The reverse-picture, of a regiment ruined by arbitrary strictness and inhuman exaggeration of punishments, may be studied in the records of a court-martial held in the spring of 1813.[259] In this case a commanding officer was found guilty not only of “violent conduct” and “using intemperate and improper language to his officers, being in breach of good discipline, and unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman,” but of inflicting corporal punishment at large without any form of trial, when there were sufficient officers present to form a proper regimental court-martial; of disobeying the direction of the Commander-in-Chief by piling up sentences of flogging passed on men on different occasions, so as to inflict several separate punishments at the same time, and of releasing men sentenced to punishment in order to send them into action, and then returning them to arrest after the battle in order to receive their lashes. This last was specially in conflict with Wellington’s orders, for he held that good conduct in action ought to work out a sentence, pronounced but not inflicted, and that no man convicted of a disgraceful offence ought to be put into line till he had expiated it by undergoing his punishment. This officer was dismissed the service, but, in consideration of a good fighting record in the past, was allowed the value of his commission as major.
One diary from the ranks, that of Donaldson of the 94th, gives a very interesting and complete picture of the fate of a battalion which, by the invaliding of its colonel, had fallen into the hands of a major who had the soul of a tyrant. This was a case of an old ranker who knew too much of soldiers’ tricks, and had a sort of system of espionage through men who were prepared to act as his toadies and secret informers. “By this eaves-dropping he knew all the little circumstances which another commanding officer would have disdained to listen to, and always made a bad use of his knowledge. When he got command of the regiment he introduced flogging for every trivial offence, and in addition invented disgraceful and torturing modes of inflicting the lash. But this was not enough—he ordered that all defaulters should have a patch of black and yellow cloth sewed on to the sleeve of their jacket, and a hole cut in it for every time they were punished. The effect was soon visible: as good men were liable to be punished for the slightest fault, the barrier between them and hardened ill-doers was broken down, and those who had lost respect in their own eyes became broken-hearted and inefficient soldiers, or else grew reckless and launched out into real crime. Those who were hardened and unprincipled before, being brought by the prevalence of punishments nearer to a level with the better men, seemed to glory in misconduct. In short, all idea of honour and character was lost, and listless apathy and bad conduct became the prevailing features of the corps. Reckless punishment changed the individual’s conduct in two ways—he either became broken-hearted and useless, or else shameless and hardened.... The real method of accomplishing the desired end of keeping good discipline, is for the officers to make themselves acquainted with the personal character and disposition of each man under their command. A commanding officer has as good a right to make himself acquainted with the disposition of his men, as the medical officer with their constitutions.”[260] When the colonel came back from sick leave he was shocked to find the men he had been so proud of treated in this manner. His first act was to cut off the yellow badge; his second to do away with the frequent punishments. But though the regiment was again on a fair footing, it was long before the effect of a few months’ ill-usage disappeared.
Good-Conduct Medals
What certain misguided officers tried to maintain by a reign of terror, was sought in other ways by wiser men. It is to the Peninsular War period that we owe the first of our “Long Service and Good Conduct” medals—all at first regimental, and not given by the State. Honorary distinctions for the well-conducted man are both a more humane and a more rational form of differentiation between good and bad than the black and yellow badge for every man punished for any cause, which the detestable major quoted above tried to introduce.[261] In addition some regiments instituted a division of the men into classes, of which the best behaved had graduated privileges and benefits. Any man after a certain period of certified good conduct could be moved up into a higher class, and the emulation not to be left among the recognized black-sheep had a very good effect.[262] But even without “classes” or good-conduct medals, the best could be got out of any regiment by wise and considerate conduct on the part of the officers. There were corps where the lash was practically unknown,[263] and others where it had only been felt by a very small minority of hopeless irreclaimables.
On the other hand, there is a record or two of punishments in a unit, inflicted by officers who do not seem to have been regarded by public opinion as specially tyrannical or heartless, which fills the reader with astonishment. I have analysed the list of men noted for chastisement in one battery of artillery, where on an effective of 4 sergeants and 136 rank and file, three of the former had been “broken,” and 57 of the latter had received punishments varying downwards from 500 lashes, in the space of twelve months (July, 1812, to July, 1813), over which the record extends. Though some of the offences were serious enough, there were others for which the use of the cat appears altogether misplaced and irrational. As an observer in another corps wrote “the frequency of flogging at one time had the effect of blinding the judgment of officers who possessed both feeling and discrimination. I have known one who shed tears when his favourite horse was injured, and next day exulted in seeing a poor wretch flogged whose offence was being late in delivering an order.”
Floggings were inflicted by the drummers of the regiment, under the superintendence of the drum-major and the adjutant. The culprit was bound by his extended arms to two of three sergeants’ halberds, planted in the ground in a triangle, and lashed together at the top. The strokes were inflicted at the tap of a drum beaten in slow time. Each of the wielders of the cat retired after having given twenty-five lashes. The surgeon was always present, to certify that the man’s life was not in danger by the further continuance of the punishment, and the prisoner was taken down the moment that the medical man declared that he could stand no more. Often this interference saved a culprit from the end of his punishment, as if the tale was fairly complete he might never be called upon to undergo the balance. But in grave cases the prisoner was merely sent into hospital till he was sufficiently convalescent to endure the payment of the remainder of his account. Inhuman commanding officers sometimes refused to allow of any abatement, even when the crime had not been a very serious one, and insisted that the whole sentence should be executed, even if the culprit had to go twice into hospital before it was completed.
A Memory of a Flogging
The autobiographical record of a flogging is rather rare—the diarist in the ranks was generally a steady sort of fellow, who did not get into the worst trouble. The following may serve as an example, however. It is that of William Lawrence of the 1/40th, who in 1809 was a private, though he won his sergeant’s stripes in 1813.
“I absented myself without leave from guard for twenty-four hours, and when I returned I found I was in a fine scrape, for I was immediately put in the guard-room. It was my first offence, but that did not screen me much, and I was sentenced to 400 lashes. I found the regiment assembled all ready to witness my punishment: the place chosen for it was the square of a convent. As soon as I had been brought up by the guard, the sentence of the court-martial was read over to me by the colonel, and I was told to strip, which I did firmly, and without using the help that was offered me, as I had by that time got hardened to my lot. I was then lashed to the halberds, and the colonel gave the order for the drummers to commence, each one having to give me twenty-five lashes in turn. I bore it very well until I had received 175, when I got so enraged with the pain that I began pushing the halberds, which did not stand at all firm (being planted on stones), right across the square, amid the laughter of the regiment. The colonel, I suppose thinking then that I had had sufficient, ‘ordered the sulky rascal down’ in those very words. Perhaps a more true word could not have been spoken, for indeed I was sulky. I did not give vent to a sound the whole time, though the blood ran down my trousers from top to bottom. I was unbound, and a corporal hove my shirt and jacket over my shoulder, and convoyed me to hospital, presenting as miserable a picture as I possibly could.
“Perhaps it was as good a thing for me as could then have happened, as it prevented me from committing greater crimes, which might at last have brought me to my ruin. But I think a good deal of that punishment might have been abandoned, with more credit to those who then ruled the army.”[264] Yet to be absent twenty-four hours when on guard was certainly a serious crime.