Union soldiers imbibe, undoubtedly in a more formal fashion than the average private did!

In studying the Civil War, we forget that most of its participants were young men generally in their early twenties.  With the grand allure of battles, campaigns, politics, riots, race and religion, perhaps we overlook the shenanigans, mishaps, and vices to which these young men were very susceptible.  We’ve all had our college years or fraternity parties or midnight soirees or one glass of wine too many.  Young soldiers most certainly did too.  These are stories, both light-hearted and somber, of men surrendering to “Genl Intoxication.”

Leander Stillwell, pictured to the left as a private in the 61st Illinois and to the right as a post-war district judge.

Leander Stillwell enlisted in the 61^st Illinois Infantry just a few months after his 18^th birthday.  Having experienced the horrific shock of Shiloh, Corporal Stillwell soon found himself counting the long days during the siege of Corinth.  On one such day the quartermaster of the regiment requested that two non-commissioned officers “who were strictly temperate and absolutely reliable.”  Their mission:  to retrieve whisky for rationing to the men.  Corporal Stillwell and his friend Corporal Tim Gates, a man “somewhat addicted to stuttering when he became nervous or excited,” were selected.  Our two comrades, thus armed with a large kettle full of potent liquor, began their sojourn back towards camp.  It wasn’t long before the two men found themselves passing through a secluded wagon camp.  Leander Stillwell recalls how things went awry:

Here Tim stopped, looked carefully around to see if the coast was clear, and then said, “Sti-Sti-Stillwell, l-l-less t-t-take a swig!”  “All right,” I responded.  Thereupon Tim poised his camp-kettle on a wagon hub, inclined the brim to his lips, and took a most copious draught, and I followed suit.  We then started on, and it was lucky, for me at any rate, that we didn’t have far to go.

Stillwell soon found himself drunk, as the whisky coursed “through my veins like electricity.”  It didn’t take long for the young man to recognize his predicament.  “Its effects were felt almost instantly,” Stillwell recounts, “and by the time we reached camp, and had delivered the whisky, I was feeling a good deal like a wild Indian on the war path.  I wanted to yell, get my musket and shoot, especially at something that would when hit jingle…But it suddenly occurred to me that I as drunk, and liable to forever disgrace myself, and everybody at home, too.”

Stillwell, through his drunken haze, had sense enough to slip out of camp into the woods.  As he headed out, he passed a tent containing Corporal Tim Gates—his partner in crime!  Tim, inebriated himself, “had thrown his cap and jacket on the ground, rolled up his sleeves, and was furiously challenging another fellow to then and there settle an old-time grudge by the ‘ordeal of battle’.”  Stillwell didn’t see how his comrade fared, however, and slept in the woods, waking up hours later with a “splitting headache.”

Leander Stillwell and Tim Gates never told anyone about their little alcohol adventure, although they laughed about it from time to time.  Leander Stillwell went on to become a district judge in Kansas.

Although Corporal Stillwell managed to keep his experience with drink hidden and discreet, others were not so careful.  John William De Forest, a captain of Company I in the 12th Connecticut Infantry, was dismayed when his first sergeant, a grizzled German veteran, stumbled into his tent one June night with a drunken grievance to air.

“Captain, I am virst sergeant of I Gumapnee,” Sergeant Weber drunkenly announced.  “But, Captain, if the virst sergeant of I Gumpanee cannot be respected, den, Captain, I will resign with your bermission, and be a brivate your gumpanee, Captain.”

John William De Forest, who as a captain bemoaned the loss of his drunken Sergeant Weber, later served in the Freedman’s Bureau and became an author of some note.

Sergeant Weber felt insulted when the cook had refused to give him his supper.  Except that Sergeant Weber had in fact already eaten supper, fallen asleep drunk, then awoke to demand his supper…again.  Captain De Forest sent the stumbling sergeant back to his tent, allowing the incident to slide.  Unfortunately, however, Weber was caught drunk again in town soon afterwards and was court-martialed.  Captain De Forest bemoaned the whole incident, losing his best veteran sergeant.  “If we had lost two or three generals,” De Forest admitted, “I should not feel so badly.”  De Forest reported later on that Sergeant Weber (likely Charles D. G. Webber of the 12^th Connecticut) had his court-martial sentence reduced.  Records indicate that he was reduced to the ranks in June, 1862, then promoted to corporal in January, 1863…only to be reduced to the ranks again in September of that same year.

Darker moments also arose from drinking.  Sergeant Cyrus Boyd, of the 15th Iowa Infantry, scribbled down his perspective on one incident in January, 1863, while his regiment was posted in Memphis:

Whiskey O Whiskey!  Drunk men staggered on all the streets.  In every store.  The saloons were full of drunk men.  The men who had fought their way form Donelson to Corinth and who had met no enemy able to whip them now surrendered to Genl Intoxication.  Some were on the side walks and both hands full of brick bats and swearing that the side walks were made for soldiers and not for any d—d niggers.

Illicit alcohol could bring out the more violent, darker sides of men, as Boyd witnessed.

Brig. General Alexander Hays, who was supposedly reaching for some “liquid courage” when struck by a bullet in the Wilderness in May, 1864.

Inappropriate drinking, especially by officers, could also threaten the lives of both the commander and his men.  Rumors regarding the drinking of Union Brigadier General Alexander Hays flew amongst the men.  During the fight at Morton’s Ford in central Virginia during the Mine Run campaign in early 1864, General Hays was conspicuous on the field.  He made a sport of “hooting, yelling, and riding right in the rebs faces,” only to begin “laughing to see the boys get into the mud up to their knees.”  Soldiers doubted his sobriety.

Several months later, Hays and his men found themselves in a desperate fight in the untamed thickets of the Wilderness.  Riding to the head of his old regiment, Hays began to address them.  Tipping his canteen towards his mouth, he leaned into the path of a bullet and was killed instantly.  The canteen, it was rumored, was full of whiskey.

Alcohol, then, shaped much of the men’s monotonous camp life.  Most every Union soldier experienced or witnessed the effects of alcohol–both hilarious and deadly.  As esteemed historian Bell Wiley tells us, drinking was more common in Northern armies simply because they had great access to liquor.  It went by a dozen names:  “Nockum stiff” and “tanglefoot”, “oil of gladness” and “Oh, be joyful.”  Beer, brandy, gin, but especially whiskey could generally be found somewhere in the army camp.  Quality rarely mattered.  On soldier hazarded a guess as to the ingredients of commissary whiskey:  “bark juice, tar-water, turpentine, brown sugar, lamp-oil and alcohol.”  But still Leander Stillwell and others took their chances with the stuff.

We have all probably surrendered to “Genl Intoxication” ourselves.  Youthful mistakes and adventures we try to forget today…those same types of indiscretions were made one hundred-fifty years ago, albeit with the possibility of far more serious consequences.  Just like us, those soldiers were human beings, young men full of life and vigor and a sense of invincibility.  I imagine many of us, certainly myself, can relate.

Zac Cowsert received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in History a Political Science from Centenary College of Louisiana, a small liberal-arts college in Shreveport.  He is currently a graduate student at West Virginia University focusing in U.S. History and the American Civil War.  His studies and research often explore the Trans-Mississippi Theater.  ©

Further Reading & Sources:

Rhea, Gordon C.  The Battle of the Wilderness:  May 5-6, 1864.  Baton Rouge:  Louisiana State University Press, 1994.

Stillwell, Leander.  The Story of a Common Soldier.  Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1920.

Throne, Mildred, ed.  The Civil War Diary of Cyrus F. Boyd, Fifteenth Iowa Infantry, 1861-1863.  Earl J. Hess, intro.  Baton Rouge:  Louisiana State University Press, 1998.

Wiley, Bell Irvin.  The Life of Billy Yank:  The Common Soldier of the Union.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981.