Strapped to A stick. |
[154]
solid and reliable as the old Grecian Phalanx.
Punishments in such regiments were rare, for manliness and self-respect were never crushed out by tyrants in miniature.
The character of the officers had so much to do with determining the nature and amount of the punishments in the army that I consider what I have thrown in here as germane to the subject of this chapter.
It should be said, in justice to both officers and privates, that the first two years of the war, when the exactions of the service were new, saw three times the number of punishments administered in the two subsequent years; but, aside
from the getting accustomed to the restraints of the service, campaigning was more continuous in the later years, and this kept both mind and body occupied.
It is inactivity which makes the growler's paradise.
Then, in the last years of the war the rigors of military discipline, the sharing of common dangers and hardships, and promotions from the ranks, had narrowed the gap between officers and privates so that the chords of mutual sympathy were stronger than before, and trivial offences were slightly rebuked or passed unnoticed.
At the beginning of the war many generals were very fearful lest some of the acts of the common soldier should give offence to the Southern people.
This encouraged the latter to report every chicken lost, every bee-hive borrowed, every rail burnt, to headquarters, and subordinates were required to institute the most thorough search for evidence
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