Private Watkins
2nd Lieutenant
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2014
- Location
- Oklahoma
This passage (on Spotsylvania) from Frank Wilkeson's Recollections of a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac got me thinking about shirking in the Civil War...
So I wonder about the many ways of shirking or avoiding battle...? Obviously desertion, feigning illness, and even self-injury would all be on the list, but am interested in any other stories or examples you might have of those going the extra mile to put on a good ruse...
Going in a different direction, does anyone know of instances in the Civil War where a type of "war paint" was actually used by soldiers in a war-like manner, i.e. to promote unit identity or courage among the ranks, or terror amongst the enemy, for camoflage, or for other traditions...?
Near the spring, which rose in a dense thicket through which a spring run flowed, the shade was thick and the forest gloomy. The water in the spring had been roiled, so I searched for another higher up the run. While searching for it I saw a colonel of infantry put on his war paint. It was a howling farce in one act—one brief act of not more than twenty seconds' duration, but the fun of the world was crowded into it. This blond, bewhiskered brave sat safely behind a large oak tree. He looked around quickly. His face hardened with resolution. He took a cartridge out of his vest pocket, tore the paper with his strong white teeth, spilled the powder into his right palm, spat on it, and then, first casting a quick glance around to see if he was observed, he rubbed the moistened powder on his face and hands, and then dustcoated the war paint. Instantly he was transformed from a trembling coward who lurked behind a tree into an exhausted brave taking a little well-earned repose.
I laughed silently at the spectacle, and filled my canteens at a spring I found, and then rejoined my comrades, and together we laughed at and then drank to the health of the blonde warrior. That night I slept and dreamed of comic plays and extravagant burlesques; but in the wildest of dream vagaries there was no picture that at all compared with the actual one I had seen in the forest. That colonel is yet alive. I saw him two years ago.
I laughed silently at the spectacle, and filled my canteens at a spring I found, and then rejoined my comrades, and together we laughed at and then drank to the health of the blonde warrior. That night I slept and dreamed of comic plays and extravagant burlesques; but in the wildest of dream vagaries there was no picture that at all compared with the actual one I had seen in the forest. That colonel is yet alive. I saw him two years ago.
So I wonder about the many ways of shirking or avoiding battle...? Obviously desertion, feigning illness, and even self-injury would all be on the list, but am interested in any other stories or examples you might have of those going the extra mile to put on a good ruse...
Going in a different direction, does anyone know of instances in the Civil War where a type of "war paint" was actually used by soldiers in a war-like manner, i.e. to promote unit identity or courage among the ranks, or terror amongst the enemy, for camoflage, or for other traditions...?
Last edited: