About straggling, and stragglers.

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

Hey folks, I was wondering if there was a protocol for straggling and stragglers amongst the Armies? Some marches could be brutal and I bet it wasn't uncommon for soldiers to give out. Was there any general concensus about how to handle this? I've heard in passing that some officers would point their pistols at men to encourage them to move, but taking that a step further by shooting them seemed like a terrible idea that could set off a muntiny, so I doubt it happend. Was there anyway to avoid straggling?

Thoughts?

 

[Nathan Stuart]

From what I've read, straggling was very commonplace, especially as the War continued.

 

[major bill]

Provost units would often follow marching armies to sweep up strangers and return then to their regiments. This would have been more common in Union armies who could afford enough manpower to have large provost units.

 

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

From what I've read, straggling was very commonplace, especially as the War continued.

I wonder what the average number per march was.

 

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

Provost units would often follow marching armies to sweep up strangers and return then to their regiments. This would have been more common in Union armies who could afford enough manpower to have large provost units.

I didn't know this. Interesting.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

This is from Life in Southern Prisons by Corporal Charles Smedley, Co. G, 90th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers.
He seems to have had difficulty keeping up on the marches, but has no trouble from his officers because of it. They seem to routinely give him permission to fall out.

MARCH TO AND BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG.
SIXTH AND SEVENTH MONTHS, 1863.
June 26, 1863..... All of our things were wet, which made our load heavy to carry. We crossed the Monocacy river, went through Adamstown, and came to Jeffersonville, where we took up our camp for the night. I gave out about the middle of the day, and fell down ; got a pass from the Captain, signed by the Doctor, as I could not keep up, and took my time ; got to within a mile of Jeffersonville by the time the division halted.

June 29,1863....I joined the regiment, and kept with it past Mechanicstown, when the roads were so muddy and wet I could no more than keep up. We followed the pike, passing through Emmettsburg, amid the waving of flags and handkerchiefs by the ladies. After going one-half a mile past the town, we encamped in a field.

 

[major bill]

I didn't know this. Interesting.

Provost units might also shut down local sources of liquor. This helped to detour straggling.

 

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

This is from Life in Southern Prisons by Corporal Charles Smedley, Co. G, 90th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers.
He seems to have had difficulty keeping up on the marches, but has no trouble from his officers because of it. They seem to routinely give him permission to fall out.

MARCH TO AND BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG.
SIXTH AND SEVENTH MONTHS, 1863.
June 26, 1863..... All of our things were wet, which made our load heavy to carry. We crossed the Monocacy river, went through Adamstown, and came to Jeffersonville, where we took up our camp for the night. I gave out about the middle of the day, and fell down ; got a pass from the Captain, signed by the Doctor, as I could not keep up, and took my time ; got to within a mile of Jeffersonville by the time the division halted.

June 29,1863....I joined the regiment, and kept with it past Mechanicstown, when the roads were so muddy and wet I could no more than keep up. We followed the pike, passing through Emmettsburg, amid the waving of flags and handkerchiefs by the ladies. After going one-half a mile past the town, we encamped in a field.

Thanks man, I wonder if stragglers could temporarily join another regiment if they had to?

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Thanks man, I wonder if stragglers could temporarily join another regiment if they had to?

Good question. In battle, gathering up stragglers regardless of regiment was not uncommon, but I don't know how that worked on marches.

 

[Tom Elmore]

The reason for the straggling was key. A handful were "professional" stragglers, the proverbially "one in every company," who always managed to drop out just before a battle. Many others straggled because they were moving towards heat exhaustion or heat stroke, and any officer foolish enough to treat those cases harshly was not looked upon favorably by enlisted men. The ambulances could take a few before filling up to capacity, but cooler temperatures at nightfall would revive most of those lagging behind with heat exhaustion and they were able to rejoin their commands during the evening. There was no stigma attached to the latter category, as long as they came up in time and did not miss a major battle.

Straggling in friendly territory was safer. Those who lagged behind in enemy territory risked being captured or bushwhacked (that is, murdered), so that was an incentive to try to keep up if possible. A sick or exhausted soldier might also be able to catch a ride with the accompanying wagon trains (baggage, commissary, etc.), which typically lagged behind the infantry column during a day's march.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

Another aspect of straggling that could be investigated, are the reasons for stragglers (tiredness, foraging, waylay etc). For example, a big problem for Jubal Early in his small Army's 1864 march (and retreat from) Washington was straggling, due to foraging in the rich and plentiful surrounding countrysides.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Another memoir I've read, and I'm sorry I can't locate the source at this moment, was written by a young soldier who admits he made an effort to straggle when in friendly territory so he could, in his words, " meet pretty girls and get good food. "

His preference was for fried chicken and while that was being prepared he would chat up the young lady. The social codes of the day being what they were, he considered himself to have made a conquest if he could get her to address him by his first name and let him call her by her first name by the time he had to march on down the road.

 

[Pollaco]

Stragglers seem to have been a problem for many commanders. But why did it fall to upper officers and generals to "swat stragglers with the flat of the sword"? Couldn't the sargents or lieutenants look into the matter?

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

I always thought upper officers took to sword swatting during battles when men were running away and would not stand and fight. Everyday straggling behind on marches should be, for sure, the sergeants or lieutenants problem!

 

[Nathan Stuart]

Perhaps one of the worst demonstrations of the excesses of straggling behavior by Federal soldiers occurred at Frederick, Maryland, between June 27 and 30, 1863.

Frederick was a town along the Union marching route, north to Gettysburg. Large numbers of Union Army stragglers from different Corps chose to congregate in the town and stay there, even after their comrades marched through it northwards to do the fighting.

As Harry W. Pfanz states in 'Gettysburg – The Second Day', at page 16,

…"The town (Frederick) was full of stragglers, at the saloons, and the saloons were going full blast. There were drunken brawls in the streets, and the stragglers were stealing and making nuisances of themselves. Other stragglers lined the roads north of town and loafed in farmhouses. Whatever their reasons for straggling, they brought no credit to the Army of the Potomac"…

Apparently, Meade ordered Provost Marshal Patrick back to deal with the stragglers, but some of these cavalrymen got drunk too. Order was not fully restored in the town until June 30.

As Pfanz adds (at page 16), …"it is unlikely that any stragglers found in Frederick on 30 June fought at Gettysburg on 2 July"…

Noah Andre Trudeau in 'Gettysburg – A Testing of Courage' writes about this same situation (at page 138), and quotes Reporter, Whitelaw Reid, who arrived in Frederick at the time and described the scene as follows:

…"Frederick is pandemonium….The worst elements of a great army are herein their worst condition; its cowards, its thieves, its sneaks, its bullying vagabonds, all inflamed with whiskey, and drunk as well with their freedom from accustomed restraint"…



I wonder whether the number of stragglers here was significant. What was their count? Would their presence (if they were in fact absent) at Gettysburg, at least in the early stages, have made much difference?

 

[PrivateBrooke]

I always thought upper officers took to sword swatting during battles when men were running away and would not stand and fight. Everyday straggling behind on marches should be, for sure, the sergeants or lieutenants problem!

One of the reasons for placing the lieutenants and sergeants(and corporals, if not enough of the higher ranks present) in their own line, behind their company's line of battle was to keep the lines tight, and everyone in place, aka "file closing." This would include stopping stragglers and those attempting to flee, and was these men's primary job in battle. If it got to an upper officer, either the file closers weren't doing their job properly, or something was going terribly wrong and there were too many runners or stragglers for them to handle.

 

[PrivateBrooke]

Provost units might also shut down local sources of liquor. This helped to detour strangling.

Drunk men do tend to strangle others....

 

[major bill]

It is my understanding that the Confederate army had real issues with straggling and any long march significantly reduced the size of the army.

 

[Bruce Vail]

It has been reported in various places that Stonewall Jackson, in preparation for his famous flanking march at the battle of Chancellorsville, ordered that his regimental officers march in the rear of their columns accompanied by a strong guard. This, of course, was intended as a threatening deterrent to straggling. Don't know if this was commonly done elsewhere, but it seems a logical step for other commanders to have taken at the appropriate times.

 

[bayouace]

If a soldier had to drop out of marching ranks to heed nature's call, I assume they just fell in a later passing company and rejoined their unit at a halt? Lots of them had to go often when sick.