Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

“Robert McKnight to receive 800 lashes on his naked back with cat-o’-nine-tails. John Cobby to receive 600 lashes in the same manner; and Peter McAllister 300 lashes in the same maner. The adjutant will see the sentences put in execution by the Drum of the line at 5 o’clock this evening; the Surgeon to attend the execution.”

As Peter McAlister was very young his lashes were remitted. He was led in disgrace to watch the others as they were whipped, two hundred lashes at a time, at the head of the four regiments, if the surgeon found they could endure it.

These sentences were horribly severe. Thirty-nine lashes were deemed a cruel punishment. Ten was the more frequent number. Dr. Rea, in his diary, kept before “Ticonderogue,” tells of a thousand lashes being given in one case. Another journal tells of fifteen hundred lashes. He also states that he never witnessed a military flogging, as he “found the shreaks and crys satisfactory without the sight.” Occasionally a faint gleam of humanity seems dawning, as when we find Colonel Crafts in camp before Boston in 1779 sending out this regimental order:

“The Colonel is extreamly sorry and it gives him pain to think he is at last Obliged to Consent to the Corporal Punishment of one of his regiment. Punishments are extreamly erksome and disagreeable to him but he finds they are unfortunately necessary.”

After that date the “cat” was seldom idle in his regiment, as in others in the Continental army. Lashes on the naked back with the cat-o’-nine-tails was the usual sentence, diversified by an occasional order for whipping “with a Burch Rodd on the Naked Breech,” or “over such Parts as the commanding officer may apoint.” There was, says one diary writer of Revolutionary times, “no spairing of the whip” in the Continental army; and floggings were given for comparatively trivial offenses such as “wearing a hat uncockt,” “malingering,” swearing, having a dirty gun, uttering “scurulous” words, being short of ammunition, etc.

A New York soldier in 1676 was accused of pilfering. This was the sentence decreed to him:

“The Court Marshall doth adjudge that the said Melchoir Classen shall run the Gantlope once, the length of the fort: where according to the custom of that punishment, the souldiers shall have switches delivered to them, with which they shall strike him as he passes between them stript to the waist, and at the Fort-gate the Marshall is to receive him, and there to kick him out of the garrison as a cashiered person, when he is no more to returne, and if any pay is due him it is to be forfeited.”

All of which would seem to tend to the complete annihilation of Melchoir Classen.

Gantlope was the earlier and more correct form of the word now commonly called gantlet. Running the gantlope was a military punishment in universal use in the seventeenth century in England and on the continent. It was the German Gassenlaufen and it is said was the invention of that military genius, the Emperor Gustavus Adolphus.

The method of punishing by running the gantlope was very exactly defined in English martial law. The entire regiment was drawn up six deep. The ranks then were opened and faced inward; thus an open passage way was formed with three rows of soldiers on either side. Each soldier was given a lash or a switch and ordered to strike with force. The offender, stripped naked to the waist, was made to run between the lines, and he was preceded by a sergeant who pressed the point of his reversed halbert against the breast of the unfortunate culprit to prevent his running too swiftly between the strokes. Thus every soldier was made a public executioner of a cowardly and degrading punishment.

Several cases are on record of running the gantlope in Virginia; and an interesting case was that of Captain Walter Gendal of Yarmouth, Maine, a brave soldier, who for the slightest evidence of a not very serious crime was sentenced to “run the gauntelope” through all the military companies in Boston with a rope around his neck. This sentence was never executed.

It is certainly curious to note that the first two parsons who came to Plymouth, named Oldham and Lyford, came in honor and affection, but had to run the gantlope at their leaving. They were most “unsavorie salt,” as poor, worried Bradford calls them in his narrative of their misbehaviors (one of the shrewdest, most humorous and sententious pieces of seventeenth century writing extant), and after various “skandales, aggravations, and great malignancies” they were “clapt up for a while.” He then writes of Oldham:

“They comited him till he was tamer, and then apointed a guard of musketiers, wch he was to pass thorow, and every man was ordered to give him a thump on ye breech wth ye end of his musket, then they bid him goe and mende his manners.”

Morton of Merry-mount tells in equally forcible language in his New England Canaan of the similar punishment of Lyford.

A Dutch sailor, for drawing a knife on a companion, was dropped three times from the yard-arm and received a kick from every sailor on the ship – a form of running the gantlope. And we read of a woman who enlisted as a seaman, and whose sex was detected, being dropped three times from the yard-arm, running the gantlope, and being tarred and feathered, and that she nearly died from the rough and cruel treatment she received.

Similar in nature to running the gantlope, and equally cowardly and cruel, was “passing the pikes.”

In the fierce Summarie of Marshall Lawes for the colony of Virginia under Dale, I find constantly appointed the penalty of “passing the pikes:” it was ordered for disobedience, for persistence in quarrelling, for waylaying to wound, etc.

“That Souldier that having a quarrell with an other, shall gather other of his acquaintances, and associates, to make parties, to bandie, brave second, and assist him therein, he and those braves, seconds and assistants shall pass the pikes.”

This was not an idle threat, for duelling was discouraged and forbidden by Virginia rulers. In 1652 one Denham of Virginia carried a challenge from his father-in-law to a Mr. Fox. He was tried for complicity in promoting duelling and thus sentenced:

“For bringinge and acknowledgeinge it to be a chalenge, for deliveringe it to a member of ye court during ye court’s siting, for his slytinge and lessinge ye offense together with his premptory answers to ye court ye sd Denham to receave six stripes on his bare shoulder with a whip.”

Another common punishment for soldiers (usually for rioting or drinking) was the riding the wooden horse. In New Amsterdam the wooden horse stood between Paerel street and the Fort, and was a straight, narrow, horizontal pole, standing twelve feet high. Sometimes the upper edge of the board or pole was acutely sharpened to intensify the cruelty. The soldier was set astride this board, with his hands tied behind his back. Often a heavy weight was tied to each foot, as was jocularly said, “to keep his horse from throwing him.” 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. In other cases in New Amsterdam a musket was tied to each foot of the disgraced man. One culprit rode with an empty scabbard in one hand and a pitcher in the other to show his inordinate love for John Barleycorn. Jan Alleman, a Dutch officer, valorously challenged Jan de Fries, who was bedridden; for this cruel and meaningless insult he, too, was sentenced to ride the wooden horse, and was cashiered.

Dutch regiments in New Netherland were frequently drilled and commanded by English officers, and riding the wooden horse was a favorite punishment in the English army; hence perhaps its prevalence in the Dutch regiments.

Grose, in his Military History of England, gives a picture of the wooden horse. It shows a narrow-edged board mounted on four legs on rollers and bearing a rudely-shaped head and tail. The ruins of one was still standing in Portsmouth, England, in 1765. He says that its use was abandoned in the English army on account of the permanent injury to the health of the culprit who endured it. At least one death is known in America, in colonial times, on Long Island, from riding the wooden horse. It was, of course, meted out as a punishment in the American provinces both in the royal troops and in the local train bands.

A Maine soldier, one Richard Gibson, in 1670, was “complayned of for his dangerous and churtonous caridge to his commander and mallplying of oaths.” He was sentenced to be laid neck and heels together at the head of his company for two hours, or to ride the “Wooden-Hourse” at the head of the company the next training-day at Kittery.

In 1661, a Salem soldier, for some military misdemeanor, was sentenced to “ride the wooden horse,” and in Revolutionary days it was a favorite punishment in the Continental army. In the order-book kept by Rev. John Pitman during his military service on the Hudson, are frequent entries of sentences both for soldiers and suspected spies, to “ride the woodin horse,” or, as it was sometimes called, “the timber mare.” It was probably from the many hours of each sentence a modification of the cruel punishment of the seventeenth century.

It was most interesting to me to find, under the firm signature of our familiar Revolutionary hero, Paul Revere, as “Preseding Officer,” the report of a Court-martial upon two Continental soldiers for playing cards on the Sabbath day in September, 1776; and to know that, as expressed by Paul Revere, “the Court are of the Oppinion that Thomas Cleverly ride the Wooden Horse for a Quarter of an hower with a muskett on each foot, and that Caleb Southward Cleans the Streets of the Camp,” which shows that the patriot, could temper justice with both tender mercy and tidy prudence.

The wooden horse was employed some times as a civil punishment. Horse thieves were thus fitly punished. In New Haven, in January, 1787, a case happened:

“Last Tuesday one James Brown, a transient person, was brought to the bar of the County Court on a complaint for horse-stealing – being put to plead – plead guilty, and on Thursday 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 ten stripes and set one hour each time on the wooden horse.”

The cruel punishment of “picketing,” which was ever the close companion of “riding the wooden horse” in the English army is recorded by Dr. Rea as constantly employed in the colonial forces. In “picketing” the culprit was strung up to a hook by one wrist while the opposite bare heel rested upon a stake or picket, rounded at the point just enough not to pierce the skin. The agony caused by this punishment was great. It could seldom be endured longer than a quarter of an hour at a time. It so frequently disabled soldiers for marching that it was finally abandoned as “inexpedient.”

The high honor of inventing and employing the whirlgig as a means of punishment in the army has often been assigned to our Revolutionary hero, General Henry Dearborn, but the fame or infamy is not his. For years it was used in the English army for the petty offenses of soldiers, and especially of camp-followers. It was a cage which was made to revolve at great speed, and the nausea and agony it caused to its unhappy occupant were unspeakable. In the American army it is said lunacy and imbecility often followed excessive punishment in the whirlgig.

Various tiresome or grotesque punishments were employed. Delinquent soldiers in Winthrop’s day were sentenced to carry a large number of turfs to the Fort; others were chained to a wheelbarrow. In 1778 among the Continental soldiers as in our Civil War, culprits were chained to a log or clog of wood; this weight often was worn four days. One soldier for stealing cordage was sentenced to “wear a clogg for four days and wear his coat rong 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.

There was one curious punishment in use in the army during our Civil War which, though not, of course, of colonial times, may well be mentioned since it was a revival of a very ancient punishment. It is thus described by the author of a paper written in 1862 and called A Look at the Federal Army:

“I was extremely amused to see a rare specimen of Yankee invention in the shape of an original method of punishment drill. One wretched delinquent was gratuitously framed in oak, his head being thrust through a hole cut in one end of a barrel, the other end of which had been removed, and the poor fellow loafed about in the most disconsolate manner, looking for all the world like a half-hatched chicken.”

I have made careful inquiry among officers and soldiers who served in the late war, and I find this instance, which occurred in Virginia, was not exceptional. A lieutenant in the Maine infantry volunteers wrote on July 13, 1863, from Cape Parapet, about two miles above New Orleans:

“We have had some drunkenness but not so much as when we were in other places; two of my company were drunk, and the next day I had a hole cut in the head of a barrel, and put a placard on each side to tell the bearer that ‘I am wearing this for getting drunk,’ and with this they marched through the streets of the regiment four hours each. I don’t believe they will get drunk again very soon.”

The officer who wrote the above adds to-day:

“This punishment was not original with me, as I had read of its being done in the Army of the Potomac, and I asked permission of the colonel to try it, the taking away of a soldier’s pay by court-martial having little permanent effect. In those cases one of the men quit drinking, and years afterward thanked me for having cured him of the habit, saying he had never drank a drop of liquor since he wore the barrel-shirt.”

Another Union soldier, a member of Company B, Thirteenth Massachusetts Volunteers, writes that while with General Banks at Darnstown, Virginia, he saw a man thus punished who had been found guilty of stealing: With his head in one hole, and his arms in smaller holes on either side of the barrel, placarded “I am a thief,” he was under a corporal’s guard marched with a drum beating the rogue’s march through all the streets of the brigade to which his regiment was attached. Another officer tells me of thus punishing a man who stole liquor. His barrel was ornamented with bottles on either side simulating epaulets, and was labelled “I stole whiskey.” Many other instances might be given. There was usually no military authority for these punishments, but they were simply ordered in cases which seemed too petty for the formality of a court-martial.

This “barrel-shirt,” which was evidently so frequently used in our Civil War, was known as the Drunkard’s Cloak, and it was largely employed in past centuries on the Continent. Sir William Brereton, in his Travels in Holland, 1634, notes its use in Delft; so does Pepys in the year 1660. Evelyn writes in 1641 that in the Senate House in Delft he saw “a weighty vessel of wood not unlike a butter churn,” which was used to punish women, who were led about the town in it. Howard notes its presence in Danish prisons in 1784 under the name of the “Spanish Mantle.”

The only contemporary account I know of its being worn in England is in a book written by Ralph Gardner, printed in 1655, and entitled England’s Grievance Discovered, etc. The author says:

“He affirms he hath seen men drove up and down the streets, with a great tub or barrel open in the sides, with a hole in one end to put through their heads, and so cover their shoulders and bodies, down to the small of their legs, and then close the same; called the new-fashion cloak, and so make them march to the view of all beholders, and this is their punishment for drunkards and the like.”

It is also interesting and suggestive to note that by tradition the Drunkard’s Cloak was in use in Cromwell’s army; but the steps that led from its use among the Roundheads to its use in the Army of the Potomac are, I fear, forever lost.