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The Army Mule And Other War Sketches: With James Whitcomb Riley'S Stories Of The Humorist, Edgar Wilson Nye (Bill Nye) By Russel M. Seeds
This is a curated and comprehensive collection of the most important works covering matters related to national security, diplomacy, defense, war, strategy, and tactics. The collection spans centuries of thought and experience, and includes the latest analysis of international threats, both conventional and asymmetric. It also includes riveting first person accounts of historic battles and wars.
Some of the books in this Series are reproductions of historical works preserved by some of the leading libraries in the world. As with any reproduction of a historical artifact, some of these books contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. We believe these books are essential to this collection and the study of war, and have therefore brought them back into print, despite these imperfections.
We hope you enjoy the unmatched breadth and depth of this collection, from the historical to the just-published works.
Some of the books in this Series are reproductions of historical works preserved by some of the leading libraries in the world. As with any reproduction of a historical artifact, some of these books contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. We believe these books are essential to this collection and the study of war, and have therefore brought them back into print, despite these imperfections.
We hope you enjoy the unmatched breadth and depth of this collection, from the historical to the just-published works.
106 pages, Paperback
First published June 24, 2010
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September 28, 2022
Who thought this book was worth preserving, and why? It is a collection of reminiscences from the American Civil War, published in 1898. There were thousands of similar books written in that era, most of them long forgotten, but someone, for some reason, thought this one was worth keeping, and then somebody else thought it should be converted to an eBook, which it was, badly, because the digital edition I read is a real mess.
I picked it up because I was hoping it would give some insights into what life was like for the average soldier in the war. Traditionally, military history has been written from a top-down perspective, focusing on strategy and generals and campaigns, but recently there has been a trend toward bottom-up histories, looking at what life was like for the ones who did the actual fighting and dying, which made me think of that ancient soldier’s lament that it was a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.
To be fair, there were a few such moments, and I will get to them, since they can be summed up quickly. Otherwise, it is 147 pages of being bludgeoned over the head with what the author thinks is humor, but – believe me – is not. He is trying to mimic the homespun, aw-shucks style of Mark Twain, but this is like Mark Twain in the sense that some fat, drunk, stupid frat boy thinks he is like John Belushi (thank you, Dean Wormer).
Henry Castle (1844-1916) fought in the war as a teenage soldier in the United States Army*, then remained active in veterans’ affairs in St. Paul, Minnesota, for the rest of his life. He wrote a couple other books and was known, somehow, as a humorist. Times change, and tastes as well, so perhaps people once enjoyed his verbose, oratorical writing style.
And verbose it is, to a ridiculous level, which might in fact have been part of its appeal to the audience Castle was writing for. Here is just a part of his description of an army pup tent:
It goes on like this for another five or six pages. By the end I was checking how much of the book was left and thinking, “Oh Lord, just shoot me now.”
There were times when he went on and on about something to the point that I entirely lost the thread of the narrative, and found myself thinking, “What the hell is he talking about?” I then had to turn back a few pages just to see what the subject supposedly was, and it usually turned out to be something like army mules, sutlers (private entrepreneurs who followed the army), or parade ground procedures.
His writing is full of literary, historical, and topical cultural references. Some of the people he mentions are historical figures that readers will recognize, but most of them are as dead as the metaphors he uses. For instance, “No genuine Old Soldier attempts to Weylerize his record.” An internet search turns up the biography of a Valeriano Weyler, a Spanish general sent to Cuba to crush a rebellion in 1896, and who was known as The Butcher for his cruel policy of “reconcentrado,” which seems to have been the inspiration for twentieth century concentration camps. The quote from this book probably refers to a message he sent to the Spanish king in 1897 that he had so successfully suppressed the Cuban rebellion that, “I assure your majesty that as this time there is no insurgent rat that the hooves of our horses have not trampled upon.” The ancient Romans had a stock character in their plays, the miles gloriosus, or boastful soldier, and that seems to be the sense that Weyler is being referred to in this book. It took a bit of internet searching to turn up this information, so I am pretty confident that “Weylerize” is a thoroughly dead metaphor.
Having said all that, there was one sentence in this book that made me smile, “The rich girl is often in danger of falsifying her accounts by crediting to her personality the charms of her cash.”
Alright, so what historical information does Castle provide that might be of interest to a modern reader? I considered the possibility that he might be making his facts up, but he seems so concerned about putting his education on display that he probably would not have risked whatever reputation he had on a fact that could be independently checked. So, here we go:
- A total of 450,000 mules and 650,000 horses served in the various United States armies. In 1864, the forces actually in the field required for artillery, cavalry and trains one-half as many animals as there were soldiers.
- “Six patient, faithful Mules were attached to each creaking big blue wagon, with a high, white canvas cover. Thirteen wagons were, during the first two years of the war, allotted to a regiment of infantry; six to a battery of artillery….Thus an army of seventy-five thousand men are followed when marching by a wagon-train eighteen miles long, hauled by Mules.”
- “The uses of venerable and ubiquitous hardtack were as numerous as they were suggestive. Its presence in all emergencies was one of the mysteries of the eternal law of supply and demand, one of the grand consummations and compensations of the art of war. In its natural state it was dry, flinty, tasteless and juiceless, but stored as full of nutriment as a serenade of musty eggs and flagrant onions is stuffed with archaic perfumes. Smashed into chiplets with a hammer, moistened to pulpiness in cold water, fried in pork fat and served hot, it was dubbed ‘slumgullion.’ Pounded to gritty dust, reduced to thick dough with warm water, seasoned with salt and pepper and baked in thick cakes, it became fit ambrosia for the sages of the ages and was known as 'Son-of-a-gun.’ Burned to a crisp, boiled in water, and eaten with a spoon it was as thoroughly disguised as odorless whisky or smokeless tobacco, in the sobriquet ‘gum chowder.’
- “[On] January 1, 1861, the army of the United States consisted of nineteen regiments of all arms, numbering, present and absent, 16,402 officers and men. From April 1, 1861, to April 28, 1865, a monthly average of 56,000 men, a large army in itself, was recruited, equipped and supplied for the volunteer forces. At the last-named date 1,034,064 volunteers, after four years' casualties of war, were actually in the service. From first to last 2,678,967 men were mustered in, constituting 1,668 regiments of infantry, 232 of cavalry and 52 of artillery—total 1,952 regiments. In three months, from May 7th to August 7th, 1865, a total of 640,806 troops were mustered out of service and restored to the ranks of productive citizenship. The cost of the war to the United States government has been measured in money at $3,963,159,751.15. The states in rebellion aggregated an area of 733,144 square miles, with 12,572 miles of navigable rivers, 2,523 miles of sea coast and 7,031 miles of inland boundary.”
And that’s pretty much it. My final thought on closing the book and tossing my tablet onto the desk was, “There’s a few hours I will never get back.” There are many excellent books on the Civil War, but this is not one. Skip it.
* After reading Ty Seidule’s Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, I will never again refer to the “Union” army. It was the Army of the United States, fighting against men who had gone to war so that they could continue to own human beings.
I picked it up because I was hoping it would give some insights into what life was like for the average soldier in the war. Traditionally, military history has been written from a top-down perspective, focusing on strategy and generals and campaigns, but recently there has been a trend toward bottom-up histories, looking at what life was like for the ones who did the actual fighting and dying, which made me think of that ancient soldier’s lament that it was a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.
To be fair, there were a few such moments, and I will get to them, since they can be summed up quickly. Otherwise, it is 147 pages of being bludgeoned over the head with what the author thinks is humor, but – believe me – is not. He is trying to mimic the homespun, aw-shucks style of Mark Twain, but this is like Mark Twain in the sense that some fat, drunk, stupid frat boy thinks he is like John Belushi (thank you, Dean Wormer).
Henry Castle (1844-1916) fought in the war as a teenage soldier in the United States Army*, then remained active in veterans’ affairs in St. Paul, Minnesota, for the rest of his life. He wrote a couple other books and was known, somehow, as a humorist. Times change, and tastes as well, so perhaps people once enjoyed his verbose, oratorical writing style.
And verbose it is, to a ridiculous level, which might in fact have been part of its appeal to the audience Castle was writing for. Here is just a part of his description of an army pup tent:
Guiltless of tapestry, even of paper tattooed into isosceles triangles or fretted with peafowl tintages, were its walls. Nay, vetoed were walls indeed, save when some mad riot of sumptuousness inspired an imitation of "society "—that medley of metaphysics and flirtations, of fashion, vanity, jealousy, altruism, rheumatism and gastronomy which is principally intent on beating tom-toms and dodging jim-jams. Then, hoisted above its normal altitude, like sliding roof of clover rick, a rough joinery of boards or logs or turf, breasted it up four-square to all the gusts of Boreas and the moral agencies of southern Arkansaw. No door-plate shimmered, purporting, in gothic undecipherables gnarly as Pharaoh's lean kine, to name the occupant. Good cause, forsooth; none better! No door, on which a faintest shimmer could be hung, graced the wide frontal vacancy. Who entered here, though his brow were tall and his spirit strong, left his bon-ton behind. Style, root of much heart-break and hen-peck, was smitten as by the stony paw of a sphinx. Fit symbols of existence in this pretenseless home were the broken column and the gates ajar.
It goes on like this for another five or six pages. By the end I was checking how much of the book was left and thinking, “Oh Lord, just shoot me now.”
There were times when he went on and on about something to the point that I entirely lost the thread of the narrative, and found myself thinking, “What the hell is he talking about?” I then had to turn back a few pages just to see what the subject supposedly was, and it usually turned out to be something like army mules, sutlers (private entrepreneurs who followed the army), or parade ground procedures.
His writing is full of literary, historical, and topical cultural references. Some of the people he mentions are historical figures that readers will recognize, but most of them are as dead as the metaphors he uses. For instance, “No genuine Old Soldier attempts to Weylerize his record.” An internet search turns up the biography of a Valeriano Weyler, a Spanish general sent to Cuba to crush a rebellion in 1896, and who was known as The Butcher for his cruel policy of “reconcentrado,” which seems to have been the inspiration for twentieth century concentration camps. The quote from this book probably refers to a message he sent to the Spanish king in 1897 that he had so successfully suppressed the Cuban rebellion that, “I assure your majesty that as this time there is no insurgent rat that the hooves of our horses have not trampled upon.” The ancient Romans had a stock character in their plays, the miles gloriosus, or boastful soldier, and that seems to be the sense that Weyler is being referred to in this book. It took a bit of internet searching to turn up this information, so I am pretty confident that “Weylerize” is a thoroughly dead metaphor.
Having said all that, there was one sentence in this book that made me smile, “The rich girl is often in danger of falsifying her accounts by crediting to her personality the charms of her cash.”
Alright, so what historical information does Castle provide that might be of interest to a modern reader? I considered the possibility that he might be making his facts up, but he seems so concerned about putting his education on display that he probably would not have risked whatever reputation he had on a fact that could be independently checked. So, here we go:
- A total of 450,000 mules and 650,000 horses served in the various United States armies. In 1864, the forces actually in the field required for artillery, cavalry and trains one-half as many animals as there were soldiers.
- “Six patient, faithful Mules were attached to each creaking big blue wagon, with a high, white canvas cover. Thirteen wagons were, during the first two years of the war, allotted to a regiment of infantry; six to a battery of artillery….Thus an army of seventy-five thousand men are followed when marching by a wagon-train eighteen miles long, hauled by Mules.”
- “The uses of venerable and ubiquitous hardtack were as numerous as they were suggestive. Its presence in all emergencies was one of the mysteries of the eternal law of supply and demand, one of the grand consummations and compensations of the art of war. In its natural state it was dry, flinty, tasteless and juiceless, but stored as full of nutriment as a serenade of musty eggs and flagrant onions is stuffed with archaic perfumes. Smashed into chiplets with a hammer, moistened to pulpiness in cold water, fried in pork fat and served hot, it was dubbed ‘slumgullion.’ Pounded to gritty dust, reduced to thick dough with warm water, seasoned with salt and pepper and baked in thick cakes, it became fit ambrosia for the sages of the ages and was known as 'Son-of-a-gun.’ Burned to a crisp, boiled in water, and eaten with a spoon it was as thoroughly disguised as odorless whisky or smokeless tobacco, in the sobriquet ‘gum chowder.’
- “[On] January 1, 1861, the army of the United States consisted of nineteen regiments of all arms, numbering, present and absent, 16,402 officers and men. From April 1, 1861, to April 28, 1865, a monthly average of 56,000 men, a large army in itself, was recruited, equipped and supplied for the volunteer forces. At the last-named date 1,034,064 volunteers, after four years' casualties of war, were actually in the service. From first to last 2,678,967 men were mustered in, constituting 1,668 regiments of infantry, 232 of cavalry and 52 of artillery—total 1,952 regiments. In three months, from May 7th to August 7th, 1865, a total of 640,806 troops were mustered out of service and restored to the ranks of productive citizenship. The cost of the war to the United States government has been measured in money at $3,963,159,751.15. The states in rebellion aggregated an area of 733,144 square miles, with 12,572 miles of navigable rivers, 2,523 miles of sea coast and 7,031 miles of inland boundary.”
And that’s pretty much it. My final thought on closing the book and tossing my tablet onto the desk was, “There’s a few hours I will never get back.” There are many excellent books on the Civil War, but this is not one. Skip it.
* After reading Ty Seidule’s Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, I will never again refer to the “Union” army. It was the Army of the United States, fighting against men who had gone to war so that they could continue to own human beings.
June 7, 2012
Silly little turn-of-the-century book of vignettes about the underappreciated regulars in and affiliated with the British army. Great if you happen to be trying to brush up on vocabulary for fun or a standardized test, with all kinds of purple prose and several words even my dictionary didn't know.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews