1850 American Gold Tycoon

Chapter 690 The First Mercenary Group

"Mr. Brannan, the town of Norton is ahead. We have not found any signs of Western troops' activities in this area. To the north of Norton are all villages and towns controlled by Westerners."

A team of Northern Army cavalry approached the town for reconnaissance and then respectfully reported to a middle-aged man wearing a white high-collared shirt, breeches, and high leather boots.

There was no fixed style for the uniforms of generals in the Northern and Confederate armies, and it was not uncommon to see generals wearing tuxedos on the battlefield.

However, when subordinates report to their superiors, they usually address them by their military rank to show their respect for their superiors.

The fact that this Union cavalry sergeant addressed the middle-aged man, who was dressed in fancy clothes and looked more like a Northern industrial capitalist or banker, as "sir" shows that the middle-aged man named Brannan was not a Union general with a transvestite, but that this gentleman did not hold a military position.

It was just very strange that this Union cavalry sergeant reported military intelligence to the gentleman in front of him instead of to the two Union officers beside him who were wearing formal senior officer uniforms.

"General Ames, Colonel Grant, our last supply station is ahead. It looks like a big town. They also have a flour mill and raise a lot of poultry. I think they can provide us with supplies for at least two or three months." The guy named Brannan was sitting astride his horse. He took off his gloves that were yellowed by sweat and glanced coldly at the town of Norton not far away.

Since leaving Omaha, this Union detachment has been like a red-hot iron plow, ruthlessly plowing through dozens of villages and towns large and small in northern Kansas.

What Kruger was most worried about finally happened. The Union detachment that penetrated deep into northern Kansas was actually not just one Maine Brigade, but two elite brigades.

The General Ames mentioned by Brannan is Brigadier General Ames, the commander of the Maine Brigade.

When Ames first arrived in Omaha, he was only the commander of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment and his rank was only lieutenant colonel.

Thanks to his professional training at West Point Military Academy and his outstanding military talent, Ames quickly stood out among the officers and completed the training of 1,800 Maine militiamen in just three weeks.

Ames was highly appreciated and valued by his mentor McClellan, who quickly promoted him from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general and appointed him commander of the Maine Brigade.

As for Colonel Grant, he was employed by Brannan's First Mercenary Regiment.

The First Mercenary Regiment was a private army formed by Brannan at his own expense on the eve of the war with the support of the dignitaries of New York State.

The main source of soldiers for the First Mercenary Corps, in addition to high-paid volunteers recruited from the northern states, is retired European veterans with rich combat experience.

Since the First Mercenary Regiment was a private army, the quality of its soldiers was very high. Brannan, Astor from New York State, Livingston and other old money people were not short of money. The First Mercenary Regiment had already far surpassed the general volunteer corps of the Northern Army in terms of training and equipment level.

The First Mercenary Group is called a regiment, but its actual organization is more luxurious than that of ordinary northern brigades. It has a luxurious configuration of three infantry regiments, one artillery regiment, and half a cavalry regiment.

They were all equipped with Walter M1851 rifles and the Lee-Enfield single-shot rifles that had just been put into service in the UK. As for the artillery equipped by the artillery regiment, they were Armstrong infantry guns that were comparable in level to the Sacramento guns.

If it were before the war, the federal government would never allow such a private armed force to exist, but now is a special period, and the federal government’s biggest concern now is the lack of soldiers available, not the nature of the army.

Before the outbreak of the war, the unit with the strongest private army color was Liang Yao's Western Brigade. Even so, the Western Brigade was still nominally under the command of the Ministry of War and took orders from the Federal President. Of course, this is only in name. Whether the President and the War Department can command the Western Brigade is another matter.

The First Mercenary Regiment went a step further. It was not even within the combat sequence of the federal government's war department, and was completely under the command of Brannan and the traditional aristocratic families of New York State.

"This town has no slavery and looks exactly like a traditional northern village. We can use our money to buy food from them." Looking at the women and children working in the fields, Ames, who still had a conscience, felt a little bit sorry.

For more than a month, the Maine Brigade has been operating together with the First Mercenary Regiment. Having been with these villains for so long, Ames naturally knew what the word supply station meant and what it meant to the residents of Norton Town.

The combined number of the Maine Brigade and the First Mercenary Regiment is as many as 7,500. Northern Kansas is sparsely populated, with no railways, and even the only roads are in very poor condition.

The pitiful supplies that the baggage train brought from Omaha were not enough to feed 7,500 mouths and 1,400 horses.

To make matters worse, according to the latest news, the Yankee's river fleet had defeated their river fleet on the Platte River, and Omaha had lost control of the Platte River waterway. Next they could only get supplies from the unstable situation in Kansas City.

Over the past month or so, they have been eating locally to solve tricky logistical problems.

The so-called local feeding means directly looting settlements to obtain a one-time large amount of supplies, just like the barbaric nomadic tribes in the Middle Ages.

The 7,500-man Maine Brigade and the First Mercenary Regiment were able to maintain their integrity and arrive in the town of Houghton thanks to the villages and towns in northern Kansas.

It's just that the villages and towns where Ames and his companions had previously taken local food were all slave villages and towns, so Ames did not feel much guilt about taking local food.

The village before him seemed to have no black slaves and was no different from the ordinary villages in his hometown of Maine. Ames was moved with sympathy.

Although Ames was not a fool from the bottom of society and was well aware that the root cause of the war was not the existence of slavery but the uneven distribution of economic benefits within the ruling group, the Northern Union ultimately mobilized the people to participate in the war under the banner of abolition, and Ames was very concerned about these superficial issues.

Deep down in his heart, Ames still believed that he was a soldier of the Federation, and that he was fundamentally different from the mercenaries of the First Mercenary Corps. Although the Maine Brigade had done the same as the mercenaries over the past month, he, as the highest commander of the Maine Brigade, was unable to effectively control the behavior of the soldiers.

"General, we don't have that much money to buy supplies. Our brigade only has $18,260 and 25 cents to spend. If we use this money, we won't be able to pay the soldiers next month."

Ames's adjutant Joshua whispered in his ear.

"Nonsense! We clearly robbed and obtained food from so many villages, how could we have no money?!" Ames was furious.

The logistics of the Maine Brigade had always been managed by his adjutant Joshua, a fellow townsman. Ames suspected that Joshua had done something dishonest and betrayed his trust.

"The soldiers handed over all the food, hay, cotton cloth and other things they looted, but they put the money and precious jewelry into their own pockets." Joshua also had his grievances.

The $7 a month salary for Union soldiers was not terrible, but it was not great either. It was just average.

It is completely fine to let them live a life of idleness and wait for death with a monthly salary of $7 and bully the Native Americans, but it is absolutely impossible to let them risk their lives for President Lincoln and the Westerners for the sake of a monthly salary of $7 without giving them any benefits.

Joshua felt that Mr. Brannan and the drunken Colonel Grant next door were more insightful than his superior Ames. Besides, the privates of the First Mercenary Regiment still received a monthly salary of $15.