Transcripts For CSPAN3 The 20240704

These Television Companies and more, including spark light. The greatest town on earth is the place you call home. At spark light it is our home too. Right now, we are facing our greatest challenge. That is why spark light is working around the clock to keep you connected. We are doing your part so it is little easier. Spark light supports cspan2 as a public service. Welcome. One and all to tonights lecture. At work with key alcohol. My name is molly merce min. Virginia tech is sponsoring this event. The center regularly host talks like this and other activities, which includes sponsoring academic conferences, scholarships and grants, outreach programs, museums and Elementary School classrooms and more. Besides basically sharing wonderful civil war era history with as many different people as he possibly can. You can keep up with what is going on with the center on our website, which is civil war. Bt. Edu or you can go on facebook, youtube or twitter. On to tonights event, iris speaker is dr. Megan bever, who is an associate professor of history and the social Science Department at Missouri Southern state university. She has her phd from the university of alabama but i am a little more excited that she received her undergraduate at purdue university, which is where i went for my graduate work. I am excited to have that connection with her. Probably she focuses on 19th century u. S. History with an f insist on civil war era liquor and food studies. She is the coeditor of the book, the historian behind the history and her most recent work is the brandnew at war with king alcohol, debating drinking and masculinity in the civil war era, which is the subject of this evenings presentation. Dr. Bever will speak for around 30 to 35 minutes , give or take. Followed by a discussion with the audience, you wonderful people. You can all type in your questions at any time using the q a button on zoom. We may not be able to get to every single question but we certainly are going to try. We are going to wrap things up at the latest around it 15 eastern time. I think that is it for me. With that, i would just like to say thank you to dr. Bever that she is joining us tonight. With that, i will turn it over to dr. Bever. Thank you, molly, for that wonderful and generous introduction. I would like to thank the Virginia Center for civil war studies and dr. Paul quigley as well for the invitation to join you all this evening. I really appreciate the virtual welcome. I am so glad that so many of you have decided to join us this evening. If i can share my screen, i would like to begin tonight in the camp of the hundred 18th pennsylvania. Specifically, i would like to join them along the Potomac River in may 1863. This is just days after the union at the feet at chancellorsville. The event is somewhat unrelated. I just want to set the scene. The scene we will step into is a party or a shindig, of sorts, hosted by captain shar would. Captain sharwood had been a caterer because of his line of work. For this shindig, he had treated his guests or other officers to a generous supply of gin cocktail, punch, and ale. To go along with those beverages, the officers found enormous tubs of beef, boiled ham, Chicken Salad and ham sandwiches. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the men really enjoyed them shelves at sharwoods party. His tent became filled with a writhing mass of drunken men who would exchange some pledges of love and friendship. The next morning most of the officers lay asleep on the force , under the tables and on the ground surrounding sharwoods tent. Only one captain, who had remained sober at the party was awake enough to report for duty. Luckily, i suppose, the sober captain found the incident mostly amusing. The problem, which i can thank for giving me a book to write, is the drunken in the army was not always as funny as sharwoods party. Later that year in the same regiment, the 118th pennsylvania, a private shield was found outside the camp limits one october day. He was roaring drunk and disgracing the regiment with an unseemly language and conduct. His captain frames his was at a patients pretty although he was quiet and inoffensive when he was sober, he was eight devil incarnate when drunk. Unfortunate, for private shields, he was drunk most of the time. In this particular instance, after he was taken to the guardhouse, the very combative private shields charge captain donaldson with his musket. Donaldson, being sober, was able to wrestle the musket away from shields. He clubbed the private on the head. The blow killed private shields instantly. Captain donelson felt justified in his actions and he was not punished for the mishap. He still got branded as mn keller by men in regiment he had been nearby. Donelsons negative experience is only part of the problem. Shields ended up dead. It is by what most of us would consider an avoidable accident if he had not been so often drunk and violent. Neither the sharwood nor shield incidents are isolated. It was not that the 118th pennsylvania was uniquely liquored up. These types of occurrences both the henri and funny and the violent occurred throughout union and confederate armies. They did so, at least in part, but the official regulations regarding liquor left the armys unable to read the camps of the disruptive spirits. This is what i would like to talk about tonight in the limited amount of time that we have. How the army was at war with liquor and more than one sense. First, i would like to discuss how union and confederate armies went to war with liquor stocks and their medical and subsistence departments as much as possible. After flushing out the official uses for liquor, i want to turn to the ways that officers and soldiers brought in their usage be on those official rations, drinking and becoming intoxicated when it suited their own medicinal and recreational needs. Ultimately, i would like to discuss how the widespread use of liquor left officers, soldiers and civilians debating how much drinking was appropriate for men who were serving their countries. Let us begin by looking at alcohols official uses, medicinal uses in the civil war armies. In 2023, when we think of alcohol or liquor, we tend to focus on the numbing characteristics, the pain relieving, the cough relieving, even emotional relief that liquor provides. When the civil war began, the medical community did not describe liquor this way at all. In fact, the manual manacles medical manuals discuss it as a stimulator. The idea it could reinvigorate a body that had lost a lot of blood and restore Nervous Energy when men were suffering from shock. In the civil war, surgeons are instructed to prescribe liquor when the soldiers are sick or wounded in order to stimulate the body and help it recover. Every use of liquor is designed to give the body a jolt, if you will. In practice, what this looks like is both union and confederate armies publishing guidelines to use liquor to treat wounds and illness in their hospitals. And beyond this, the medical departments also use whiskey rations to try to prevent malaria. They makes quinine with whiskey. If you know anything about the 1860s, you may know that positions in that decade positions at the start of the civil war, do not understand that malaria is a mosquito borne illness. The u. S. Army does know that malaria occurred in swampy or lowlying areas and they also know that quinine can treat malaria. They also think it can prevent it. The problem with quinine is that it is incredibly bitter. If youve ever tasted tonic water, you know best to an extent. You have to cut the quinine was something to help get it down. Civil war soldiers cut their quinine with whiskey. Anytime the arbys are in camp near water, medical departments dole out whiskey and quinine rations if those supplies are available. Be on the medical departments, military regulations stated that whiskey or other types of liquor could also be used in cases of exposure. What this meant was that soldiers got whiskey rations when ever they were stuck in extreme elements. Typically water, snow or mock. If they are cold or damp, they get rations. Again, if supplies allows this hopefully prevents them from becoming ill. This is particularly common if soldiers are serving picket duty and bad weather. And then the final official use of whiskey rations is that they are using in cases of extreme fatigue. Officially, this means that soldiers can have rations anytime they are performing a fatigue duty building bridges, digging trenches, burying the dead. In practice, this often gets expanded to include anything that is exhausting. Marching long distances, for example, is sometimes lumped together with fatigue duty. Now, i think at first glance, these guidelines seem straightforward enough. They appear to be clearly defined. When liquor is going to be used or doled out as a ration, it is also measured. It is usually a gill or a health gil. Liquor ration is about a shot, maybe two just to give a measurement we are more used to been a gill. These guidelines are not really very specific at all. In large part, the confusion and lack of specificity came from the fact that supplying the rations was often left to the discretion of a Commanding Officer. In some cases, commanding generals actually decide and take control over how liquor is going to be dispensed. For example, after the battle of fredericksburg in 1862, robert e lee, who was commanding the army of northern virginia, he for bid christmas rations throughout the ranks. He just controls from the top how the whiskey is going to flow or not flow in this case. Just down the road, in the army of the potomac, youve got general joseph booker. He is celebrating christmas and his new promotion by doling out whiskey rations pretty widely. You can see in two cases, both in fredericksburg or after fredericksburg in 1862, you have generals really controlling the ebb and flow of liquor rations at the top. That is pretty rare. Most of the time, the decision about rations gets passed down the chain of command. The implementation varies all but by who is in charge. If a kernel or a major in your chain of command is a teetotaler , you are probably not getting any rations. Other times, your Company Officer might have the authority to be doling out whiskey. What this means is you have a lot of low ranking officers making decisions of what constitutes exposure and what constitutes fatigue. When men had to march, for example, there are plenty of Commanding Officers thought that a ration of whiskey would stimulate them, so to speak, for the journey. This did not actually work that well. In plenty of cases, whiskey and other forms of liquor are responsible for a lot of struggling. Perhaps, the most infamous instance of it not working well are the whiskey related problems that occurred during the monday march. This is shortly after the battle of fredericksburg. Soldiers and the army of the potomac are incredibly demoralized anyway. There officers decided to give them whiskey rations to cheer them up in the midst of the bad weather and everything else. And the men become drunk and begin fighting. Be on marches, there are other officers who decide that battle constitutes extreme fatigue. This is absolutely, most assuredly, not what the military considers to be fatigue duty the officers seem to think that if you needed whiskey to dig a ditch, you definitely needed whiskey to charge a. The general understanding seem to be that liquor could stimulate but also calm the nerves are still unsold back best mecca does not work the way that officers intend. There are instances when officers will give whiskey rations during battle and it backfires. In one case, during the siege of petersburg in june 1864, a federal captain gave his men whiskey right before they were going to be engaged. Instead of fighting, the men dropped into a ditch just outside of a line of trees and the captain, who had given the whiskey ration was left with tears streaming down his face. He was screaming at his men, prodding them and begging them not to disgrace themselves or also to disgrace him. Despite this fear that men might stop fighting if they were drinking during battle, there were plenty of officers who gave men rations if they have been under heavy fire. I think this is especially true and after the men were done fighting, if they had experienced a victory. This is the biggest stretch of these official regulations for officers, in a way i will give another example to illustrate the point. When a federal general john porter heard of union arty successes in tennessee. Porter is in virginia on the peninsula. He hears news of grants successes in tennessee in 1862. He gives all of his kernels permission to issue a celebratory ration to their men. He is pretty far away from the successes of grant. He is all the in the eastern peter but he gets excited and he predicts that the union army will take richmond in about six weeks. I say that the celebration, such as porters a show that the official use of liquor is being used to raise morale. So to stave off emotional exhaustion or mental fatigue, if you will to try to steal the men and convince them to keep going. That is what i would consider to be the official uses of liquor in the ways that officers use liquor. What is important to remember is that even that soldiers use rations beyond with their Commanding Officers intend i think it is important for me to note that officers are allowed to drink but enlisted men, unless they receive an official ration are not allowed to drink. There is a difference in the status. Officers during the war are keeping private stores of liquor and they could buy liquor from merchants and get passes to go to town and drink at times. Captain sharwood, that we met at the beginning of the talk, he is not out of line. He had permission to keep the private stores. He had permission to share them with fellow officers and party. Enlisted men in the war were not supposed to procure their own spirit. They are not supposed to buy them from the camp merchant but they are not supposed to drink in town. Not even supposed to go to town without a pass. This is why private shields was in so much trouble. He had left camp without permission and he procured his own spirits. On top of it all, he had become violently drunk. To be clear, shields is not alone. I said that at the beginning. Enlisted men are drinking all of the time, even though it is against the rules. What i find is that even though there drinking is officially against the rules, they are basing their own uses of liquor off of expansions of army regulations. The root of soldiers drinking is that they have grown up using liquor medicinally. Soldiers here are not unlike medical professionals they are but they believe that liquor treats illness. They have grown up in homes where wine, brandy are kept on hand in case someone became ill. When soldiers became sick in the army, which was fairly often, they typically try to find liquor to treat themselves. Federal soldiers could typically get whiskey rations from the medical department but confederate soldiers, who were much less adequately supplied in their medical departments, they tended to try to scrounge up their own whiskey. And they use it really broadly to treat what ever is ailing them. What of my favorite examples is a texas man, his name is elijah patty. He reports in a letter to his wife that he used about four fingers of brandy and also a bath. He is combining the drinking with the bath he is trying to treat a fever brought on by a severe cold. And a very sore and painful fingernail. I think it is infected. And also a case of piles. This brandy is supposed to cover a lot of ground. For patty. He actually think that it works pretty announces after his randy bath that he is ready for a full discharge of his duty. Soldiers really be on this medicinal use they expand their use or understanding of liquors usefulness. They are treating head colds. They are treating infected thumbs but they are also interpreting exposure and exhaustion and fatigue even more probably than their Commanding Officers, if that is possible. Soldiers, much more than official documents talk about they talk about mental fatigue. One of the places where i see this happening are in their winter camps. Again, those of you who studied the civil war know a lot about it and are being familiar with this. Civil war soldiers and spent a lot of time in winter camp, much more so than they do in battle. By and large, when the campaigning stops in the winter months, soldiers end up living for months in the tent cities that are fairly massive. What they do is they try to make these shelters as homelike as possible. They tried to make them warm. They build little pieces of furniture and they do anything they can to make them comfortable. One of the ways that they attempt to make themselves warm and comfortable is by drinking. There are men, especially officer, who speak with jugs of wood knee by their beds. They think they are staving off the cold. That is not you how liquor works but they do not really understand that. Men also write about keeping warm by playing whiskey poker. This seems to be just a little bit more than combating exposure. It is clear they are trying to pass the time but it is clear there trying to relieve boredom. There is certainly trying to create some kind of familial atmosphere or environment that may have had to leave behind. When they talk about drinking in their tents at night while playing games, there seems to be an element of emotional care here. I think that this emotional element to drinking becomes clear around holidays, like christmas. This is really where i see a lot of soldiers drinking combined with angst. It is a time that most soldiers were used to drinking with their families and being with their families. They go to really fantastic links to find liquor around the christmas holidays. What example is from texas excuse me, Walker Texas Division for a group of men pulled their resources together to purchase whiskey at about 40 a gallon in order to have what they called a frolic on christmas day. Those prices were not isolated for those of you who are shocked. There are other soldiers who report paying between 30 and 50 for a gallon of liquor to help celebrate christmas. What these men are trying to do is make christmas in camp as much like christmas at home as they can but it does not work. They will sometimes wait for their families to send care packages. When those care packages that include whiskey or not dont arrive, the men become melancholy. A floridian named Robert Watson said that after he drank, he still did not feel married because his thoughts were of home. These descriptions of sadness and loneliness, they are similar to the ways that men describe picket duty, the way they describe other illnesses. Liquor becomes an attempt curative, if you will, for homesickness as well as these other illnesses. What happens as a result is that meant end up drinking any time it suits their own personal needs. Also, any time they can find the liquor from a merchant or countryside. As a result, there are a lot of discussions that ensue among the soldiers themselves, among civilians, the armies, about how much it was appropriate for soldiers to drink while they were at war. Officers, overwhelmingly considered it permissible for they, themselves, to drink. They typically came from middle class or affluent backgrounds. Some of them are temperance men but most are not. Most officers think that moderate drinking is fine and they incorporate that in to their conceptions of masculinity. One federal colonel, charles rain right was so accustomed to having wine that he expressed a lot of consternation when he ran out of punch in his private stories but he was not able to get to washington, d. C. To restock. His camp only had what he considered to be the poorest jersey brand of champagne. Which he found undrinkable. That is probably not wrong. He, luckily, have hat of bottle that used to tide himself over until he could get more. Enlisted men dont tend to drink array or even common jersey champagne. But they do think drinking is fine they come from working class backgrounds and they have families that were not necessarily really involved in the Temperance Movement before the war they come from families where drinking is common. That is why they are drinking on kramos christmas and other holidays. They are perfectly willing in winter camps to engage in drunken snowball fights. In new orleans, 1863, union troops go to religious services on st. Patricks day and then they have a general spree of drunkenness or fighting. It is just how they celebrated the day. These soldiers, these enlisted men appreciate when their Commanding Officer supply at least some whiskey after those long marches or after a hard fought battle. They even responded, at times, with thundering chairs to show their appreciation for the liquor. And yet, if disorder followed soldiers started to wonder if the whiskey rations were really a perk. A wisconsin soldier said that Union Officer who used whiskey more freely than water cause additional headaches. I think he meant that figuratively but it probably applies literally too. By serving whisking to their men. And instances of fighting and brawling revealed soldiers own debates about the relationship between drinking, manliness or masculinity and patriotism. In one case, a confederate soldiers name john overton got drunk and kicked up the devil when a guard tried to arrest him. His longterm friend, Robert Patrick said that over 10 used to be considered a respectable man that have mingling that society before the war but now he was a drunk and scarcely tolerated. I think that overton example illustrates that the problem came when soldiers and officers drink so much that they were violent and possibly wrist other men safety and even their lives. Lieutenant colonel hc allmond actually concluded that officers who drink were unfit to command our brave men in battle. He argued that it brought disaster and caused wonders and mistakes on plenty of battlefields. These men and officers who were too inebriated to even drive a decent mule team had no business directing important campaigns. From allmonds point of view, sobriety was essential and commanding as it was an understanding of military science. I think enlisted men worry less about that largescale affect of drunkenness. They are not worried about a disruption or a poorly planned campaign. They are absolutely worried about the direct effects intoxicated officers have on their wellbeing. They express fury at shenanigans of drunken officers when it led to abuse and when it compromises soldiers ability to be good fighters. At vicksburg in july 1863, an illinois soldiers reported that the men marched hard all day because the officers had brush them through as it they were on a forced march. There was no point. There was no enemy nearby. While he wondered why they were being run back and forth. What wiley found out was that a few of the head officers have got too much mississippi rom and they did not know what they were doing. Other soldiers talk about this problem of being subjected to double clicks and extra drilling for the pleasure of drunken officers who are abusing them for their own amusement. Enlisted men believed that the useless drills are wasting their energy and wasting their manpower, their manhood and hurting the war effort. I confederate soldiers, Robert Watson, went so far as to threaten to desert and go to some other command because his Commanding Officer was so drunk. He did not want to abandon his duty completely but i think as watson sada, these drunken officers were misusing him and also his fellow soldiers. When the confederacy did not have manpower to waste. It was only by deserting and joining another outfit that watson could escape abuse and fulfill his patriotic obligations as is sold soldier and man. And this potential for disorder caused by drunken soldiers and officers, it left civilian observers horrified as well. Although they might not have been surprised. And they respond by articulating their own ideas about the role that liquor should play in soldiers life. Their opinion is different than the soldiers and other officers. They thought that soldiers should avoid all liquor at all cost. They are worried that they will jeopardize their manliness and jeopardize the safety of the country as a result. Reformers worry that young men would drink to their ruin in an effort to assert their masculinity and to appeal to sociability, honor and bravery. And then after spending time in the army both of stators and drinkers would be ruined. Fatigue rations would be pressed upon everyone. What reformers wanted was for soldiers to pledge themselves to total abstinence. Both union and confederate temperance reformers published tracks, evangelical did as well. They attempted to reform military drinking culture by championing the virtues of a sober life. Tracts were not shy about getting the soldiers to avoid drinking, particularly death and damnation. They went for that combo. Tracts public by north carolinians urged soldiers to flee from all sins, reminded the young men that swearing led to gambling. That gambling led to intemperance and that intemperance led to death. And that it led to eternal torment. Drunkards had no place in heaven and soldiers were risking not only their soul but they also, on top of it, could bring english on their family. A heavy burden. Northern tracts followed the same themes. That intemperance was said to score a soldiers similar to the bite of a lobster that scars a fisherman. Presumably this tracts was aimed at new englanders but it is a little hard to tell. Brave man, again, who avoid all the vices, gambling, swearing and drinking and they protect themselves first from axes and then crime and death and then from from anguish. For bringing you into their families and from hell. I think reformers new that it might only go so far. While there was plenty of tracts in the first hyperbolic category , there are elders that are much more pragmatic. They seem to try to appeal to soldiers desire to stay alive. What they do what these tracts do is directly confront military policies that are using liquor medicinally. These tracts and their going against the medical community as well. They instruct soldiers to rely on cold water and temperate habits. This is not practical, necessarily for soldiers, to just rely on cold water in the field one more than tract called the Wounded Soldiers told of a young man with habits of great selfdenial and self control. He was severely wounded in battle and then while he was wounded he came down with a bout of typhoid fever. Miraculously, the man not only recovered but he also did not need any amputations. He was able to return the battlefield ready to do service for his country. According to the tract, if the man had been had drinker, he never would have recovered. At the very least , he wouldve had a limb amputated and been unable to continue serving as a soldier. The threat of internal damnation was not going to stop a soldiers, perhaps the very pragmatic possibility of avoiding amputation might. I am not actually convinced that these tracts had unaffected all. I think are the intense debates surrounding of the use of liquor and the relation to masculinity and patriotism. So reformers and not surprisingly, they carry along middleclass and evangelical values throughout the civil war. In the arctic that sober men serve their country most morally and most effectively. They dont see a difference between those two things. And yet what i find really interesting is that the soldiers and officers themselves are not in agreement. Instead they create acceptable definitions of masculinity for themselves that made room for a moderate consumption of liquor particularly when they were sick, however they define that. But they stop short of just drinking to excess with no regard for themselves or others. Soldiers and officers absolutely condemn the abuse of liquor and in particular they condemn men who drink so much that it causes violence. That i think seems needless and especially wasteful in a war where people are dying anyway in battle. So soldiers overwhelmingly argue that there can be good men, men who served their country effectively who use liquor because it makes them better soldiers. It allows them to stay healthier and it staves off the harsh effects of camp life in battle and it enables men to serve their countries to the fullest. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much megan. That was very enlightening. And i want to remind you all that you can put any questions you have into the q a chat box and we will get as many answered as we possibly can. But i guess to start us off, how did you become interested in this topic of alcohol and masculinity. Its a very interesting topic that has been overlooked. So how did this intrigue you. Thats an interesting question and i dont think i have a very short answer. I went to grad School Interested in the civil war and my perdue professors might have had something to do with that but i was interested in the war for a few decades before that. So, the drinking part kind of hit me by surprise. When i got into grad school i became really interested first in reform movements. And i think really those anxieties that cause people to worry about drinking and its relationship to society. The relationship to gender and to race. And while i was at alabama i worked with george rebel who was a fantastic advisor. And i told him i had these interest that i thought really were going into separate ways. And he really worked with me to show all of the ways potentially that they worked together. Then once i got into the project, the temperance reformers, i think they were my starting point. And the project moved well beyond a study of temperance. So i still like their tracks and their newspapers. They are incredibly almost comically hyperbolic but the study moved far beyond what the temperance reformers thought so i ended up much more broadly than i ever would have thought. That kind of gets to one of our first questions. Your sources. When these men are in the correct state to be writing these descriptions of events that are happening. People are in various states of sobriety. How do you trust what diaries and letters might be saying about drinking . And alternatively, is there an air of selfcensorship that goes with what the soldiers right. So i would guess i would say what i do there when im looking at soldiers letters and diaries, i aggregate them. And not in a mathematical way. I want to be clear about that. I think over time you get so many sources and you start to see the pattern. And im looking at soldiers accounts in conjunction with government records, the official records. Those are full of references to liquor. Its supply and the problems caused by it and so on and so forth. I do deal a lot with perception in the book. Because on one level i think the way that people are talking about liquor matters just as much as what they are actually using. So if someone is talking about an officer they perceive to be drunk then im curious about how those rumors and those perceptions might be functioning. But i think with soldiers themselves, in some cases they are pretty matteroffact about it but i try to keep in mind that if its letters especially i try to keep in mind who they are talking to. So they are much more likely to talk about what they are up to in camp with their dads or their brothers or other male relatives then they are when they write to mom. And ill have very specific letters where soldiers will say you dont need to worry about me, mom, im not drinking anything. You know, it is a letter to mom. So it may not tell the whole story. But other times, i mean, i think too especially when men are writing to their dads or brothers theres also some i dont want to be too sappy but there is a real care for each other so the story of john overton that i shared was told by a friend. But a friend that is really concerned. I see that happening a lot. Soldiers will write home and they are concerned about someones behavior but there is a compassion to it. And so i think that makes it less gossip and not as prone to exaggeration maybe but very much a concern friend or Family Member writing about what they think is happening. Very interesting. You mentioned public opinion. And rumors and i was wondering, i thought that was one of the really interesting points of your book and i was owning if you could touch on that more . It mostly comes into play with generals at least that is what i found. But federals and confederates but really, really in the union. There is a desire to want to link morality and battlefield performance and in particular northerners and temperance reformers of course but even beyond the reform community, people assume that you have to be sober to win battles. This idea that your character is related to your success. And so what it does is it leads to a lot of rumors when Union Generals dont do very well. So mcdowell for example gets accused of drunkenness. I think just because people dont like him. Because he doesnt drink but i think people just dont like him. Hooker, after chancellorsville is plagued by these rumors that he was drunk and thats why the federals lost. And whats really interesting there is that civilians started the rumors. The federal government even is piqued by them but other generals at chancellorsville closed ranks immediately. And they say that hooker was not drunk. That he might have been sick and may very well have been sick. But that he absolutely was not drinking. And this gets into your question of can we trust them or not . I dont really know if they are telling the truth or if they are just closing ranks but i think its really interesting that they argue immediately that he isnt drunk but he is sick. So you can be sick and that is acceptable. And you can also be sick and use liquor. So i think those two things are playing together interestingly. But it does from a civilian side, they assume hooker is drunk but he has done nothing before the battle to indicate that he wouldnt be. Confederates really celebrate and they are a little bit different but they really celebrate the sobriety of lee and jackson. That something they hold up that these men are moral. And that jackson especially is a coldwater enthusiast. Thats really held up as part of their success. That is very interesting but we have a few questions here that cares about the differences between the confederate and union drinking. Did one and five more . Was more prevalent to the confederacy . I would say there are two parts to this answer. The answer is that the significance of drinking is the same. So the way that alcohol is understood medically is the same and the way that soldiers think about drinking is the same in the union and the confederacy but federals have a lot more supply. So the federal army whether its a medical department or the subsistence department, they will be able to provide liquor rations pretty regularly throughout the war. Not perfectly but pretty regularly throughout the war. So federal soldiers talk about receiving whiskey rations. Confederates have a really severe shortage partly because of the blockade and partly because there are bread shortages throughout the confederacy. If you dont have any grain, you are not making bread and not also distilling very much. So its really all that the Confederate Medical Department can do to try to scrape together because you cant really scrape liquor but to pool as much liquor as they can and they are desperate for it. That doesnt leave a lot of rations to be distributed. So what i see in the confederacy is soldiers tracking it down. And they are really adept at this. So they can find apple and peach brandy from the farmers. There are all these accounts of them finding gallons of it here there and everywhere in rural parts of the south. And i think its a difference of scale. So the confederacy and its army as a whole is not producing enough but that doesnt mean theres not enough for an individual group of soldiers to get really drunk from time to time. Its a question of scale there. Interesting. How does the confederacy clampdown on distilling in any way . Does the north or the union clampdown on distilling . The north doesnt. The north has license laws and regulations that they keep in place much to the chagrin of temperance reformers. The north raises taxes so they are using whiskey and its flow or liquor i should say in its flow to raise revenue for the role war. The confederacy absolutely clamps them. Again they thought Food Shortages so what ends up happening is confederates, seven different Confederate States prohibit distilling. And there rhetoric basically suggests that the distillers are not patriotic. That they are wasting food with their distilling and then on top of it all are causing women and children to starve, probably the wives of soldiers. There causing them to start. And also causing the soldiers to get drunk. Its a double whammy for distillers. They are undercutting the war effort in these multiple ways in there just is bad as profiteers. They are also raising prices so they are extorting, as well. So distillers big come, i think dissociate associated with disloyalty and distilling becomes illegal. So we wouldnt necessarily think prohibition would pop up in the confederacy but it absolutely does. Anyway that it doesnt in the north. So thats one of the interesting components of the war, i think. Yeah, that is interesting and i run giving that the state is coming in to stop the distilling. A question about religious beliefs. Did that play a role in how much the men drink at all . Yes. Men who were from evangelical backgrounds are much less likely to drink. And they also right a lot about their frustration with liquor. But it seems like to the extent that i can get in numbers which is not that great and extent, it seems like only maybe 10 of men in regiments are kind of joining those temperance societies in the camps taking pledges which is about the same as the number people who were active in temperance organizations before the war. So i would say theres a relationship between evangelic cal evangelical religion in temperance but not the case that every person who was religious was a temperance advocate. And of course catholic soldiers are outgoing to church on Saint Patrick days and going out and partying. So i think there are limits to how influential religion was on curtailing drinking. Did immigrants, germans and the irish play a big picture in your story . Yes. And so its not just a story of immigration by any means but it comes up and i think the story of german american soldiers comes up a little bit more. First of all their rules for getting rations are different from everybody elses. They are like to have beer more than uniformed soldiers which creates quite a bit of jealousy but they had their patriotism questions and irishamerican soldiers have this as well. Their commitment to the cause whether its union or confederate is being constantly questioned. This idea that they are maybe not committed so that are drinking and that can play a part in this. If they are hesitant to enlist or Something Like that which german american soldiers tended to be. They are also drinking than their this an idea that perhaps they are not good soldiers or that may be thered drinking undercuts their patriotism in some way. And then the of course push back against that. They argued that really its needed for soldiers that are the drunks. They have no idea to drink responsibly. There is one saloon keeper in richmond, his name is john lange and hes a german american. Hes a confederate he supports the confederacy through and through but gets really, really frustrated throughout the war because his business is subjected to these constantly changing license laws. Martial law. Prohibition. And his livelihood is really being undercut and he is very frustrated that his particular line of work is coming under fire and his patriotism is being questioned. Because he supports the confederacy. Hes using his saloon to gather supplies. So i think he chafes at the notion that he is not a good confederate because he is a saloon keeper. Thats interesting. You mentioned that the temperance tracks cannot gauge how effective they are but there are other things that perhaps did work to real these men back in any way from drinking. I dont really think so. So the temperance reformers try their tracks. Families tried to convince the men i think that maybe had some effect. Some soldiers say soandso cant go drinking out with the senate because his wife says, no. So even through letters and all of that its still not happening. So i do think that wives and mothers have a little bit of an effect but not really in the military doesnt either. They punish drunkenness after it happens. They use Corporal Punishment on enlisted men who drink. And it doesnt really it doesnt necessarily help. It creates a lot of resentment among other enlisted men. So, no, i see it as a constant kind of struggle what ever the military strike. And they also try closing shops and cutting off men from supply. I guess it sort of works but not really. If you like none of the solutions are meeting expectations. So i think if anything works it is just the men deciding among themselves what they think is acceptable and what isnt. So i think there is some self policing but as far as efforts from outside, yeah. So when they have tension that you mentioned between the officers and the enlisted men, are there any attitudes about drinking towards African American soldiers to u. S. Ct. I think u. S. Ct and just African Americans in general. There is a thought among white well we will talk about white northerners for a second. So white southerners have for generations prohibited enslaved people and freed black people from having alcohol. So prohibition in the south is racialized. They dont call it prohibition but it is absolutely there and its race based. I think northerners are worried after emancipation that black people once they are free, are going to drink too much. And so black americans are very conscious of this and i think work purposefully to combat that image. So a lot of what i see are black americans arguing that they are more sober than their white counterparts. That black soldiers are more sober than their white counterparts so they are doing their patriotic duty better. In some cases, there is some antagonism between like, black soldiers and irish soldiers about who is a better american. The black soldier who sober or the irish soldiers who are drink. So theres nativism and racism going back and forth. But then in other cases, there are africanamerican accounts of enslaved people who run two union lines who are sober and then given back to disloyal owners who are drunks. So saying here is a black person has all the character traits that you want to make a Good American and you are sending him back to his owner was a traitor and also a drunk because those two things go together. And so you see those elements of race and its relationship to gender and sobriety. They are all playing out. But i see a lot of African American just very meticulously crafted narratives of sobriety as evidence of their deserving of freedom. They are deserving of citizenship and their evidence of patriotism. Was there any evidence of women and camp followers imbibing or did you find anything like that . Yeah, i think most of the women i encounter are merchants or i guess runners, facilitators. So they are smuggling liquor into camp for the men. They are assisting with drinking or they are operating some kind of a business where soldiers can drink so they are bound up in this too. And again it depends on who you talk to. If youre reading the accounts of enlisted men, these women are doing a Great Service for their country. If you read the accounts of Commanding Officers in the official records, or some other source, these women are a problem. So its all about perspective. And then southern women, southern white women, i have some accounts of them being very worried about the combination of yankee invasion, emancipation and ramp it drunkenness. You see those rumors and those fears that Union Soldiers on black men will become drunk and sort of ravage the countryside. You see those rumors coming in from women. Not necessarily from the confederate government. But i see that element as well but yes, women absolutely play a role in providing. One question was were there any cases of soldiers getting drunk and going to town and attacking civilians . Yes. Lots. In both north and south . Yes, its a problem on both sides. It tends to affect confederate towns and border towns more because of where the proximity to the fighting is although there is pennsylvania accounts too but its absolutely from. And i think thats one of the reasons to go back to the private shields i mentioned. Thats one of the reason why his behavior is such a problem. He gets drunk and violent and is not only causing problems in camp but the dragon men also in town and fighting with each other. There fighting with civilians. The attack merchants when they dont get what they want to date attack africanamericans when they dont get what they want. So you see a lot of both confederate and union, attempts to keep soldiers out of town. And also to keep civilians from selling to them. That is the other piece of the puzzle. You keep the men as close to camp as you can but you also have to have punishments and regulations. You have to expand martial law over civilians which is very sketchy because thats the only way you can keep the attacks and the property destruction and thats the only way to keep it under control. Interesting. We have a big question here. How does the civil war fit into the longer history of attitudes towards alcohol quits yeah. That is a good one. So i think the war is one of the places where we really see americans struggle with the role that drinking place in our national identity. And its not the only place that we see that but i think its one of the big flashpoints. Another big flashpoint will be world war i and National Prohibition comes out of that. But as far as where the Temperance Movement fits, because i think thats one part of this question, the Temperance Movement regroups really quickly after the war. I think it fits and they perceive this too. And im getting into the work of like Gaines Foster and other historians. It dovetails really nicely with emancipation. Because with emancipation you have the government stepping into right a moral wrong as reformers see it. They are writing the senate slavery. So reformers said lets do drinking next. Lets take the power of the government that is growing out of the war. And lets use it to make the United States more moral. So Temperance Movement is going to have a lot of momentum coming out of the war. By the end of the 1860s through reconstruction and it will get just get stronger. I think that is true in the north and also true in the former confederacy. They dont blink it to emancipation perhaps for obvious reasons but they do need prohibition after slavery ends. They are experimented with it once during the war so i think we see that prohibition becomes much more national after the war, then it had been maybe before the war. But yet, i think there is that of initial question of what does the war mean for temperance legislation and that movement . Liquor businesses also get bigger. That bigger federal state will help liquor interest as well. But i think there is more nebulous, i dont know if thats the right word. But a tricky cultural question to get at and i think what the war shows us is that we are not really united on what we think it means to be a man coming out of the war. And that veterans, in particular dont have the same definitions that civilians have and i think that will be a problem as veterans age. That they are not sober and not hardworking. That they dont walk around pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. They are sick in 1 million ways that you can define sickness. Using liquor in a way that may be civilians dont like. But yeah to get back to my original part of the answer, i just think and i jokingly say this a little bit. But i think there is a question that still plagues us in 2023. That is, how much can i drink and still be a good person . And i think that is really what soldiers are asking during the war and everybody is asking. Ora, final question. What was the most interesting thing that you found in story are anecdote or whatever while doing research . My goodness. I think it depends on the day. I think confederate prohibition was the extent of that was one of the big surprises. Mississippi hasnt had a state dispensary system that i found really fascinating. To learn about. But there are, i feel as well that there are different characters, people. I guess they are not characters. They were real. But for no particular reason at all i have some that i find particularly funny. I really like an officer augustus i link. His writing is published but hes very funny. He is a provost guard most of the time but doesnt really have a lot of tolerance for people he considers to be drunk. But he drinks a lot. Himself. And then he somehow ends up drunk in memphis at a temperance play so he writes about how he didnt like the play and didnt find it interesting. And ive found it i think in my nerdy sort of way, i found it very funny and endearing. But i dont know how analytically significant he is. I just found him funny. Sometimes you find the gems in the archives online and thats great. Wonderful. I think thats all the time we have with dr. Bever and thank you to the wonderful audience for questions and attending tonights talk and thank you to the centers donors. We hope to see you all at future events with the Virginia Center for several war studies and especially a huge thank you to dr. Megan bever for a fascinating talk on her Research Topic in her bran new book. Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate. Thank you so much for having me. If you are enjoying American History to be cut then sign up for a newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive weekly highlights of upcoming programs like lectures and history, american artifacts, the presidency and more. Sign up for the ah tv newsletter today and be sure to watch American History tv every weekend or anytime online at c span. Org history. Weekends on cspan 2 are an intellectual feast. Every saturday American History tv documents americas story and on sundays book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. 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