re: #133 ckkatz

Back when the Army would pay their enlisted in cash, there was a system of which denominations dollar bills to give to each soldier.

If the payroll officer followed the system, he would have exactly the right number of bills in the correct denominations. Many in the Army viewed that as almost magic.

If he didn’t… well.. everybody found out very quickly who couldn’t follow a simple plan.

Yes—that’s what we were doing on the truck, picking up the monthly pay for the main post agent officers. Somebody probably did the math during the Civil War.