kill ’em with kindness

Families at home trying to survive during a seemingly unending war in which important supplies for the army are questionable – there are reasons for a Confederate soldier to consider deserting, even if they are treated well by their commanders. The following editorial noted a report that some officers in the Army of Northern Virginia might be treating their men rather haughtily: the officers are urged to respect their rank and file as gentlemen, and privates are encouraged to stay devoted to the cause whether or not they are treated by their officers almost like Yankees.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch January 22, 1864:

The rank and file.

A correspondent in the Army of Northern Virginia, and an esteemed personal friend, is pleased to express his approbation of a recent editorial in this paper advocating the claims of the private soldiers to the gratitude of their country and the consideration of their officers. He is greatly mistaken, however, in the impression that this is the first time attention has been called in these columns to the subject. The memory of our regular readers and the files of this journal will bear witness that, from the beginning of the war to the present hour, if any one topic connected with the army has received more editorial attention than any other, it has been the rank and file, whose prodigious sacrifices for the common cause, and whose purely disinterested devotion present altogether the brightest and most immortal chapter in the history of this country.

not an officer but probably a gentleman

We are sorry to hear from our correspondent, (himself an officer and therefore a dispassionate witness,) that there are some officers in the Confederate service who treat the noble soldiers whom they have the honor to command as inferior beings, mere machines, like the mercenaries of a standing army, and never manifest towards them the sympathy and kindly attentions which are so dear to the soldier’s heart. We hope the number of such military popinjays is small, for straggling and desertion in the army will never be put a stop to, where their influence extends. It is easy enough to talk of enforcing military discipline, and unless it is enforced, we might as well not have an army, but the strongest discipline in camp or court, in earth or heaven, is that which flows from Love. The fear of hell itself has never melted the human heart like the influence of Divine Benevolence. There are few men in the world so thoroughly depraved that they cannot be more easily drawn by affection than driven by fear. Such exceptional reprobates there may be in the army as well as in other vocations, and upon them the severe penalties should be dealt without mercy. But the great mass of our rank and file are as much gentlemen as the officers who command, and deserve a great deal more credit, as we have often said, than the officers, because they have no earthly motive, except love of country, to prompt their heroic exertions. As gentlemen they ought to and must be treated, if the army is to retain its efficiency, and the peculiar spirit of the Southern soldier to be developed. –Whilst discipline is strictly enforced, the soldier should be elevated, instead of depressed, in his own esteem by the treatment of the officer; he should never be permitted to lose the self-respect and conscious dignity of the gentleman which he brought with him to the army; he should never be permitted to forget that he has as much interest in the contest as the officers by whom he is led. We believe that most of our officers, like our intelligent correspondent, have the good feeling and the good sense to take this view of the subject, but there are some miserable exceptions, and they have done more harm to the service than their bedizened little carcases, buttons, gold lace, and all are worth.

At the same time, we hold it to be the solemn duty of the private soldier, who may happen to have over his head a cold-hearted and tyrannical officer — his duty to himself not less than to his country — to obey in all things, and to stick to his colors to the last, not for the sake of his officer, but of his cause, and of his own character — a character too high at home, and too long maintained in the fiery furnace of this war’s tribulations to be sacrificed at this time of day on account of any kind of sufferings. If there are some Southern officers who treat their men almost as harshly as Yankee officers, let there be no privates in our ranks who can be driven, like Yankee privates, to faithlessness and desertion by the misconduct of hard-hearted officials. Let them live and endure all for the sake of their country, and their constancy and virtue, equal to and worthy of their he clam, will ultimately receive a deserved reward.