle was rated as capable of transporting a cargo of about 2,600 pounds, equivalent to 1,500 individual rations of bread, coffee, sugar, and salt.
Fully loaded, such a
vehicle required a team of four horses or six mules for travel on good roads.
Other loads and circumstances required more animals.
When Stonewall Jackson
captured a bevy of locomotives near Harpers Ferry, he discovered that they’d
have to be pulled overland to reach a Confederate railroad line. As a result,
he hitched a team of forty horses to each captive locomotive for the trek to
the Manassas Gap Railroad.
