LAYING OFF THE LASH

The British Army of the early 19th century had a well-earned reputation for deplorable conditions of service and excessively harsh discipline; to a lesser degree, the same could also be said of the U.S. Army in the same period. Reforms in military law—and more importantly, changes in national attitudes toward matters of military discipline and punishment—occurred along similar lines on both sides of the Atlantic.

Describing the culture of military discipline that existed in the U.S. Army during the frontier era, historian Don Rickey has said, “Fear of punishment was the basis of discipline.” This was true of all armies throughout history, just as it has been a factor in human behavior in most civilian societies and cultures. Fear of the punitive and punishing hand of the law, after all, was supposed to hold the criminal element in check, particularly when that punishment was known to be swift, sure, and severe. How well this deterrent worked in practice was always debatable, but for centuries the prevailing belief in militaries the world over insisted that military discipline could only be maintained by the heavy-handed application of harsh punishments.

British Army regulations listed no fewer than 222 offenses that could draw the death