Originally aired on April 19, 1996 - In part 86 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson discusses the heavy drinking that occurred in both the Northern and Southern camps.
#86 – Drinking in Camp
Before the Civil War was a year old, General George McClellan asserted that eliminating “the degrading vice of drunkenness” would be worth 50,000 men for the Union armies. In 1864 a Massachusetts colonel lamented: “Two-thirds of the troubles which have arisen in our regiment since its formation can be traced to intoxicating liquor alone.”
Drinking by Civil War soldiers resulted from several factors. Removal of home restraints, boredom of camp life, the desire to be ‘one of the boys”, loneliness, uncertainties about the future, plus the euphoria that came from imbibing, all led to much consumption and too much overindulgence.
Union soldiers drank the most, but not because revelry was greater among Billy Yanks. Whiskey was more abundant in the North, Union soldiers had more money with which to buy it, they were frequently encamped near the larger cities, and the Northern government on occasion issued liquor to the men.
Soldiers North and South drank heavily without fear. Being intoxicated was itself not a military offense. It was misbehavior resulting from intoxication that led to punishment.
The whiskey of that day contained a taste, and packed a kick, that few consumers ever forgot. Soldiers were known to take a container full and simmer it over a fire in hopes of boiling away the fusel oil, turpentine, alcohol, and other lethal ingredients thought to be in it.
What the men drank would be classified as vile by modern-day standards. The stuff went by a variety of names, such as “Old Red Eye”, “Spider Juice”, “Pop Skull”, “Oil of Gladness”, “Bust Head”. “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother”. And “How Come You So”. Nevertheless, some soldiers could not get enough to drink. A Louisiana soldier once said of a messmate: “I never knew before that Clarence was so much addicted to drinking. If he had been as fond of his mother’s milk as he is of whiskey, he would have been awful hard to wean.”
A Virginia sergeant once philosophized that liquor “has different effects on different men. It induces a Frenchman to talk, and he shines out, the very embodiment of (charm). A German becomes gloomy and morose; an Englishman grows affectionate; four fingers of stone-fence whiskey will set an Irishman fighting as surely as St. Patrick was a gentleman.”
One night, after a government issuance of whiskey, the 5th New Jersey became collectively drunk. Two officers jealous of each other got into a fight. “That started the ball rolling between two companies”, a sober bystander declared, “and a regular old fashioned free fight was the consequence for about half an hour, during which bloody noses and black eyes were freely given and received”.
Tales of drunkenness among the common soldiers were legion, yet the officers were just as guilty of overindulgence as their men. In February, 1864, the colonel of an Ohio regiment resigned and his officers gave him a farewell party. A captain in attendance watched as huge quantities of whiskey were downed. The consequence, he said, “was a big drunk, and such weaving, spewing, sick set of men I have not seen for many a day…Colonel Harlan was dead drunk. One Captain who is a Presbyterian elder at home was not much better.”
A Union corps commander who shall be nameless once got drunk, walked straight into a tree in front of his tent, and then had to be restrained from arresting the officer of the guard on charges of felonious assault.
The drunken behavior of officers, a chaplain sadly concluded, “were the common talk around the campfires, and the men of rank and file (always) claimed the privilege of imitating their leaders”.
