715. FIVE UNION SOLDIERS' COURTS MARTIAL An interesting group of five Union soldier's courts martial, comprising of roughly 22 legal pages, all brought before the court at Mechanicsville, Va. on June 7, 1862. What seems to stand out most about these trials is the remarkable similarity of the cases to one another, as well as the incredibly similar and lenient punishments applied to each case. All cases involved the disrespect of a higher authority, usually a sergeant or other non-commissioned officer. Though eventually each man came along as ordered, it was never without show of verbal defiance requiring physical coercion. The second commonality to the cases, at least to the modern observer, seems to be the relative degree of leniency with which these soldiers were punished. Punishment almost universally amounted to standing guard outside officers' quarters every other day with a full pack & accoutrements for several weeks and the loss of $5 per month from the soldiers pay for two or three consecutive months. This would lead one to assume that either drunkenness among the soldiers was for some reason both common and at least partially acceptable at this time, or the current situation was such that the command could not afford the loss of any men who might be able to regain their discipline with a minimum degree of punishment. Very good.
$150-200