Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1892-01-28
WAR "REMINISCENCES.
HONESTY OF THE SOLDIER.
Not a Paymaster Robbed During More
Than Four Years of the War.


Than Four Years of the War.
After the first entry of the volunteer
into the new life of the soldier, ii al
ways seemed to me. that either the
oath of muster in or some invisible
cause made him man of honor,
a man whose word could be trusted |
am willing to admit that in the prepare
tory camp he may have been, and was,
somewhat wild, but when he became
somewhat accustomed to the routine of
soldierly duties. saw the necessity of
drill and discipline, his word always
seemed to me as good as gold.
This fact is more firmly established
for the reason that with the thousands
of opportunities have yet to hear of a
paymaster being robbed during the war
by the sutler, the volunteer or regular
soldier, and this point stands out in
high relief to their credit. for nothing
could have been more easy during
those days than for one soldier and one
accomplice, making themselves indie
pendently rich, had they been so dis
posed.
During the last two years the surviv-
doubt remember the small iron safe
carried by paymasters when they came
to ''the front" to pay off the troops.
They were small, as a matter of course,
and two men could carry it easily, it
having a handle on each side for that
purpose.
When a paymaster would arrive, he
would be given an extra tent in which
to place the safe; guard would be de-
tailed who was supposed to keep the
safe in sight, and ] well remember an
incident that came under my own view
of that kind. The safe in this instance
contained, the paymaster told me, sew
en- hundred thousand dollars. An ex-
ira tent was assigned him on his ar
rival, and detail of three men, all he
asked for, was made to guard the extra
tent. The guard paced backward and
forward in front of it, but as he could
not possibly see the rear of it, and only
occasionally its Sides any one can read
lily see that it would have been no diff
cult matter for two dishonest soldiers
to have cut open the tent from the rear,
quietly enter it, and carry off the safe
none the wiser. Even the guard could
easily have become an accomplice with
some others, and winked at the rob
berry. After securing the booty it
could easily have been hidden away,
to await future visit; when the for
tune could have been secured and di-
vided.
This is only one illustration of the
ease with which paymasters could have
been robbed, but there were dozens of
other plans that might have been put
in force, whereby fortune might have
been secured.
To the everlasting credit of the sol
diers composing the federal army dur
ing the late war, not single paymas-
ter was robbed by the soldiers them
selves. They did lose money in many
ways; one | believe, lost in gambling
nearly all the contents of his safe; an
immense amount of greenbacks were
lost by the sinking of the Sultana on
the Mississippi, below Memphis, if / re-
member correctly rising into more
than million of dollars. They lost
money in many other ways, but no SOL
ul6T budG ever HCdTu VI, WIS
with all the opportunities at his dispos-
al. of taking single greenback from
them.
There was something in the service
that seemed to put men on good beha-
vior; it might have been the oaths re-
quired of them, or it may have been
the knowledge that when they wore
the uniform of their country they rep
resented the everlasting principles of
right, justice and humanity in general,
and that il would be inconsistent in
them to do single act that was mean
or wrong. In any way it may be
looked at, the fact that no paymaster
was robbed by the soldiers during the
war, whose opportunities were excel
lent every day, speaks volumes in
praise of the inherent honesty of the
pay corps of the federal army during
the war -Reub. Williams, in American
Tribune.