The Life of Johnny Reb by Bell Irvin Wiley

Author:Bell Irvin Wiley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2008-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Courtesy Confederate Museum, Richmond, Virginia

THE MISSOURI ARMY ARGUS

Camp newspaper issued for and by soldiers of General Sterling Price’s Command.

Courtesy Military Records Division, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama

THE PIONEER BANNER

Front page of manuscript newspaper issued by soldiers in camp.

Fortunately for Confederate discipline other judiciaries treated the offense more seriously. In 1862 a trans-Mississippi court-martial imposed a sentence of hard labor, with an eighteen-pound ball attached to the leg for the remainder of the war, and then dishonorable discharge.13 Courts of Lee’s army during the last six months of the war meted out such punishments as these: solitary confinement for fourteen days with bread and water diet; six months at hard labor; three months’ imprisonment in the guardhouse with ball and chain; in three cases the death sentence was imposed, but interposition of Lee and the Secretary of War forestalled execution. The writer found no instance of a soldier being shot for sleeping at his post.14

For drunkenness while guarding prisoners at Tullahoma, Tennessee, in January 1863 Private Henry Jones was required to stand on the head of a barrel with a whiskey bottle hanging from his neck two hours each day for a month, and while not thus engaged to do hard labor.15 But as a general rule cases of excessive drinking seem to have been disposed of informally without resort to court proceedings. In innumerable instances, however, intoxication was a contributing factor to some offense that did merit the consideration of judicial agencies. For instance, Sergeants Jules Freret and Gustave Aime, who made the mistake of demanding a drink of their captain and then proceeding to cut the ropes of his tent when refused, were given court-martial sentence of reduction of rank, fifteen turns of guard duty, and thirty days’ confinement to camp.16

Theft and pillaging were, as previously noted, offenses of unusual prevalence, and punishments for them were of great diversity. A Texas private who stole a shirt from a comrade was sentenced to be placarded with the word “thief,” mounted face backward on a mule with his feet tied under the animal’s belly and paraded before his brigade to the accompaniment of discordant music of drums and bugles.17 An Alabamian who helped himself to a citizen’s honey was required to forfeit a month’s pay, and during four hours of each day for ten days to stand on a conspicuously placed barrel wearing a board marked “bee hive.”18 One of Hood’s soldiers who stole a saddle on the Tennessee campaign was made to march before his comrades with a large placard pinned on his breast and a saddle tied to his back.19 Other thieves were given ball-and-chain assignments for periods of one to six months, or imprisoned with forfeiture of pay for varying lengths of time; in rare instances they were suspended by their thumbs for an hour or two with feet barely touching the ground.20

The punishment prescribed most frequently of all for pilfering was the barrel shirt. This consisted of an ordinary barrel, with openings at the

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