CHAPTER III.  COLOR, CHARACTER, AND PECULIARITIES OF MULES.

After being in command of the upper corral, I was ordered, on the 7th of September, 1864, to take charge of the Eastern Branch Wagon Park, Washington.  There were at that time in the park twenty-one six-mule trains.  Each train had one hundred and fifty mules and two horses attached.  There were times, however, when we had as many as forty-two trains of six-mule teams, with thirty men attached to each train.  In a year from the above date we handled upward of seventy-four thousand mules, each and every one passing under my inspection and through my hands.

In handling this large number of animals, I aimed to ascertain which was the best, the hardest, and the most durable color for a mule.  I did this because great importance has been attached by many to the color of these animals.  Indeed, some of our officers have made it a distinguishing feature.  But color, I am satisfied, is no criterion to judge by.  There is an exception to this, perhaps, in the cream-colored mule.  In most cases, these cream-colored mules are apt to be soft, and they also lack strength.  This is particularly so with those that take after the mare, and have manes and tails of the same color.  Those that take after the jack generally have black stripes round their legs, black manes and tails, and black stripes down their backs and across their shoulders, and are more hardy and better animals.  I have frequently seen men, in purchasing a lot of mules, select those of a certain color, fancying that they were the hardiest, and yet the animals would be widely different in their working qualities.  You may take a black mule, black mane, black hair in his ears, black at the flank, between the hips or thighs, and black under the belly, and put him alongside of a similar sized mule, marked as I have described above, say light, or what is called mealy-colored, on each of the above-mentioned parts, put them in the same condition and flesh, of similar age and soundness, and, in many cases, the mule with the light-colored parts will wear the other out.

It is very different with the white mule.  He is generally soft, and can stand but little hardship.  I refer particularly to those that have a white skin.  Next to the white and cream, we have the iron-grey mule.  This color generally indicates a hardy mule.  We have now twelve teams of iron-gray mules in the park, which have been doing hard work every day since July, 1865; it is now January, 1866.  Only one of these mules has become unfit for service, and that one was injured by being kicked by his mate.  All our other teams have had more or less animals made unfit for service and exchanged.

In speaking of the color of mules, it must not be inferred that there are no mules that are all of a color that are not hardy and capable of endurance.  I have had some, whose color did not vary from head to foot, that were capable of great endurance.  But in most cases, if kept steadily at work from the time they were three years old until they were eight or ten, they generally gave out in some part, and became an expense instead of profit.