NF On War Paint & Coffee Boilers...

Non-Fiction

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...

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.

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...?
 
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Wilkeson had a rather severe dislike for shirkers, or "coffee boilers" as he called them, as evidenced by this passage from his experience around Petersburg...

After a little while the first sergeant came to me and said: "You seem to be tired. Go to the rear with the caissons after ammunition." I handed the heavy sponge staff to another cannoneer and walked to the caissons. Mounting on the empty chests I rode to the rear where the ammunition wagons were parked. A portion of the road we travelled over ran within three fourths of a mile of a heavy Confederate redoubt, out of whose embrasures the muzzles of large black guns were thrust.

To the right of this piece of road was an open field of thin, poverty-creating soil; beyond the field was a forest. Thickly scattered among the trees, and grouped at the edge of the open field, in the shade, were those cowards, the "coffee boilers."... Pack-mules loaded with pots, frying-pans, gripsacks, and bags of clothing stood tied to trees. White-capped army wagons, with six mules harnessed to them, stood at the edge of the woods. The drivers of these wagons were drinking coffee with friendly "boilers," and they were probably frightening one another by telling blood-curdling tales of desperate but mythical battles they had been engaged in. Fires were burning brightly in the forest, and thin columns of smoke arose above the trees. I could almost smell the freshly made Rio and the broiled bacon. It was as though a huge pic-nic were going on in the woods. The scene angered me. I knew that the "coffee boilers" were almost to a man bounty-jumping cowards, and I wanted that camp broken up.

The Confederates in the redoubt allowed us to pass to the rear without firing on us; for we were empty and not worth powder and shot. Arriving at the park of the ammunition train we filled our ammunition chests, and then began the return march. When the full caissons came out of the woods on to the portion of the road which was exposed to the fire from the fort, I saw the Confederate gunners spring to their cannon. I looked at the camp of the "coffee boilers." They were enjoying life. I leaned forward and clasped my knees with excess of joy as I realized what was about to occur. The Confederate gunners were going to try to blow up our caissons. I was confident that they could not hit us, and was also confident that their attempt would bloodily disturb the camp of the "boilers" and hangers-on.

We broke into a trot, then into a gallop, and then into a dead run. Clouds of smoke shot forth from the redoubt, and out of these, large black balls rose upward and rushed through the air, and passed, shrieking shrilly, close above us, to descend in the camp of the "boilers." It was a delightful scene. I hugged my knees and rocked to and fro and laughed until my fleshless ribs were sore. Shells swept above me and burst in the woods. Shot howled past and cut large trees down, and they fell with a crash' among the frying-pans and coffee-pots. Teamsters sprang into their wagons, or on to their saddle-mules, and savagely plied their whips and hastened away from the pasture-field. Negro servants loosened their pack-mules and hung on to the loads of tinware as they, yelling at the top of their voices, ran for the rear. Men, clad and armed as soldiers, skurried as frightened rabbits, hid in holes, lay prone on the earth, dropped behind logs. Through the dust and smoke and uproar I saw men fall, saw others mangled by chunks of shell, and saw one, struck fairly by an exploding shell, vanish.

Enormously pleased, I hugged my lean legs, and laughed and laughed again. It was the most refreshing sight I had seen for weeks. Our caissons, each drawn by six galloping horses, passed safely through the fire and entered the protective woods, and, moving rapidly across the blood-chilling belt where the spent balls fall and the wounded lie, were soon on the battle line, and I was again engaged in helping to waste good powder and shot and shell.
 
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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...?
Colonel Edward Cross and the 5th New Hampshire used this tactic at the Sunken Road during the Battle of Antietam. Lieutenant Thomas Livermore is quoted on the website "Antietam on the Web" http://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=373

"As the fight grew furious the Colonel cried out 'Put on the war paint!' and looking around I saw the glorious man standing erect with a red handkerchief, a conspicuous mark, tied around his bare head..Taking the cue somehow we rubbed the torn ends of cartridges over our faces, streaking them with powder like a pack of Indians and the Colonel, to complete the similarity, cried out, 'Give 'em the war whoop' and all of us joined him in the Indian war whoop until it must have rung out amid the thunder of the ordinance".
 
Colonel Edward Cross and the 5th New Hampshire used this tactic at the Sunken Road during the Battle of Antietam. Lieutenant Thomas Livermore is quoted on the website "Antietam on the Web" http://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=373

"As the fight grew furious the Colonel cried out 'Put on the war paint!' and looking around I saw the glorious man standing erect with a red handkerchief, a conspicuous mark, tied around his bare head..Taking the cue somehow we rubbed the torn ends of cartridges over our faces, streaking them with powder like a pack of Indians and the Colonel, to complete the similarity, cried out, 'Give 'em the war whoop' and all of us joined him in the Indian war whoop until it must have rung out amid the thunder of the ordinance".
That's excellent, thank you, was not familiar with that story...
 
Gosh, he's a bloodthirsty little thing, isn't he? I mean, wishing them ill is one thing, but laughing at loud at people from his own side getting blown to bits is a bit much. And he seems not to have spared a thought for the servants and the mules.
 
Gosh, he's a bloodthirsty little thing, isn't he? I mean, wishing them ill is one thing, but laughing at loud at people from his own side getting blown to bits is a bit much. And he seems not to have spared a thought for the servants and the mules.
Yes... another group he didn't like were the sharpshooters, north or south...

The picket-firing and sharpshooting at North Anna was exceedingly severe and murderous. We were greatly annoyed by it, and as a campaign cannot be decided by killing a few hundred enlisted men—killing them most unfairly and when they were of necessity exposed,—it did seem as though the sharpshooting pests should have been suppressed. Our sharpshooters were as bad as the Confederates, and neither of them were of any account as far as decisive results were obtained. They could sneak around trees or lurk behind stumps, or cower in wells or in cellars, and from the safety of their lairs murder a few men. Put the sharpshooters in battle-line and they were no better, no more effective, than the infantry of the line, and they were not half as decent. There was an unwritten code of honor among the infantry that forbade the shooting of men while attending to the imperative calls of nature, and these sharpshooting brutes were constantly violating that rule. I hated sharpshooters, both Confederate and Union, in those days, and I was always glad to see them killed.
And by the way, one wonders if there was a name for that particular unwritten code of honor he refers to... perhaps the "what a way to go rule..." or something like that? :O o:
Has anyone else read of soldiers referring to a code of honor in that regard...?
 
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So I guess really the common theme to this thread is the book Recollections of a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac by Frank Wilkeson (Putnam's 1886; reprinted as Turned Inside Out, Nebraska 1997).

I sought this book out after reading an excellent article by Gary Gallagher in the October 2016 edition of the Civil War Times (pg. 14, "The Dark Turn - Some Seek to Revitalize Civil War History by Focusing on Brutality" by Gary W. Gallagher, October 2016 Civil War Times, (c) Historynet, LLC - a first class author and a great magazine that I enjoy and appreciate very much).

In the article. Gallagher cites several works of recent years that focus on the "dark side" of the Civil War, in contrast to the long standing genres emphasizing "heroism" and "gallantry", i.e. the "drums and bugle" history that "too often cloaks the war in romantic trappings." This new fashion among scholars is to focus on "the overlooked war..." which "featured brutality, atrocities, cowardice, vicious guerilla activity, and physical and psychological wounds that left veterans profoundly damaged."

Gallagher then goes on to point out, however, that this new "dark side" scholarship is not entirely new at all, and was anticipated in the late 19th century by a handful of authors, one of which was Frank Wilkeson. Gallagher says of Wilkeson:
A New Yorker whose father wrote for The New York Times, Wilkeson lost older brother Bayard to a mortal wound at Gettysburg. Frank subsequently enlisted as a teenager and saw action with the 11th New York Light Artillery in the Overland Campaign and at Petersburg. His Recollections opens with an unsparing portrait of men who accepted bounties to enlist. "If there was a man in all that shameless crew who had enlisted from patriotic motives," he writes dismissively, "I did not see him. There was not a man of them who was not eager to run away." Yet "dishonest Congressmen who desire to secure re-election by gifts of public money and property to voters," continues Wilkeson, "say they were brave Northern youth going to the defence of their country."

An entire chapter deals with severe wounds. During action on May 5 in the Wilderness, a young soldier's "head jerked, he staggered, then fell, then regained his feet." Wilkeson noticed that a "tiny fountain of blood and teeth and bone and bits of tongue burst out of his mouth." A round had passed through the man's jaws, and "the lower one was broken and hung down." Adopting an almost clinical tone, Wilkeson adds: "I looked directly into his open mouth, which was ragged and bloody and tongueless." At the North Anna River, an infantryman passed between the guns and caissons of the 11th New York battery. "A solid shot, intended for us, struck him down," recalls Wilkeson. "his entire bowels were torn out and slung in ribbons and shreds on the ground. He fell dead, but his arms and legs jerked convulsively a few times. It was a sickening spectacle."

Wilkeson also chronicles how the war's destructive hand crushed civilians. Deployed to the Tennessee/Alabama border area later in the war, he encountered white refugees who had suffered from guerrilla activity. "Defenceless women and children... starved out of their homes" had been given shelter in camps set up by the Union army. "Their features were as expressionless as wood" and "their eyes lustreless." Gaunt, unwashed and infested with vermin, "All were utterly poor. It seemed that they were too poor to ever again get a start in life."
Thus having read the rest of this excellent article, I said to myself "I need to get a copy of Wilkeson's book!", which I did, and then promptly devoured it.

Wilkeson's book now resides in my "top 10" memoirs list for all of the reasons so aptly described by Mr. Gallagher; well written, realistic, brutally honest, and of a contrasting perspective to the typical romanticised epic. I highly recommend the book to any of you who don't know it.
 
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Back to the subject of shirking, one more passage from Wilkeson...

One day four men carrying a pale infantryman stopped for an instant in my battery. The wounded man suffered intensely from a wound through the foot. My sympathy was excited for the young fellow, and as we at the moment were doing nothing, I asked for half an hour's leave. Getting it, I accompanied him back into the woods to one of the Second Corps' field hospitals. Here, groaning loudly, he awaited his turn, which soon came. We lifted him on the rude table. A surgeon held chloroform to his nostrils, and under its influence he lay as if in death.

The boot was removed, then the stocking, and I saw a great ragged hole on the sole of the foot where the ball came out. Then I heard the coatless surgeon who was making the examination cry out, "The cowardly whelp!" So I edged around and looked over the shoulders of an assistant surgeon, and saw that the small wound on the top of the foot, where the ball entered, was blackened with powder! I, too, muttered " The coward" and was really pleased to see the knife and saw put to work and the craven's leg taken off below the knee.

He was carried into the shade of a tree, and left there to wake up. I watched the skilful surgeons probe and carve other patients. The little pile of legs and arms grew steadily, while I waited for the object of my misplaced sympathy to recover his senses. With a long breath he opened his eyes. I was with him at once, and looked sharply at him. I will never forget the look of horror that fastened on his face when he found his leg was off. Utter hopelessness and fear that look expressed.

I entered into conversation with him ; and he, weakened and unnerved by the loss of the leg, and the chloroform, for once told the truth. Lying on his back, he aimed at his great toe, meaning to shoot it off; but being rudely joggled by a comrade at the critical instant, his rifle covered his foot just below the ankle, and an ounce ball went crashing through the bones and sinews. The wound, instead of being a furlough, was a discharge from the army, probably into eternity.
 
Gosh, he's a bloodthirsty little thing, isn't he? I mean, wishing them ill is one thing, but laughing at loud at people from his own side getting blown to bits is a bit much. And he seems not to have spared a thought for the servants and the mules.

That is war. Talk to any combat soldier from any war and they will tell similar things if they trust you.
 
That is war. Talk to any combat soldier from any war and they will tell similar things if they trust you.
My entire immediate family - grandfathers, uncles, husband, father, and siblings of both sexes - is made up of combat soldiers who trust me, participating in all four branches of the service in every American conflict from ww1 forward. Laughing out loud was not my father's reaction on looking down at a dead Vietnamese teenager wearing sandals made of tire treads. People who say "That is war" used to make my father particularly angry.

Different people have different reactions to war, and Wilkeson's reactions seem to have been particularly brutal. Not only does he find joy in seeing shirkers killed, but also sharpshooters from his own side - loyal and skilled soldiers who never harmed him.
 
My entire immediate family - grandfathers, uncles, husband, father, and siblings of both sexes - is made up of combat soldiers who trust me, participating in all four branches of the service in every American conflict from ww1 forward. Laughing out loud was not my father's reaction on looking down at a dead Vietnamese teenager wearing sandals made of tire treads. People who say "That is war" used to make my father particularly angry.

Different people have different reactions to war, and Wilkeson's reactions seem to have been particularly brutal. Not only does he find joy in seeing shirkers killed, but also sharpshooters from his own side - loyal and skilled soldiers who never harmed him.
Good points Allie and understand what you're saying. I think Wilkeson was very much influenced by the prevalence (at least in his own personal experience) of bounty jumpers and shirkers and those who didn't have the same patriotic zeal that he did. I won't try to defend him or his words to you, but would ask that you read his entire book and try to understand his own context before you reach final judgment. I may have done him a disservice by just selecting these certain extracts.
 
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