The Unknown Warrior (26 page)

The finds made during Espinola's salvage survey of the Ox Hill (Chantilly) battlefield over the years show that ‘uniform' is something of a misnomer in many Civil War instances. On both sides, much of the fighting was undertaken by state militia (with their own particular costume), while Confederate forces were dressed in a more eclectic fashion than their Union counterparts – certainly this was the case post 1863. Prior to 1854, US Army general service buttons had an eagle with the letter ‘I', ‘C', ‘A', ‘R' or ‘D' on them (depending on whether the serviceman was in the ‘Infantry', ‘Cavalry', ‘Artillery', ‘Rifles' or ‘Dragoons'. Of the six burials where the main field hospital had been located at the Centreville fortifications, two had buttons stamped ‘I', while others were of later non-unit-specific issue. A nondescript gilded flat button was also found on the Ox Hill battlefield, where a homesick Confederate soldier had crudely scratched his home and the initials F.E. as a form of a personal dog tag. Although one could purchase a patriotic identification tag from a sutler, many soldiers would instead write their name on a scrap of paper and put it in their pocket before going into battle. As was the case with ‘Private F.E.', some soldiers found other creative ways of identifying who they were so that their families might know what became of them (M. Espinola, pers. comm.). The truly terrible effect of artillery on infantry ranks ensured that identification of the infantryman killed in combat was becoming increasingly problematical.

PRACTICE AND DISCIPLINE

At length the court martial was handed to the Colonel, he pointed to a deserter, saying, try him now, or he will escape tonight. The court martial was read, the sergeant and corporal was to be reduced and receive 300 lashes each, and the private 500.

(Wheeler, 1999: 70–1)

In terms of training, the Napoleonic infantryman had to be able to fire his musket or rifle, but perhaps even more important than this, other than for riflemen, was the ability to move into formation to give and frequently to receive fire. To manoeuvre into square to receive cavalry was also essential if the infantryman was not to be cut down in the open – as such, drill was vital.

Although with written sources there are many treatises on the disposition of troops for various required formations and texts on the methodologies of drill and discipline, in terms of archaeological deposits we are less likely to witness such works. However, Professor Barry Cunliffe's excavations in the Barrack Field at Portchester are interesting. Here, layers of well-trampled chalk marl were found, separated by a lens of grey chalky soil and then sealed by a layer of beach shingle – the whole being drained by underlying gullies. The excavator believed this excavation trench revealed a parade ground, something annotated in the plan of 1815 (Cunliffe and Garratt, 1994: 51–2). As such, this area might have witnessed some of the everyday training of British troops of the Napoleonic era.

Riflemen were a different case from infantry of the line: their weapons were far more accurate and had greater range, and they did not act as a unit. Instead, they were able to seek cover, to act on initiative and to choose their own targets, aiming to deliver a deadly, individual blow. Practice in use of the weapon was, for them, vital. Throughout the nineteenth century, the emphasis on proficient gunnery increased so that by 1853 it was possible for Lord Hardinge to establish a School of Musketry at Hythe, Kent, and by the turn of the century several ranges had appeared. In Britain, the range at Bisley, Surrey, was also important – and still exists in a similar capacity today.

Britain's role in conflicts in South Africa in the nineteenth century highlighted the need for practice in use of the rifle. Zulu marksmanship was comparatively poor in the 1879 war, as we have seen, but the Boers were able to inflict casualties far out of proportion to the size of their force by using their Mauser rifles against the British – this with good marksmanship abilities. Ranges became more common in Britain from the late nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, as the need to improve and practise shooting skills became paramount. Ranges are often seen on the Ordnance Survey maps of this time – the 1901 map of Pipley Bottom, Bitton, shows one such range, with its users firing from a position in Gloucestershire at targets in Somerset.

Practice works from the Napoleonic period have been found in Crowthorne Wood in Berkshire, England (N. Smith, 1995). A number of these appear to have been the legacy of military manoeuvres on Easthampstead Plain in order to practise the latest training manual in the light of the French Revolution (
ibid.
: 424). A series of small redoubts was constructed (six being marked on the 1876 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map) – perhaps to practise artillery usage.

The need to practise building trenches for defence and also for methods of overcoming such defensive barriers was to become all too apparent in the years of the First World War, as we shall see in
Chapter 7
. Perhaps less well known are examples of training trenches connected to conflict in the wars of the closing years of the nineteenth century. We know that such trenches were present on the British Army training area on Salisbury Plain at least by 1902. Here ‘three 4 foot deep S-shaped Boer trenches, filled with standing dummies, were fired at both by guns and howitzers with fair effect' (quoted in McOmish
et al.
, 2002: 139). Nineteenth-century practice trenches are also located in Crowthorne Wood, perhaps cut by cadets from the nearby Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. These have stretches of communication trench – possible areas for flanking fire and for signalling or observation (N. Smith, 1995: 433).

THE LIFE OF THE SOLDIER

Alcohol has always played an important role in the life of the infantryman: something to forget one's predicament, to pass the time, to instil courage and, at times, to ensure enlistment. The latter was the view of the Duke of Wellington, who said of his common soldiers, ‘the scum of the earth' (Holmes, 2001: 148), that ‘people talk of their enlisting from their fine military feeling – all stuff – no such thing. Some of our men enlist from having got bastard children – some for minor offences – many more for drink' (Howard, 2002: 156).

Once they had taken the king's shilling, drink continued to fulfil a role. Archaeological sites dating from throughout this period reinforce this view, as do the writings of individual soldiers. Private Wheeler, of the 51st Light Infantry Regiment of Wellington's Army, wrote of his embarking to mainland Europe: ‘Our situation here is not very pleasant, the weather is cold and we have not much room to exercise ourselves on deck; one comfort attending us is gin and tobacco is cheap, so we can enjoy ourselves over a pipe and a glass' (Wheeler, 1999: 39). Cheap gin was ubiquitous, and it was stated by an early nineteenth-century magistrate that gin was the ‘principle sustenance' of more than 10,000 people in London (Howard, 2002: 156).

Excavations by Barry Cunliffe at Portchester Castle, Hampshire, have revealed large numbers of finds relating to drink. Indeed, on the subject of the early nineteenth-century ceramics, he went as far as to say that the interest of the assemblage ‘lies solely in the fact that they reflect military supplies' (Cunliffe and Garratt, 1994: 70). Portchester was used as a prisoner-of-war camp in this period. Many of the inmates were French, though, later, British military deserters were also interred. From Pit 260 (dating to
c.
1794–1815), a grey stoneware tankard was recovered. This was covered in a brown slip and stamped ‘Crown Inn Portchester' – the delights of the tavern were not off-limit to the infantry militia guards. Additionally, 111 fragments of wine bottles were found. All were dark green; seventy-three were base sherds and the remainder were of necks and shoulders, all of late-eighteenth-to early nineteenth-century date (
ibid.
: 84).

In Southern Africa British forces took alcohol with them as part of their supplies. These materials were in the camp at Isandlwana, and the noxious liquids fell into the hands of the victorious Zulus in January 1879:

all of the white men had been killed, and then we began to plunder the camp. We found
tywala
[drink] in the camp, and some of our men got very drunk. We were so hot and thirsty that we drank everything liquid that we found, without waiting to see what it was. Some of them found some black stuff in bottles [ink], it did not look good, so they did not drink it; but one or two men [who] drank some paraffin, thinking it was
tywala
, were poisoned. (Warrior of the uMbonambi at Isandlwana, in Emery, 1977: 84–5)

Gin was still an important spirit at the time of the Zulu Wars, and the excavations of the remains of the mission station at Rorke's Drift have yielded large numbers of glass fragments. Although many items had melted, perhaps as a result of the fire in the hospital building as part of the action, much was identifiable. Around the store buildings were a number of dark-green glass fragments, which ‘probably derive from spirit bottles. Two square-based gin bottles were partially recovered' (Adrian Greaves, 2002: 343). Holmes recounts a tale of the drive for alcohol in the Crimea: ‘Few British soldiers could match the single-mindedness of a Zouave [French soldier] who sold his boots to buy drink and blacked his feet for the sake of appearances' (Holmes, 2001: 406).

British military forces did not only consume alcohol. Alongside eight nineteenth-century port bottles and nine or ten whisky bottles, a ginger beer bottle was also recovered from the rubbish dump of the Boer War period British Fort Schanskop, near Praetoria, South Africa (Pienaar, 2002).

If spirits were the poison of nineteenth-century European armies, troops in the American Civil War did not go without. Recent excavations of the large US Army Civil War depot in Jessamine County, Kentucky, have also revealed the popularity of beer. Among the glass and ceramics were many tavern wares – most common of which was the 6oz tumbler. There were also eight ale glasses. In terms of bottles, seven whisky, three gin, eleven wine and seventeen beer vessels were recovered (McBride,
et al.
, 2003: 99). The presence of a soda water bottle at this site also showed that non-alcoholic drinks were not ignored.

Smoking, too, continued to comfort the troops. In a letter written in the year of Waterloo (from Grammont in Belgium, 29 May 1815), Private Wheeler wrote: ‘We are in excellent health and spirits and have the best of quarters. The people are remarkably kind to us. I with one man are quartered at a tobacconists, so we do not want for that article …' (Wheeler, 1999: 162).

Clay pipes have been found at several nineteenth-century military contexts including the Crimean War site of Brännklint (Löndahl
et al.
, 2001: 222) and at Portchester Castle, Hampshire. Finds at the latter included one known to have been made by a certain James Frost of Portchester, who was born in 1743 and died in 1827. In this assemblage there were ‘Ten bowls. Seven had Prince of Wales plumes and arms on the bowl, all with the initials I.F. on the spur. One pipe commemorated the Battle of Trafalgar: it bore the word Trafalgar between figures of Nelson and Britannia' (Cunliffe and Garratt, 1994: 89). A further decorated pipe bowl was found during excavations at the American Civil War site of Fort C.F. Smith, where one of the garrisons had a pipe decorated with the likeness of a soldier in a kepi hat (Balicki, 2003: 143). So not only were these items used by the military; their bowls have martial statements on them.

Perhaps the most poignant evidence for the soldier's penchant for tobacco has been found at the recently discovered burial pit of the victims of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow at Vilnius. The director of these excavations, Professor Rimantas Jankauskas, a physical anthropologist at the University of Vilnius, has studied the skeletons that were excavated. Among the bodies was the skull of a young male (
c.
20–25 years of age). This revealed extensive wear of the upper and lower left molars leaving a circular peroration to the upper and lower bite of the jaw. This was consistent with the frequent smoking of a clay pipe, which wears the teeth down over time (Jankauskas, pers. comm.).

I have had to endure sufferings and privations that are almost beyond belief … I have had to pass four nights out of five in the trenches under a constant fire from the Russian batteries. The ground was wet and sloppy … all our clothes are wet and in some cases this is what caused the death of so many of my fellow countrymen … I can say we have had plenty of biscuit and salt beef but were unable to eat it – no means of cooking. (I Death, 50th Company 1 Btn Coldstream Guards, Balaclava, Crimea; Suffolk Record Office, ref. 1970, Bury St Edmunds)

Famously, Napoleon believed that an army marches on its stomach (although this was perhaps not best illustrated by his planning for the 1812 campaign). Food remains should perhaps be expected on sites habituated by the nineteenth-century soldier. For this we are more reliant on camp and barrack sites, there being little time to eat and bury remains in a battle, although the defeated might leave traces of their preserved foodstuffs.

The remains of animal bones within rubbish pits can perhaps reveal the soldier's diet of choice. Excavations by the Brixham Heritage Museum of the Napoleonic period forts at Berry Head, guarding the approaches to Torbay, recovered several thousand animal bones, which had been thrown out by the garrison. If these are taken as being a representative sample, then it seems the soldiers subsisted on a diet of beef, mutton and fish (hake) with very little by way of pork or chicken (Berry Head Archaeology, 2000). Perhaps contemporaneous with these remains are the excavated mounds taken as being possible field kitchens at Crowthorne Wood, Berkshire. Here charcoal and sand, which had been scorched as a result of fire, were found in association with early nineteenth-century pottery in an area of military practice works (Manning, 1964; N. Smith, 1995: 424).