Sometimes double guard-duty was ordered for a man on account of an omission or act of his while on guard. This punishment gave him four hours on and two off his post or beat instead of the reverse. His offence may have been failing or refusing to salute his superior officer. It may have been that he was not properly equipped. It may have been for being found off his beat, or for leaving it without having been properly relieved; or he may have failed in his duty when the “Grand Rounds” appeared.
ON THE SPARE WHEEL.
When non-commissioned officers sinned, which they did sometimes, they were punished by being reduced to the ranks.
In some organizations gambling was not allowed, in others it was carried on by both officers and privates. In one command, at least, where this vice was interdicted, culprits in the ranks were punished by having one-half of the head shaved—a most humiliating and effective punishment.
ON A WOODEN HORSE.
Then “back talk,” as it was commonly called, which, interpreted, means answering a superior officer insolently, was a prolific cause of punishments. It did not matter in some organizations who the officer was, from colonel or captain to the last corporal, to hear was to obey, and under such discipline the men became the merest puppets. In theory, such a regiment was the perfect military machine, where every man was in complete subordination to one master mind. But the value of such a machine, after all, depended largely upon the kind of a man the ruling spirit was, and whether he associated his inflexibility of steel with the justice of Aristides. If he did that, then was it indeed a model organization; but such bodies were rare, for the conditions were wanting to make them abundant. The master mind was too often tyrannical and abusive, either by nature, or from having been suddenly clothed with a little brief authority over men. And often when nature, if left to herself, would have made him a good commander, an excessive use of “commissary” interfered to prevent, and the subordinates of such a leader, many of them appointed by his influence, would naturally partake of his characteristics; so that such regiments, instead of standing solidly on all occasions, were weakened as a fighting body by a lack of confidence in and personal respect for their leaders, and by a hatred begotten of unjust treatment. Hundreds of officers were put in commission through influence at court, wealth or personal influence deciding appointments that should have been made solely on the basis of merit. At the beginning of the war it was inevitable that the officers should have been inexperienced and uninstructed in the details of warfare, but later this condition changed, and the service would have been strengthened and materially improved by promoting men who had done honorable service and shown good conduct in action, to commissions in new regiments. It is true that such was the intent and partial practice in some States, but the governors, more or less from necessity, took the advice of some one who was a warm personal friend of the applicant, so that shoulder-straps, instead of being always conferred for gallant conduct in the front rank, were sometimes a mark of distinguished prowess in the mule-train or the cook-house, which seemed to maintain readier and more influential communication with the appointing power at the rear than was had by the men who stood nearest to the enemy.
IN THE SWEAT-BOX.