In different sections of the army, various expedients were resorted to for the purpose of correcting minor offences. What particular shape the punishment should assume depended very much upon the inventive faculty of the Field and Staff, or of such officers of the line as might have charge of the case.
Before taking the field, a few citizen sneak-thieves were discovered prowling amongst the tents. These were promptly drummed out of camp to the tune of the "Rogue's March," the whole regiment shouting in derision as the miserable fellows took to their heels when the procession reached the limits of the camp, where they were told to begone and never show their faces in camp any more, on pain of a more severe treatment.
Drumming Sneak-Thieves out of Camp.
If, as very seldom happened, it was an enlisted man who was caught stealing, he was often punished in the following way: A barrel, having one end knocked out and a hole in the other large enough to allow one's head to go through, was slipped over the culprit's shoulders. On the outside of the barrel the word THIEF! was printed in large letters. In this dress he presented the ludicrous appearance of an animated meal-barrel; for you could see nothing of him but his head and legs, his hands being very significantly confined. Sometimes he was obliged to stand or sit (as best he could) about the guard-house, or near by the colonel's quarters, all day long. At other times he was compelled to march through the company streets and make the tour of the camp under guard.
Once in the field, however, sneak-thieves soon disappeared. Nor was there frequent occasion to punish the men for any other offences. Nearly, if not quite all of the punishments inflicted in the field were for disobedience in some form or other. Not that the men were wilfully disobedient. Far from it. They knew very well that they must obey, and that the value of their services was measured wholly by the quality of their obedience. It very rarely happened, even amid the greatest fatigue after a hard day's march, or in the face of the most imminent danger, that any one refused his duty. But after a long and severe march, a man is so completely exhausted that he is likely to become irritable and to manifest a temper quite foreign to his usual habit. He is then not himself, and may in such circumstances do what at other times he would not think of doing.
Thus it once happened in my own company that one of the boys took it into his head to kick over the traces. We had had a long hot day's march through Maryland on the way down from Gettysburg, and were quite worn out. About midnight we halted in a clover field on a hillside for rest and sleep. Corporal Harter, who was the only officer, commissioned or non-commissioned, that we had left to us after Gettysburg, called out:
"John D——, report to the adjutant for camp guard."
Now John, who was a German, by the way, did not like the prospect of losing his sleep, and had to be summoned a second time before replying: