Disgraced! or how to lose your shoulder straps

 During the Civil War, a commissioned officer could be stripped of his commission for particularly heinous offenses such as cowardice in the face of the enemy, inciting mutiny, committing rape, and defrauding the government or his men among many other crimes. Today’s blog post looks at a couple of instances of lower echelon commissioned officers who were stripped of their rank in a very public fashion.

Forms of public humiliation as depicted above were common forms of Army punishment for enlisted men, among them the soldier being bucked on the lower right, the soldier tied to a tree, another carrying a log, while a fourth stands atop a barrel. Commissioned officers, supposedly held to a higher standard of conduct, were usually given less public forms of punishment. 

          The first case involves Second Lieutenant George M. Burnett of Co. F of the 145th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. This 100-day regiment mustered into service June 9, 1864 and was sent to Schofield Barracks at St. Louis, Missouri where it performed a multitude of rear area duties.  Burnett was all of 21 years old when he was commissioned second lieutenant and it was his inexperience that led to his trouble. “While officer of the guard, he left his post in company with several men of his company and entered the premises of a German gardener named Bradermus for the purpose of robbing his orchard. While there, one of the men shot and killed Bradermus with a musket,” it was reported. Burnett, a resident of Marion, Williamson Co., Illinois, “is said by his comrades to be an excellent young man, of a gentle disposition, and not at all disposed to shirk from the performance of his duty. His desertion of his post and raid upon the apple orchard was a thoughtless country boy’s frolic and it is said that he ordered the soldiers not to fire upon the German.”

          Regardless, it was determined that Burnett was an accessory to murder and he was ordered stripped of his rank. “He was marched out by a corporal’s guard at dress parade and the orders read condemned him to be dishonorably dismissed from the service, to forfeit his pay, and to have all military insignia stripped from his in the presence of the regiment after which he was to be conducted to Myrtle Street prison and held in confinement as accessory to the crime of murder. After the orders were read, one of privates drew forth an old “hawk-bill” penknife, severed the cord on the lieutenant’s hat, nipped his shoulder straps in the bud, and winged the golden eagles that had perched upon his coat. The young man bore his disgrace in silence, but he must have felt his degradation deeply.” The Illinois State Adjutant’s office shows, however, that Lieutenant Burnett was honorably discharged with the regiment on September 23, 1864, so one is led to suspect that he was cleared of the charges and restored to rank.

          No such luck for a German officer of the 54th New York Infantry. It was Tuesday May 27, 1862 at Mooresfield, Virginia; the 54th New York was part of Colonel Henry Bohlen’s Third Brigade of General Louis Blenker’s division attached to General John C. Fremont’s Mountain Department. The Blenkers already were rapidly gaining an unsavory reputation for depredations upon the citizens of Virginia, and the 54th New York was no exception. But what landed Captain Charles Wahle of Co. I in hot water was not mistreatment of the civilians, it was mutiny!

This soldier is spending the afternoon "riding the rail" while carrying an ungainly wooden sword. Public humiliation was one way the army tried to get the highly independent-minded volunteer soldiers under control; one wonders how successful it really was if post-war reminiscences are to be believed.

          “At West Point, Virginia, Co. I of the 54th New York Vols was color company and the colonel (Eugene A. Kozlay) wished to assign the colors to another company. At dress parade, Captain Wahle refused to parade his company and even stacked arms and told the men to refuse to take them,” it was reported. “He was arrested, tried  by court martial for mutiny, convicted, and would have been shot had not General McClellan commuted his sentence," it was reported.

          “The ceremony took place in a large field. The regiments were formed into columns of divisions each column close to the next so that it made an unbroken front. They were then formed into a hollow square, the commanders of regiments, brigades, and divisions and staff were in the center. The prisoner was brought in under a heavy guard and handcuffed. They marched him to the center of the square. The prisoner stepped two paces to the front of the guard; the officer commanding the guard then came forward and told the prisoner to take off his hat. He then read in a loud voice the charges specified and sentence of the court martial which was ‘That his sword be broken before his face, that he be publicly disgraced before the division, and served one year in the District of Columbia jail, and it shall be disgraceful for any soldier of the Army of the Potomac to associate with him hereafter.’ After this was read, a sergeant came forward and cut all the buttons from his coat, then took his sword and broke it in half saying as he did so, ‘I hereby declare it disgraceful for all men of the Potomac to associate with this man hereafter,’ and then threw the pieces on the ground. The prisoner was marched off under the same guard,” it was reported. Wahle’s separation from the army was apparently more permanent than Burnett’s, but the New York state adjutant general’s records show that he was not dismissed until March 14, 1863.

Colonel Kozlay reported all sorts of problems with the officers of the 54th New York. “What a trouble I have with the officers. I have to see to everything myself. Such a neglect I never saw in my life; if I am not after them at all hours, nothing is done,” he reported in May 1862. If Wahle’s example is any indicator of morale, life with the 54th New York in 1862 was filled with drama. In the aftermath of the Battle of Cross Keys, Kozlay reported that Colonel Bohlen charged General Blenker with incompetency, and Blenker charged Bohlen with cowardice. After one of his soldiers was shot by a soldier in the 58th New York due to carelessness, Kozlay complained that  “No wonder, there is no head or tail in this army. I, for my part, don’t trust any of them, not even my own officers are far as veracity goes,” he wrote.  Colonel Kozlay later discovered that several of his officers had filed false musters and when he brought the matter to the attention of the War Department, nothing was done. Matters became so bad that Colonel Kozlay ended up resigning his commission in early 1863, refusing to any longer associate with such a “dishonest lot of men.”

 

Sources:

“A Warning to Young Officers,” Belvidere Standard (Illinois), August 9, 1864, pg. 1

“Disgracing an Officer in the Presence of the Army,” Belvidere Standard (Illinois), July 1, 1862, pg. 1 (originally reported in the Philadelphia North American)

Service Diary of Colonel Eugene A. Kozlay, https://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/civil/infantry/54thInf/54thInfKozlayJournal1.htm

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on their way to
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true warrior, for then comes the harvest of gain.
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of how Confederate jacke
Read more

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Maryland, performing provost duty at Cumberlan
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on securing all the Enfi
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my
Read more

Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign

Image
  T he following list, constructed after many years of research, lists unit by unit which type of weapons were carried by the Army of the Cumberland during the Stones River campaign. A number of sources were consulted including state ordnance reports, Federal quarterly ordnance reports (thank you Research Arsenal ), Ken Baumann’s Arming the Suckers, regimental histories and memoirs, captured ordnance reports, and consultation with knowledgeable experts in the field of firearms. Some of this information has been shared on the blog before in “ Rosy’s Heavy Metal: Artillery of the Army of the Cumberland ” or “ Shoulder Arms: How Sheridan’s and Davis’s Divisions Were Armed at Stones River ” but this is the first time the army as a whole has been presented. The overall conclusion I drew from looking at this data is that the Army of the Cumberland in December 1862 was an organization in the midst of transformation as far as arms. Many of the regiments still retained their original issue
Read more

Cook & Brother of New Orleans

Image
    The lockplate of a New Orleans-made Cook & Brother Enfield rifle produced in 1862 shows the fine craftsmanship that became the hallmark of the maker throughout the Civil War. Note the stars and bars flag at left, an emblem used on C&B's production throughout the war and the Cook & Brother, N.O. 1862 markings. Earlier production weapons at New Orleans had the flag located just above the maker's name while later weapons produced in Athens, Georgia would have a modified flag and Athens on the plate followed by the serial number.        In the spring of 1861, two English-born businessmen, Ferdinand and Francis Cook of New Orleans, perceived the need for the South to have its own domestic production of firearms and  set out to prove "that rifles could made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe." The brothers  elected to produce copies of the British Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield rifle as this was considered the benchmark longarm at the outset of the
Read more

Revisiting Snodgrass Hill: Memories of a 21st Ohio Officer

Image
Captain Isaac Cusac, Co. G, 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry proudly displaying his rank as captain in an image likely dating from early 1863. One of his shoulder straps was shot off in the final stages of the 21st Ohio's fight atop Snodgrass Hill on September 20, 1863. Cusac brought it back to Chickamauga 50 years later.  I n September 1913, 83-year-old Isaac Cusac, a retired Presbyterian minister from the little town of McComb, Ohio, returned to Chattanooga to attend the national G.A.R. encampment. The former captain of the 21 st Ohio returned to Snodgrass Hill on the old Chickamauga battlefield on the 50 th anniversary of the battle carrying with him a precious relic of his wartime experiences. “He carried with him there an epaulet that was shot from his shoulder at the battle,” it was reported. “The bullet clipped off the epaulet and then struck him on the left hand, injuring two fingers.”           The flood of memories as he walked the grounds must have been overwhelming. The f
Read more