Curmudgeons, Drunkards, and Outright Fools: Courts-Martial of Civil War Union ColonelsDuring the Civil War, a Union colonel was five times more likely to be court-martialed than a private. Worse, courts-martial of all ranks increased by 400 percent in the winter months. Among the court-martialed transgressors presented in this volume are an officer nicknamed ?Stumpy? because he tended to hide behind tree stumps during combat and a man tried for calling his superior a ?miserable reptile.? The gallery of offenders also includes a Vermont colonel who became a chloroform addict and a New York colonel who rode his horse into a barroom, ordered a brandy for himself and one for his horse, then fired his pistol through the ceiling. The stories of fifty misdeeds, along with a statistical exploration of twenty-two thousand other courts-martial, provide a pioneering study of the little-known world of Civil War misbehavior and clarify the often-bewildering dynamics between volunteer soldiers and their professional superiors. |
Contents
The Refiners Fire | 1 |
The Refiners Fire 1 C C Brand Roman Military Law p 27 | 6 |
Brand p 110 | 9 |
One Flames at Buckroe Farm | 11 |
Two A Colonel Bucked and Gagged | 17 |
Four An Oppressive and Insulting Act | 25 |
Eleven | 30 |
Six Got for Dam | 34 |
TwentySeven | 121 |
TwentyEight Malaria and Hemorrhoids | 127 |
ThirtyOne Unceasing and Tyrannical Abuse | 141 |
ThirtyThree Bad Water or Bad Faith? | 148 |
ThirtyFive Baa Like a Sheep | 155 |
ThirtySix The Russian Thunderbolt | 161 |
ThirtyEight Five Cartridges per | 167 |
ThirtyNine I Have Been Ruptured | 173 |
Seven And a Brandy for my Horse | 40 |
Nine I Will See You Damned | 47 |
Ibid p | 58 |
Twelve | 61 |
Ibid 15 Ibid p | 62 |
Ibid p | 63 |
Ibid p | 67 |
Fourteen | 70 |
Col William Bishop | 77 |
Seventeen | 83 |
Nineteen | 90 |
TwentyOne | 98 |
TwentyTwo | 104 |
TwentyFive | 111 |
FortyOne The Worst Colonel I Ever Saw | 182 |
FortyThree Sense Enough to Come in Out of the Rain | 191 |
FortyFive Sick at Astor House | 197 |
FortySeven Goddamn Dutch Hounds | 204 |
FortyNine Damned Fool and Illiterate Whelp | 213 |
Epilogue | 219 |
The Index Project Inc | 226 |
Tables Graphs | 236 |
Luther C West They Call It Justice p 23 | 246 |
Notes | 247 |
Chapter 1 | 249 |
Thomas Kearny General Philip Kearny p 316 E M Woodward History of the Third Pennsylvania Reserve p 124 | 250 |
Common terms and phrases
accused adjutant Ahna arrest Article of War August Ballier battle Beck Brig brigade camp Capt Captain Captain Power Cavalry charges Colonel Knobelsdorff Colonel Lawler Colonel Miles Colonel Potter Colonel Taggart Colonel Taylor Colonel Williams command commission Company conduct unbecoming Confederate court court-martial damned defense dismissed drill drunk drunkenness duty Edwin Hayes enemy Fort Sumter Gazley gentleman guard guilty Halleck headquarters horse Illinois Infantry intoxicated John judge advocate July Kerrigan later Lieutenant Colonel Louis Arsenal MacGregor major March martial McClellan McCluskey Missouri months mustered O'Keefe offi Ohio order and military pension privates punished Quinn rank recalled records regiment replied resignation returned seems sentence September sergeant sick Silas Casey Smithton soldiers specifications surgeon sword Taggart Tarbell tent testified testimony told trial troops Turchin U.S. ARMY U.S. ARMY MILITARY unbecoming an officer Union Villiers Virginia Volunteers Wilson witness wounded wrote York Zandt