Drunkenness In The Rebel Army

Whisky!  Whisky!!  Whisky!!!  In the cars, at the shanties, at the groceries, at the groggeries, in village taverns and city hotels – whisky!

Officers with gold lace wound in astonishing involutions upon their arms, private soldiers in simple homespun, and civilians in broadcloth all seem to drink whisky with persistent energy and perseverance.  They drink it, too, in quantities which would astonish the nerves of a cast-iron lamp post, and of a quality which would destroy the digestive organs of an ostrich.  If it did nothing worse than shatter nerves and impair digestion, this wide-spread vice would demand legislative action.  But these copious libations degrade the officers, demoralize the soldiers, and debase civilians who forget their duties so far as to indulge in this brutalizing vice.

The military officer is bound to set in himself a good example, and enforce it upon his men, while the private citizen owes a duty to himself and society which he violates with every debauch.  Nor are the private soldiers without blame, but the censure which falls upon them rebounds in part against company officers. – These denunciations of a vice which seems to be increasing in its development, may seem harsh.  Truth is often unpleasant to hear; in this case it is unpleasant to tell, but the public safety demands that the vice in question should be rebuked and reformed.  For it is a fact which the press should neither palliate or conceal, that whisky which is no more akin to rye than rye is to coffee – whisky of the unadulterated tangle-foot chain-lightning distillation, is guzzled down in a manner alike revolting to public decency and the general good.

How, pray, can field and brigade officers be held responsible for the vices of their men when at every corner there is a masked battery of whisky barrels?  The fault that these are planted to commit havoc among our men is chargeable to the civic administration, and the civic administration should be responsible.  The enormities – these red-curtained dens of vice – these back alley headache manufactories – are set up under licenses granted through the mistaken idea of raising revenue. – {Norfolk Davy Book, Feb. 21.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 2