p. 182 | Army Drunkenness

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 3, 1864

Army Drunkenness.

THE other day I met one of our soldiers, a veteran; he was a — man, I will not tell the name of the State, but it is one I love, and it has given many brave men to the country. He was a fine looking man, intelligent too, and with an earnest face, but a little clouded, alas! as I now found, with that horrible curse, whisky. Somebody had been wicked enough to "put an enemy into his mouth, to steal away his brains." He talked of his battles and escapes; he was quite a veteran, and finally I asked him, "Do the men drink?" "I don't know what you mean by drinking," said he; "any soldier takes a glass of whisky when he can get it." And then, as he told me, I could hardly help repeating his question, "How could they help it?" Alone and sick and tired or wet, and cold and hungry. "You see, a man hasn't much, and then you see it lifts him right up." "Ah," said I, "to drop him down again lower than ever." "Yes, but he does not stop to think of that."

And then I told him I knew of some that did not drink. He had never seen them. That I knew of officers who abstained, and kept their men from drink all they could. "I don't know any such officers." "Why you see," said he "the men drink when they can get it; but the officers can get it all the time, and they do drink terrible." This I could not gainsay, though I knew individual exceptions: and then he went on to tell me some sad tales. I knew the truth of some from other sources. You need not tell me they were soldiers' stories; I had proof enough. He told me of one officer drunk,—crazy drunk—who led his men to a desperate charge, at a terrible sacrifice of life. The enemy broke and fled; but his men might have been all cut to pieces, and so he saw when he came to himself—for, strange to say, he escaped unhurt.

He told me of one regiment ordered forward, to its almost annihilation, by a drunken officer, who gave out and was carried to the rear, for the time getting the credit of a wound; and finally some junior officer bethought himself, and ordered the men back; but, there were the precious lives sacrificed. Who should restore them, or heal the hearts broken by their loss?

Alas! there will be terrible reckonings for wasted lives, and they must share who make and sell the poison that takes away men's senses.