Woe To Be A Soldier

By Kyle McGonigle

As we re-create different time-periods in American History it is not uncommon to romanticize those we are portraying. Public attitudes, social and economic conditions are but a few of the things that have substantially changed over the decades. Here are a few facts which may help you as a regular soldier in the early to mid-1800 better understand those you are portraying and the social climate in which they lived.

Throughout America a wide gulf existed between the wealthy and the middle class or poor. It was painfully real and was ingrained in the psyche of the nation at large. It was reflected in terms such as “the better families”, “lace curtain Irish”, and “scum”. Since it was a time of heavy immigration, the cities of the East were filling with people striving to make a better life for themselves. In 1840 the U.S. Bureau of Statistics showed 80,000 alien passengers arriving in the United States. By 1850 that number had grown to 250,000. Work was scarce and resentment of those newly arrived ran high. Almost every traveler from overseas who came into contact with the army was struck with the fact that the American army was scarcely American at all, but Irish, English, and German, and that those native Americans who did enlist seemed to be the “scum of the population of the older states”. For army recruiting parties trying to fill the ranks, these cities were fertile grounds.

Americans generally held the army in low esteem. They didn’t like the idea of a standing army and thought it was un-American to put up with the strict discipline. Their view of the officer corps was high because the officers were drawn from the better classes of society, severely disciplined and educated at the Military Academy in mathematics and engineering, and devoted to the service of their county. This contrasted sharply with their view of the rank and file. Enlisted pay was low and there was no chance for enlisted men to advance into the commissioned ranks. Any good mechanic or laborer, they said, could make a better living outside the army, and with far less sacrifice. At a time when a private soldier was earning $8.00 a month, a plasterer was hired for $2.87 a day, a lather for $3.00 a day, and mechanics for $1.75 a day. They saw little wrong with a soldier deserting. After all, he was only trying to better himself and stop being “a pig at the public trough”.

True, there were in the ranks some Americans of good social and economic background, but it was commonly believed that they had enlisted under some sort of unsavory circumstance. An army surgeon who alleged he had made a confidential study of the reasons for enlistment concluded that “of fifty-five men in one company nine-tenths enlisted on account of some female difficulty; thirteen of them had changed their names, and forty-three were either drunk, or partially so, at the time of their enlistment. ….It is likely that many men of such caliber assumed fictitious names to save their friends the mortification of discovering they had become soldiers.”

Beyond having to live with the negative attitude of the public toward rank and file, the realities of a soldier’s life were often quite different from what he had expected when he enlisted.

Extra duty was the bane of both the rank and file and their officers. One complained because of the work to be done and the other because that work impaired military readiness. In his book Broadax And Bayonet, University of Nebraska Press, 1953, Francis Paul Prucha quotes a private soldier who probably was typical of the frontier soldier.

“I am deceived; I enlisted for a soldier; I enlisted because I preferred military duty to hard work; I never was given to understand that the implements of agriculture and the mechanic’s tools were to be placed in my hands before I had received a musket or drawn a uniform coat. I never was told that I would be called on to make roads, build bridges, quarry stone, burn brick and lime, carry the hod, cut wood, hew timber, construct it into rafts and float it to the garrisons, make shingles, saw plank, build mills, maul rails, drive teams, make hay, herd cattle, build stables, construct barracks, hospitals, etc., etc., etc., which takes more time for their completion than the period of my enlistment. I never was given to understand that such duties were customary in the army, much less that I would be called on to perform them, or I never would have enlisted. I enlisted to avoid work, and here I am, compelled to perform three or four times the amount of labor I did before my enlistment.”

The complaints seem justified. During one visit to Fort Crawford the Inspector General found that four-fifths of the troops had been detailed to working parties and he was forced to dispense with any formal inspection of the troops. At another post, nearly 100 men were on working parties when he visited.

Obviously the work was necessary, but repeated efforts by the War Department toward frugality made it even harder for the soldier. Beyond the building and never ending maintenance, the War Department directed that each post have gardens to produce fresh food. Until the spring of 1833 they were also expected to maintain fields to raise wheat, corn, and hay. When the site was selected for Fort Atkinson, T.I., the first soldier sent to the new fort area was assigned the task of starting a post garden. Due to inefficiency and continual complaints, the War Department eventually did away with the requirement to raise field crops and authorized purchase from local suppliers. But they expected post gardens to continue.

Fulfilling the needs of a post was no small task whether accomplished by soldiers or through civilian purchase. In 1844 the quartermaster officer at Fort Atkinson requested that grain be purchased from the lower part of the Territory because what they had purchased the previous year had drained a 50 to 60 mile area of oats. He further speculated the post would need about 9,000 bushels of grain in the coming year and also commented that corn was scarce locally. In 1842 they had used 9,000 bushels of corn, 7,000 bushels of oats, and 250 ton of hay. The collection of firewood was also a major task that proved even more demanding as timber close to the posts was exhausted. At one point the firewood parties at Fort Snelling had to travel up to 25 miles from the fort to find adequate wood supplies.

At some posts the school of the soldier was all but forgotten as the urgent need for food, shelter and fuel was met. On his tours of western posts Inspector General Croghan found that the men were too much occupied with non-military duties which brought about a show of deficiencies in drill.

With a soldier’s life filled with hard work and boredom is it any wonder Dragoons looked forward to the coming of spring and summer so they would be sent out on patrol? For the Infantry there was little hope of breaking the pattern of fort life. One opportunity would be a mail run assignment. Another was being dispatched to prevent or take part in some local conflict.

Of course the public attitude changed during times of national conflict. Words like “disciplined”, “courageous” “magnificent” and “splendid fellows” were used to describe the army. Daily life changed for the soldier too. Even when there were periods of inactivity the prospect of battle was close at hand. Gone was the drudgery of fort life and even though there were still many hardships, they had the opportunity to function as members of a military unit rather than as laborers in uniform.