Hardtack and coffee

by John Davis Billings

First came the provost-marshal,—the sheriff of the army,—mounted; next, the band playing (what to me from its associations has now come to be the saddest of all tunes) Pleyel’s Hymn, even sadder than the Dead March in “Saul,” which I heard less frequently; then followed twelve armed men, who were deployed diagonally across the open end of the space, after the procession had completed its round, to guard against any attempt the prisoner might make to escape; fourth in order came four men bearing the coffin, followed by the prisoner, attended by a chaplain, and a single guard on either side; next, a shooting detachment of twelve men. Eleven of these had muskets loaded with ball, while the twelfth had a blank cartridge in his musket; but as the muskets had been loaded beforehand by an officer, and mixed up afterwards, no one knew who had possession of the musket with the blank cartridge, so that each man, if he wanted it, had the benefit of a faint hope, at least, that his was the musket loaded without ball. After these marched an additional shooting force of six, to act in case the twelve should fail in the execution of their duty.

P, prisoner; C, coffin; G, grave; F, firing party; R, reserve firing party; E, twelve guards.

When the slow and solemn round had been completed, the prisoner was seated on an end of his coffin, which had been placed in the centre of the open end of the rectangle, near his grave. The chaplain then made a prayer, and addressed a few words to the condemned man, which were not audible to any one else, and followed them by another brief prayer. The provost-marshal next advanced, bound the prisoner’s eyes with a handkerchief, and read the general order for the execution. He then gave the signal for the shooting party to execute their orders. They did so, and a soul passed into eternity. Throwing his arms convulsively into the air, he fell back upon his coffin but made no further movement, and a surgeon who stood near, upon examination, found life to be extinct. The division was then marched past the corpse, off the field, and the sad scene was ended.

DEATH OF A DESERTER.

I afterwards saw a deserter from the First Division of the Second Corps meet his end in the same way, down before Petersburg, in the summer of 1864. These were the only exhibitions of this sort that I ever witnessed, although there were others that took place not far from my camp. The artillery was brigaded by itself in 1864 and 1865, and artillerymen were not then compelled to attend executions which took place in the infantry.

Here is a story of another deserter and spy, who was shot in or near Indianapolis in 1863. He had enlisted in the Seventy-First Indiana Infantry. Not long afterwards he deserted and went over to the enemy, but soon reappeared in the Union lines as a Rebel spy. While in this capacity he was captured and taken to the headquarters of General Henry B. Carrington, who was then in command of this military district. He indignantly protested his innocence of the charge, but a thorough search for evidence of his treachery was begun. His coat was first taken and cut into narrow strips and carefully scrutinized, to assure that it contained nothing suspicious. One by one, the rest of his garments were examined and thrown aside, until at last he stood naked before his captors with no evidence of his guilt having been discovered. He was then requested to don a suit of clothes that was brought in. This he did, and then triumphantly demanded his release. But the General told him to keep cool, as the search was not yet completed; that full justice should be done him whether guilty or innocent. Taking up the trousers again, the General noticed that one of the spring-bottoms was a little stiffer than the other, and on further investigation with his scissors, sure enough, carefully sewed in under the buckram, found a pass from the Rebel General Kirby Smith.

At this discovery the culprit dropped on his knees, and begged for his life. He was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be hanged—hanging is the penalty for treason, shooting being considered too honorable a death for traitors. But General Carrington, wishing the influence of the execution to be exerted as a check against desertion, which was very common, decided that he should be shot. It is customary to detail the shooting squad from the company to which the deserter belongs. But so enraged were the members of this man’s company at his offence that they sent a unanimous request that the entire company might act as firing party. This request was refused, however, and a detail of fifteen men made for that purpose. But whereas it is usual for the sergeant in charge of such a detail to load the muskets himself, putting blank cartridges into one, two, or three of the muskets, on this occasion the men were allowed to load for themselves, and when the surgeon examined the lifeless body he found fifteen bullets in it, showing that each one of the fifteen men had felt it to be his duty to shoot his former comrade, and that he had conscientiously acted up to that duty.

Shocking and solemn as such scenes were, I do not believe that the shooting of a deserter had any great deterring influence on the rank and file; for the opportunities to get away safely were most abundant. Indeed, any man who was base enough to desert his flag could almost choose his time for doing it. The wife of a man in my own company brought him a suit of citizen’s clothing to desert in, which he availed himself of later; but citizen’s clothes, even, were not always necessary to ensure safety for deserters. When a man’s honor failed to hold him in the ranks, his exit from military life in the South was easy enough.