General George Washington had arrived at Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 3, 1775 to take command of the Continental Army. He had his work cut out for him for he faced a force of unruly and undisciplined amateurs in its infancy. Up against the British army, the finest military machine of its time, this mob of basically unorganized militiamen with limitied military skills had little or no time to be molded into an effective fighting force. To do this, Washington had to prove his mettle, even if it meant adopting cruel levels of corporal punishment to rein in the rank and file and force them to follow his strict orders of military law. A task he viewed that was enhanced by inflicting methods of pain in which he had no qualms to enforce.
On July 10, 1775, one week from taking command of the army outside Boston, his General Orders of the day made reference to one of the several punishments available to a commander who had little or no tolerance for insubordination. His orders that day read, “The General Court Martial of which Colonel William Prescott was president having tried William Pattin of Colonel Gridley’s regiment, and found him guilty of ‘threatening and abusing a number of persons, when prisoner in the Quarter Guard.’ The Court sentence the prisoner to ride the wooden horse, fifteen minutes. The General [Washington] approves the sentence and orders it to be put in execution at the head of the regiment.”[1]
Washington the Disciplinarian
In 1757 George Washington, at age 25 noted that “discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.” When Washington was appointed Commander-in-chief of the newly formed Continental Army, he wasted no time proving that he was a strict disciplinarian; always willing to levy punishment for the good of the army. A scholar of military justice in the Continental Army, Harry M. Ward, noted that Washington “seems never to have been concerned… with the terrible suffering endured by soldiers being punished.” An army, as he had proclaimed on New Year’s Day in 1776, “without Order, Regularity & Discipline” was “no better than a Commission’d Mob.”[2] When Washington had taken charge of the Continental Army at Cambridge in the summer of 1775, he found that Massachusetts Provincials in a sorry state, barely fit to fight the mighty British Empire – indeed, “an exceeding dirty & nasty people.,” as he put it privately.[3]
Along with his desire to instill discipline in a rabble of independent colonists who defied anyone telling them how to act under arms, Washington abhorred thievery and pillaging of civilians and was without mercy when his soldiers were caught and convicted of ‘rapine and plunder.’ In the summer of 1776, he ordered that he would “punish without exception, every person who shall be found guilty of this most abominable practice, which if continued, must prove the destruction of any Army on earth.”[4]
Washington believed he was not given the disciplinary tools to rein in his men to mold an effective fighting force while also protecting civilian persons and property, he gained political points in a nation reeling under British atrocities. Keeping in mind a recent incident of an ensign caught red-handed leading twenty men pilfering a residence, Washington, on Sept. 25, 1776, penned a letter to John Hancock, president of Congress. He was disturbed by his soldiers’ tendency to steal from civilians, but also expressed his frustration with lenient punishments handed out to plunderers. In this most recent case, the ensign caught had his men threaten the superior officer with loaded muskets. When the ensign was brought before a court-martial, his only penalty was a reprimand. Washington wrote, “to stop this horrid practice, but under the present lust after plunder, and want of Laws to punish Offenders, I might almost as well attempt to remove Mt. Atlas.”[5]
Congress had already listened to their supreme military commander. On Sept. 20, 1776, the astute assembly in Philadelphia passed the revised Articles of War. Drafted by John Adams and modeled on the British articles, penalties became more severe for infractions. Sixteen offenses comprised the death penalty ranging from mutiny, sedition, desertion, to plundering. The maximum corporal punishment was raised from 39 lashes to 100 (still lower than the British Army). Washington thought this a great improvement, but did not go far enough. Repeatedly, he had requested that Congress permit the maximum lash count of 500 or remove any cap at all. Congress refused to increase the lash count beyond 100, though Washington would occasionally order more.[6] Washington would be kept abreast of all court-martial proceedings and frequently stepped in when he believed the sentence was too lenient, often resulting in the perpetrator cashiered from the army (for officers), greatly increasing the number of lashes, or utilizing some of the more elaborate methods of inflicting pain.
Corporal Punishment in the Military
Eighteenth century officers, who were considered gentlemen, were not subjected to painful corporal punishments. When convicted of punishable offenses, such as cowardice and thievery, they were occasionally imprisoned, but more often reprimanded before their fellow officers and regiment before they were cashiered from the army. Culprits were ‘drummed out of the service’ to the beat of the ‘rouge’s march’ in the presence of their regiment or the oldest unit in the division. In a sense they were stripped of their gentleman status and as such, not allowed to re-enter the military. For the non-commissioned officers and privates, the penalties for military infractions was far more painful; subject to corporal punishments of lashings, and or other more elaborate tortures, such as the wooden horse.
Corporal punishments in the military were not so common in ancient armies as later in the 17th through 19th centuries. Even private soldiers in early armies had some (if little) property and wealth and were punished by forfeitures and fines. That changed by the 1600’s when bodily pain was the price one paid for offenses. Officers remained for the most part off limits when it came to physical punishment. However, if an officer in the English army was convicted of blasphemy, he was ordered to have his tongue bored with a hot iron; a punishment that remained in force until after Queen Ann’s rein (early 1700’s). By 1600, the common soldiers were drawn from poorer, un-landed classes who could not forfeit money or property, having nothing but their bodies to be disciplined.[7] Therefore only privates would be subjected to corporal punishment. If a non-commissioned officer (sergeants, corporals, and in some cases ensigns and cornets) was convicted, they had to be degraded to the ranks, or station of a private soldier, before receiving the physical punishment. The exception of degradation was when one faced imprisonment.[8]
Wooden Horse
The Wooden Horse was a terrible gem devised by medieval religious fanatics. One of many favorites during the Spanish Inquisition, it was mainly used to torture women. The first variation of the wooden horse was a triangular device with one end of the triangle pointing upward. A cross plank, often planed so that the angle of the wood facing upwards was more pointed, was mounted on a saw horse type support. The victim was stripped of all clothing and forced to straddle the cross plank of the triangular ‘horse’. Weights or additional restraints were often added to keep the victim from falling off. The pain was horrendous, leading to permanent disfigurement and often death.
By the late 16th century, the English army was known to have adopted this devise with some modifications. Dubbed the wooden pony, it helped maintained discipline and became a favorite punishment for more minor infractions such as drunkenness, brawling, and cursing. One version consisted of a single wooden plank supported horizontally from the floor on its side with the thin edge up. More readily available than a triangular shape, the edges may have been rounded off to create less pain, filed to a blunt point for more discomfort, or planed to a sharper edge – often using a thinner plank – to provide extra pressure and pain.
Francis Grose, in his 1786 text, Military antiquities respecting a history of the English Army, described its use: “The wooden horse was formed of planks nailed together, for as to form a sharp ridge or angle about eight or nine feet long; this ridge represented the back of the horse; it was supported by four polls or legs, about six or seven feet long, placed on a stand made movable by trucks [wheels]; to complete the resemblance, a head and tail were often added. When a soldier or soldiers were sentenced by a court-martial, or ordered by the commanding officer of the corps, to ride this horse… they were placed [on the plank] with their hands tied behind them, and frequently, to increase the punishment, had muskets tied to their legs, to prevent, as it was jocularly said, their horse from kicking them off; this punishment being chiefly inflicted on the infantry, who were supposed unused to ride.[9]
In early America, Dutch regiments in New Netherland were often drilled and commanded by English officers who made frequent use of the wooden horse on both soldiers and colonists. In New Amsterdam, present New York City, the wooden horse stood between Pearl street and Fort Amsterdam (Fort George by the American Revolution). The ‘horse’ was a straight, narrow, horizontal pole, standing twelve feet high. The plank’s upper edge varied from blunt to acutely sharpened to intensify the cruelty. As was its traditional use, the soldier was set astride the plank with hands tied behind his back and heavy weights attached to each foot. “Garret Segersen, a Dutch soldier, for stealing chickens, rode the wooden horse for three days, from two o’clock to close of parade, with a fifty-pound weight tied to each foot, which was a severe punishment.”[10]
The Wooden Horse soon became a common punishment in the American provinces both among the royal troops and the militia. Earle wrote that in 1661, a Salem soldier was sentenced and a Maine soldier, Richard Gibson, in 1670, was sentenced to ride the ‘horse’ at the head of the head of his company the next training-day at Kittery.[11] Towards the end of Queen Anne’s rein, early 1700’s, the English army began to halt its use of the wooden horse. By 1765, the ruins of one was still standing on the parade at Portsmouth, England. According to Grose, the British military abandoned the wooden horse “on account of the permanent injury to the health of the culprit who endured it at times rupturing them”.[12] However, its use remained strong in the colonies, becoming the favorite form of punishment for the Continental Army.
As noted, the first week Washington accepted command of the Continental Army outside of Boston in 1775, he approved a soldier’s court-martial verdict to ‘ride the wooden horse.’ Its use, alongside frequent lashings with whips and cat of nine tails, became a common event, mainly for infractions of thievery, drunkenness, and disorderly conduct. Reverend John Pitman kept an order book of his time as a military minister on the Hudson River. He frequently entered observations of sentences for both ‘soldiers and suspected spies’ to ride the horse or, as it was sometimes called, ‘the timber mare’. Paul Revere’s strong signature approved a verdict, as “Presiding Officer,” of the report of a court-martial upon two Continental soldiers for playing cards on the Sabbath day in September 1776. Revere expressed that “the Court are of the Opinion that Thomas Cleverly ride the Wooden Horse for a Quarter of an hour with a musket on each foot, and that Caleb Southward Cleans the Streets of the Camp.”[13]
The Wooden horse was also employed in civil cases of punishment. “… one James Brown… was brought to the bar of the County Court on a complaint for horse-stealing… plead guilty, and received the sentence of the Court, that he shall be confined to the Goal in this County 8 weeks, to be whipped the first day 15 stripes on the naked body, and set an hour on the wooden horse, and on the first Monday each following month be whipped 10 stripes and set one hour each time on the wooden horse.”[14] It was reported that at least one death occurred on Long Island after being subjected to the wooden horse.
Riding the Rail
Bound on a wooden rail and tar & feathering became favorites of those protesting the English government’s decision to levy taxes on the colonists to help reimburse the English treasure for the expensive Seven Years War. Also known in America as the French and Indian War; a war that spread throughout Europe was started on American soil by none other than a very young and eager militia commander, Colonel George Washington. Out spoken colonists who favored England’s rule, titled Tories, were subjected to this form of humiliating torture. As were those employed by the British to enforce economic laws and taxes imposed on the provinces. Often those representing the local Sons of Liberty, bands of artisans, laborers, and passionate ‘patriots’, rounded up the Tory perpetrator. The victim was cornered, occasionally ‘tared & feathered’, then sat upon a plank’s edge. His hands were tied with weights attached to his legs to keep him pressed down onto the plank so as to induce pain and prevent him from falling off. He was then carried through the town, escorted beyond the town’s limit by a mob of vocal patriots. In most cases the victim suffered long beyond the ordeal, his crotch injured, he would not be able to walk for days or even months without extreme pain.
Picketing
Picketing was another form of corporal punishment similar to riding the horse. Like the horse, the British abandoned its use by the time of the revolution because of its injurious nature to the soldiers. The Americans, however were not so averse to its continued use. Historian Earle noted that Revolutionary War captain Dr. John Rea[15] recorded that picketing was constantly employed in the colonial armies.[16] Washington eventually discarding the practice for the same reasons the British had done so. Grose wrote: “The picket was another corporal punishment chiefly used by the cavalry, and artillery, and in the former often inflicted by the order of the commanding officer, without the sentence of a court-martial. The mode of inflicting it was thus: a long post being driven into the ground, the delinquent was ordered to mount a stool near it, when his right hand was fastened to a hook in the post by a noose round his wrist, drawn up as high as it could be stretched; a stump, the height of the stool, with its end cut to a round and blunt point, was then driven into the ground near the post…and the stool being taken away, the bare heel of the sufferer was made to rest on this stump, which though it did not break the skin, put him to great torture; the only means of mitigation, was by resting his weight on his wrist. [His wrist would soon become very tired and the temptation was to support his weight on the pointed stake] the pain of which soon became intolerable. Soldiers were frequently sentenced to stand on the picket for a quarter of an hour. [The agony caused was great and could seldom be endured longer than fifteen minutes]. This, like the riding of the wooden horse, had been for some time left off, it having lamed and ruptured many soldiers.”[17]
Whirlgig
Basically, the Whirlgig was a wooden cage on a pivot. The prisoner was shut inside and then spun around until he or she became nauseous and vomited. According to Earle, the high honor of inventing and employing the whirlgig as a means of punishment in the army had often been assigned to General Henry Dearborn, but the fame was not his. “It had been used in the English army for the petty offenses of soldiers, and especially of camp-followers. It was a [wooden]cage which was made to revolve at great speed, and the nausea and agony it caused to its unhappy occupant were unspeakable.” She wrote that “in the American army it was said lunacy and imbecility often followed excessive punishment in the whirlgig.”[18] It remained in use throughout the war for mainly minor infractions and camp followers.
Other Punishments
A wide assortment of Punishments designed for non-commissioned officers and privates which did not require a court-martial were many and varied. Soldiers were sentenced to carry large number of turfs, others were chained to a wheelbarrow. In 1778 among the Continental soldiers, culprits were chained to a log or clog of wood; this weight often was worn for four days. For stealing cordage, one soldier was sentenced to “wear a clog for four days and wear his coat wrong side turn’d out.” A deserter from the Battle of Bunker Hill was tied to a horse’s tail, lead around the camp and whipped. Other deserters were set on a horse with face to the horse’s tail, and thus led around the camp in derision.[19]
After the American Revolution
After the United States gained its independence, most of those who fought the war returned home. It was a time when the populace did not trust a standing army and returned to relying on local militia for protection. The army, a fraction of its size, allowed many of the former tools that dealt with corporal punishments to die off. With the advent of the American Civil War in the 1860’s, there was a resurgence of some implements that inflicted pain for military infractions.
Riding the wooden horse was resurrected, however mainly for confederate prisoners. “In the closed societies of Yankee prisons, the wooden horse offered an excruciating ride to Confederate soldiers in full view of the camp. In one Civil War narrative, the wooden horse corralled in the military prison at Camp Douglas, just outside Chicago, bears the name “Morgan’s Mule”. In addition to its ‘razor back,’ this sixteen-foot-tall and thirty-foot-long machine had numerous ‘ribs’, ensuring that multiple military prisoners could receive simultaneous punishment.[20]
Another interesting penalty gained popularity among the rank and file, particularly for minor infractions like thievery and drunkenness. A paper written for the Australian newspaper The Empire, on June 12, 1862, A Look at the Federal Army described the ‘barrel-shirt’ also called the Drunkard’s Cloak or Spanish Mantle’. A hole was cut in the top and bottom taken out of a barrel. The barrel was slipped over the top of the victim who was forced to wear it – often paraded among the troops. Some examples had holes cut out for arms. This was not new to America as it had been popular in mid-1600’s England from the time of Cromwell’s Civil War. Older readers may recall that mid-20th century cartoons featured characters who had lost their clothing or were poor having to wear barrels – a toss back to this archived practice in the military.
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Further Reading on Revolutionary War Journal
RESOURSE
Cusac, Anne-Marie. Cruel and Unusual: The Culture of Punishment in America. 2009: Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.
Earle, Alice Morse. Curious Punishments of Bygone Days. 1896: Herbert S. Stone & Company, Chicago, Illinois.
Federal Soldiers of the Civil War Wearing Barrels. “A Look at the Federal Army”. June 12, 1862: Empire Publication, Sydney, Australia. On the Web https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60476712#
Fitzpatrick, John C. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799, Volume 3 January 1770 – September 1775. 1931: United States government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Grose, Francis. Military antiquities respecting a history of the English Army, from the conquest to the present time, Vol. 1. 1786: S. Hooper, London, England.
Grose, Francis. Military antiquities respecting a history of the English Army, from the conquest to the present time, Vol. 2. 1801: T. Egerton Whitehall & G. Kearsley, London, England.
Hoock, Holger. Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth. 2017: Crown Publishing, New York, NY.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Fitzpatrick, Vol. 3, pg. 333 General Orders
[2] Cusac, pg. 135
[3] Hoock, pg. 138
[4] Ibid. pg. 142
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid, pp 143-144
[7] Grose, Vol. 2, pg. 106
[8] Ibid., pg. 110-111
[9] Ibid., 106-107
[10] Earle, pp 128-130
[11] Ibid.
[12] Grose, pp 106-107
[13] Earle, pp 128-130
[14] Ibid, pg. 131
[15] Dr. John Rea was a lieutenant and captain in the Cumberland County Militia during the Revolutionary War. By war’s end he was a coroner in Franklyn County, Pennsylvania. Beginning in 1785, he served several years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He was commissioned a Major General of Pennsylvania Militia during the War of 1812.
[16] Earle, pg. 132
[17] Grose, pp 106-107
[18] Earle, pg. 132
[19] Ibid.
[20] Cusac, pg. 82