Curious Punishments of Bygone DaysEarle, Alice Morse
History
Curious Punishments of Bygone Days
Earle, Alice Morse
Punishment -- United States -- History -- 17th century; Punishment -- United States -- History -- 18th century
Various tiresome or grotesque punishments were employed. Delinquent
soldiers in Winthrop's day were sentenced to carry a large number of
turfs to the Fort; others were chained to a wheelbarrow. In 1778 among
the Continental soldiers as in our Civil War, culprits were chained to a
log or clog of wood; this weight often was worn four days. One soldier
for stealing cordage was sentenced to "wear a clogg for four days and
wear his coat rong side turn'd out." A deserter from the battle of
Bunker Hill was tied to a horse's tail, lead around the camp and
whipped. Other deserters were set on a horse with face to the horse's
tail, and thus led around the camp in derision.
There was one curious punishment in use in the army during our Civil War
which, though not, of course, of colonial times, may well be mentioned
since it was a revival of a very ancient punishment. It is thus
described by the author of a paper written in 1862 and called _A Look at
the Federal Army_:
"I was extremely amused to see a rare specimen of Yankee invention in
the shape of an original method of punishment drill. One wretched
delinquent was gratuitously framed in oak, his head being thrust through
a hole cut in one end of a barrel, the other end of which had been
removed, and the poor fellow loafed about in the most disconsolate
manner, looking for all the world like a half-hatched chicken."
I have made careful inquiry among officers and soldiers who served in
the late war, and I find this instance, which occurred in Virginia, was
not exceptional. A lieutenant in the Maine infantry volunteers wrote on
July 13, 1863, from Cape Parapet, about two miles above New Orleans:
"We have had some drunkenness but not so much as when we were in other
places; two of my company were drunk, and the next day I had a hole cut
in the head of a barrel, and put a placard on each side to tell the
bearer that 'I am wearing this for getting drunk,' and with this they
marched through the streets of the regiment four hours each. I don't
believe they will get drunk again very soon."
The officer who wrote the above adds to-day:
"This punishment was not original with me, as I had read of its being
done in the Army of the Potomac, and I asked permission of the colonel
to try it, the taking away of a soldier's pay by court-martial having
little permanent effect. In those cases one of the men quit drinking,
and years afterward thanked me for having cured him of the habit, saying
he had never drank a drop of liquor since he wore the barrel-shirt."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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