There undoubtedly were Shylocks among them, and they often had a hard time of it; and this leads me to speak of another risk that sutlers had to assume—the risk of being raided—or “cleaned out,” to quote the language of the expressive army slang. This meant the secret organization of a party of men in a regiment to fall upon a sutler in the darkness of night, throw down his tent, help themselves liberally to whatever they wanted, and then get back speedily and quietly to quarters. It did not do to carry stolen goods to the tents, for the next day was likely to see a detachment of men, accompanied by the sutler, searching the quarters for the missing property. Sometimes this raiding was done in a spirit of mischief, by unprincipled men, sometimes to get satisfaction for what they considered his exorbitant charges. Sometimes the officers of a regiment sympathized in such a movement, if they thought the sutler’s exactions deserved a rebuke. When this was the case, it was no easy task to find the criminals, for the officers were very blind and stupid, or, if the culprits were detected, they were quietly reminded that if they were foolish enough to get caught they must suffer the penalty. But sutlers, like other people, profited by the teachings of experience, and, if they had faults, soon mended them, so that late in the war they rarely found it necessary to beg deliverance from their friends.
The following incident came under my own knowledge in the winter of ’64, while the Artillery Brigade of the Third Corps lay encamped in the edge of a pine woods near Brandy Station, Virginia. Just in rear of the Tenth Battery camp, near company headquarters, the brigade sutler had erected his tent, and every wagon-load of his supplies passed through this camp under the eyes of any one who cared to take note. A load of this description was thus inspected on a particular occasion, and while the wagon was standing in front of the tent waiting to be unloaded, and without special guarding, an always thirsty veteran stole up to it, seized upon a case of whiskey, said to have been destined for a battery commander, and was off in a jiffy. Less than three minutes elapsed before the case was missed. At once the captain of the company was notified, who immediately gave his instructions to the officer of the day. The bugler blew the Assembly, summoning every man into line; and every man had to be there or be otherwise strictly accounted for by his sergeant. What it all meant no one apparently knew. Meanwhile, two lieutenants and the orderly were carrying on a thorough search of the men’s quarters. When it was completed, the orderly returned to the line, and the company was dismissed, in a curious frame of mind as to the cause of all the stir. This soon leaked out, as did also the fact that no trace of the missing property had been discovered. All was again quiet along the Potomac, except when the culprit and his coterie waxed a little noisy over imbibitions of ardent mysteriously obtained, and not until after the close of the war was the mystery made clear.
It seems that as soon as he had seized his prize he passed swiftly down through the camp to the picket rope, where the horses were tied, and there, in a pile of manure thrown up behind them, quickly concealed the case, and, at the bugle signal, was prompt to fall into line. Under cover of darkness, the same night, the plunder was taken from the manure-heap and carried to a hill in front of the camp, where it was buried in a manner which would not disclose it to the casual traveller, and yet leave it easily accessible to its unlawful possessor, and here he resorted periodically for a fresh supply, until it was exhausted.
I have quoted a few of the prices charged by sutlers. Here are a few of the prices paid by people in Richmond, during the latter part of the war, in Confederate money:—
Potatoes $80 a bushel; a chicken $50; shad $50 per pair; beef $15 a pound; bacon $20 a pound; butter $20 a pound; flour $1500 a barrel; meal $140 a bushel; beans $65 a bushel; cow-peas $80 a bushel; hard wood $50 a cord; green pine $80 a cord; and a dollar in gold was worth $100 in Confederate money.
CHAPTER XII.
FORAGING.
Can we all forget the foraging the boys were prone to do,
As with problematic rations we were marching Dixie through;