“Parade, Sir!—Parade, Sir!—There’s a parade this morning, Sir!”

With these words, grumbled out by the unyielding leathern lungs of my servant, I was awakened from an agreeable dream in my barrack-room bed one morning about a quarter before eight o’clock.

“Parade!”—I reflected a moment;—“Yes,” said I, “a punishment parade.”

I proceeded to dress; and as I looked out of my window I saw that the morning was as gloomy and disagreeable as the duty we were about to perform. “Curse the punishment!—curse the crimes!” muttered I to myself.

I was soon shaved, booted, and belted. The parade-call was beaten, and in a moment I was in the barrack-yard.

The non-commissioned officers were marching their squads to the ground: the officers, like myself, were turning out: the morning was cold as well as foggy: and there was a sullen, melancholy expression upon every man’s countenance, indicative of the relish they had for a punishment parade: the faces of the officers, as upon all such occasions, were particularly serious: the women of the regiment were to be seen in silent groups at the barrack-windows—in short, every thing around appealed to the heart, and made it sick. Two soldiers were to receive three hundred lashes each! One of them, a corporal, had till now preserved a good character for many years in the regiment; but he had been in the present instance seduced into the commission of serious offences, by an associate of very bad character. Their crimes, arising doubtless from habits of intoxication, were, disobedience of orders, insolence to the sergeant on duty, and the making away with some of their necessaries.

The regiment formed on the parade, and we marched off in a few minutes to the riding-house, where the triangle was erected, about which the men formed a square, with the Colonel, the Adjutant, the Surgeon, and the drummers in the centre.

“Attention!” roared out the Colonel. The word, were it not that it was technically necessary, need not have been used, for the attention of all was most intense; and scarcely could the footsteps of the last men, closing in, be fairly said to have broken the gloomy silence of the riding-house. The two prisoners were now marched into the centre of the square, escorted by a corporal and four men.

“Attention!” was again called, and the Adjutant commanded to read the proceedings of the court-martial. When he had concluded, the Colonel commanded the private to “strip.”

The drummers now approached the triangle, four in number, and the senior took up the “cat” in order to free the “tails” from entanglement with each other.

“Strip, Sir!” repeated the Colonel, having observed that the prisoner seemed reluctant to obey the first order.

“Colonel,” replied he, in a determined tone, “I’ll volunteer.”3

“You’ll volunteer, will you, Sir?”

“Yes; sooner than I’ll be flogged.”

“I am not sorry for that. Such fellows as you can be of no use to the service except in Africa. Take him back to the guard-house, and let the necessary papers be made out for him immediately.”

The latter sentence was addressed to the Corporal of the guard who escorted the prisoners, and accordingly the man who volunteered was marched off, a morose frown and contemptuous sneer strongly marked on his countenance.

The Colonel now addressed the other prisoner.

“You are the last man in the regiment I could have expected to find in this situation. I made you a corporal, Sir, from a belief that you were a deserving man; and you had before you every hope of farther promotion; but you have committed such a crime that I must, though unwillingly, permit the sentence of the court which tried you to take its effect.” Then turning to the Sergeant-major, he ordered him to cut off the Corporal’s stripes from his jacket: this was done, and the prisoner then stripped without the slightest change in his stern but penitent countenance.

Every one of the regiment felt for the unfortunate Corporal’s situation; for it was believed that nothing but intoxication, and the persuasion of the other prisoner who had volunteered, could have induced him to subject himself to the punishment he was about to receive, by committing such a breach of military law, as that of which he was convicted. The Colonel, himself, although apparently rigorous and determined, could not, by all his efforts, hide his regret that a good man should be thus punished: the affected frown, and the loud voice in command, but ill concealed his real feelings;—the struggle between the head and the heart was plainly to be seen; and had the head had but the smallest loophole to have escaped, the heart would have gained a victory. But no alternative was left; the man had been a Corporal, and, therefore, was the holder of a certain degree of trust from his superiors: had he been a private only, the crime might have been allowed to pass with impunity, on account of his former good character; but, as the case stood, the Colonel could not possibly pardon him, much as he wished to do so. No officer was more averse to flogging in any instance, than he was; and whenever he could avert that punishment, consistent with his judgment, which at all times was regulated by humanity, he would gladly do it. Flogging was in his eyes an odious punishment, but he found that the total abolition of it was impossible; he therefore held the power over the men, but never used it when it could be avoided. His regiment was composed of troublesome spirits; and courts-martial were frequent: so were sentences to the punishment of the lash; but seldom, indeed, were those punishments carried into execution; for if the Colonel could find no fair pretext in the previous conduct of the criminal, to remit his sentence, he would privately request the Captain of his company to intercede for him when about to be tied up to the triangle; thus placing the man under a strong moral obligation to the officer under whose more immediate command he was: and in general, this proved far more salutary than the punishment ever could have done.

It is not flogging that should be abolished in the army, but the cruel and capricious opinions which move the lash. Humanity and sound judgment are the best restrictions upon this species of punishment; and when they are more frequently brought into action than they have formerly been, there will be but few dissentient opinions upon military discipline.

The prisoner was now stripped and ready to be tied, when the Colonel asked him why he did not volunteer for Africa, with the other culprit.

“No, Sir,” replied the man; “I’ve been a long time in the regiment, and I’ll not give it up for three hundred lashes; not that I care about going to Africa. I deserve my punishment, and I’ll bear it; but I’ll not quit the regiment yet, Colonel.”

This sentiment, uttered in a subdued but manly manner, was applauded by a smile of satisfaction from both officers and men; but most of all by the old Colonel, who took great pains to show the contrary. His eyes, although shaded by a frown, beamed with pleasure. He bit his nether lip; he shook his head—but all would not do; he could not look displeased, if he had pressed his brows down to the bridge of his nose; for he felt flattered that the prisoner thus openly preferred a flogging to quitting him and his regiment.

The man now presented his hands to be tied up to the top of the triangle, and his legs below: the cords were passed round them in silence, and all was ready. I saw the Colonel at this moment beckon to the surgeon, who approached, and both whispered a moment.

Three drummers now stood beside the triangle, and the sergeant, who was to give the word for each lash, at a little distance opposite.

The first drummer began, and taking three steps forward, applied the lash to the soldier’s back—“one.”

Again he struck—“two.”

Again, and again, until twenty-five were called by the Sergeant. Then came the second drummer, and he performed his twenty-five. Then came the third, who was a stronger and a more heavy striker than his coadjutors in office: this drummer brought the blood out upon the right shoulder-blade, which perceiving, he struck lower on the back; but the surgeon ordered him to strike again upon the bleeding part: I thought this was cruel; but I learnt after, from the surgeon himself, that it gave much less pain to continue the blows as directed, than to strike upon the untouched skin.

The poor fellow bore without a word his flagellation, holding his head down upon his breast, both his arms being extended, and tied at the wrists above his head. At the first ten or twelve blows, he never moved a muscle; but about the twenty-fifth, he clenched his teeth and cringed a little from the lash. During the second twenty-five, the part upon which the cords fell became blue, and appeared thickened, for the whole space of the shoulder-blade and centre of the back; and before the fiftieth blow was struck, we could hear a smothered groan from the poor sufferer, evidently caused by his efforts to stifle the natural exclamations of acute pain. The third striker, as I said, brought the blood; it oozed from the swollen skin, and moistened the cords which opened its way from the veins. The Colonel directed a look at the drummer, which augured nothing advantageous to his interest; and on the fifth of his twenty-five, cried out to him, “Halt, Sir! you know as much about using the cat as you do of your sticks.” Then addressing the Adjutant, he said, “Send that fellow away to drill: tell the drum-major to give him two hours additional practice with the sticks every day for a week, in order to bring his hand into—a—proper movement.”

The drummer slunk away at the order of the Adjutant, and one of the others took up the cat. The Colonel now looked at the Surgeon, and I could perceive a slight nod pass, in recognition of something previously arranged between them. This was evidently the case; for the latter instantly went over to the punished man, and having asked him a question or two, proceeded formally to the Colonel, and stated something in a low voice: upon which the drummers were ordered to take the man down. This was accordingly done; and when about to be removed to the regimental hospital, the Colonel addressed him thus: “Your punishment, Sir, is at an end; you may thank the Surgeon’s opinion for being taken down so soon.” (Every one knew this was only a pretext.) “I have only to observe to you, that as you have been always, previous to this fault, a good man, I would recommend you to conduct yourself well for the future, and I promise to hold your promotion open to you as before.”

The poor fellow replied that he would do so, and burst into tears, which he strove in vain to hide.

Wonder not that the hard cheek of a soldier was thus moistened by a tear; the heart was within his bosom, and these tears came from it. The lash could not force one from his burning eyelid; but the word of kindness—the breath of tender feeling from his respected Colonel, dissolved the stern soldier to the grateful and contrite penitent.

May this be remembered by every commanding officer, when the cat is cutting the back of the soldier! May they reflect that both the back and the heart have feeling; and that the tear of repentance is oftener brought from the culprit’s eyes by kindness than by the lash!