This was true of most of the armies during the Civil War. And as the Northern armies pushed into the Confederacy, more and more of those camp followers became Blacks.
But Frank referred to the post Civil War military (1869) and there weren't many camp followers out West.
You’re right. I was just adding a little trivia.
Actually, I'm curious about military laundry throughout the history of warfare.
I just never thought about it, until yesterday.
What I'm thinking about are those black-and-white photographs of American soldiers parading into the Rhineland in 1918, or through the streets of Paris in 1944. They all look so clean, so well-dressed, so spiffed, reeking of eau de cologne, clean-shaven, all tided up.
But just some days or hours before, they were all muddy and bedraggled and their attire ripped and torn.
This is why I, a professional civilian, assumed there was some sort of haberdashery-on-wheels, which followed the front lines, exchanging dirty uniforms for clean ones, and then sending the dirty ones way back from the front lines to be cleaned, and then distributed again.
Remember, for a professional civilian, it's the ordinary everyday things in military life that seem the most interesting.