WAR IS A TERRIBLE ENEMY TO TEMPERANCE: DRINKING, SELF-CONTROL, AND THE MEANING OF LOYALTY IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA by MEGAN LEIGH BEVER GEORGE C. RABLE, COMMITTEE CHAIR ANDREW HUEBNER CAROLINE E. JANNEY LISA LINDQUIST-DORR JOSHUA D. ROTHMAN A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2014 Copyright Megan Leigh Bever 2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT When the American Civil War began in 1861, people on both sides of the conflict believed that the conduct of soldiers and civilians would shape if not determine the war’s outcome. In this context, the nation-wide temperance movement began a period of transition. Before the 1860s, interest in temperance was waning nationally; local and state regulatory measures had curbed excessive drinking. Once war broke out, however, alcohol became increasingly threatening. Soldiers and officers drank heavily, lacked discipline, and harassed civilians. Distillers and traffickers wasted grain and profited during a time of scarcity, when most civilians practiced patriotic self-sacrifice. Temperance reformers believed that ridding the nation – either the Union or the Confederacy – of alcohol was the only way to curb immorality, whip the armies into fighting shape, and win the war. Many Americans outside of the temperance movement agreed. Debates over alcohol’s manufacture and consumption became essential components for understanding what it meant to be a patriotic citizen during the Civil War. In turn, examining these wartime issues recasts historical understandings of the centrality of temperance to conceptions of nationalism in the post-bellum United States. This study relies on a variety of sources: military records, legislative journals, temperance and religious publications, personal accounts, and newspapers. It examines soldiers’ uses and beliefs about drinking; the supply of alcohol in the armies; regulatory debates on the northern and southern home fronts; and northern and southern temperance reformers’ understandings of the war’s purposes. It argues that when it came to alcohol northern and southern civilians clashed with military officials. Union and Confederate military officials knew ii that whiskey was responsible for chronic indiscipline, but they nevertheless supplied alcohol to soldiers to stave off illness and fatigue. Soldiers drank willingly. Alcohol took the edge off the war. On the home front, however, civilians regarded liquor as an enemy in its own right. Temperance reformers implored soldiers to put down the bottle. Union and Confederate civilians demanded that military and civil authorities prohibit distilling to restore order and preserve food. In doing so, they laid the foundations for the post-war prohibition movement. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While researching and writing this dissertation, I have incurred many debts. Generous financial support from the University of Alabama, particularly a Graduate Council Fellowship and a Graduate Research Assistantship, enabled me to work on my project without interruption for two years. Travel grants and fellowships from the University of Alabama, the Filson Historical Society, and the Virginia Historical Society provided support while I researched. I also have relied on the helpfulness and expertise of librarians at the State Historical Society of Iowa, the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Library of Virginia, Small Special Collections at the University of Virginia, the Virginia Historical Society, the Museum of the Confederacy, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and the Filson Historical Society. Katherine Wilkins at the VHS, Teresa Roane at the MOC, Clinton Bagley at the MDAH, and Mike Veach at the Filson all deserve special thanks for sharing the knowledge of their collections. At the University of Alabama, Brett Spencer guided me to many digital archives, and Patricia Causey brought many valuable materials to me in Tuscaloosa through Interlibrary Loan. I have benefitted from the generous support of faculty from the time I began my college career. At Alabama, George Rable has been the perfect advisor: full of experience and advice and capable of making clear his expectations with kindness and patience. I appreciate his ability to guide his students’ interpretations of history without imposing his own ideas about the past. Joshua Rothman, Lisa Lindquist-Dorr, and Andrew Huebner have enabled me to shape (and re- shape) my project by reading drafts and engaging in plenty of casual discussions about drinking and soldiers. Kari Frederickson deserve thanks as well. As department chair, she supports the iv graduate students in every way. Jenny Shaw likewise has always been willing to offer suggestions from the perspective of a scholar who works outside of the nineteenth century. Before I ever arrived at Alabama, many professors at Purdue University spent years steering me toward graduate school. From my first semesters, Whitney Walton and Karl Brandt challenged me to think critically. Whitney cultivated my love of history while casually (but repeatedly) suggesting graduate study. I almost accidentally landed in a course with Carrie Janney during my final year at Purdue. Carrie spent the next nine months feeding my budding curiosity in historiography and helping me to prepare for graduate school. Carrie has continued to be a mentor and a friend. Words cannot quite express my level of gratitude. My friends and family deserve special thanks for helping me to survive graduate school. Becky Bruce, Colin Chapell, John Mitcham, Allison Huntley, Joseph Pearson, Laura Mammina, Dana Alsen, and Lindsay Smith have provided much needed camaraderie over the years. Mark Johnson has been a dear friend since our days together at Purdue and has shared many highs and lows. My grandparents, Wendell and Eva Bever and Gloria Nix, have encouraged me along the way. Though he died before I began graduate school, Dois Nix certainly instilled in me an appreciation for history. Shannon and Shawn Nix, Erin Nix, Kathryn Presley, Kelsey Nix, and Haley and Scott Proctor have all opened their homes to me while I traveled for my research. They, along with Dennis, Gladys, and Joshua Bever, Shawn and Rod Zambrows, and Ryan Bailey, have provided respite from graduate school. Evan and Breanna Bever are not only my brother and sister-in-law, but dear friends. Rich conversations with them have shaped my scholarship and my teaching. Atticus has provided constant companionship. My parents, David and Kelly Bever, always nurtured my curiosity about the past. They never questioned the value of studying history. This dissertation is dedicated to them. v CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION: A REVIVAL OF THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE? ........................................1 1. “THE MEMORY OF HOME”: DRINKING, CAMP DISCIPLINE, AND THE LIMITS OF DOMESTICITY ................14 2. MORAL AND MARTIAL HEROES: DRINKING AND DUTY AMONG OFFICERS ..............................................................58 3. “WHISKEY MAKES TROUBLE, THEREFORE SUPPLY IT”: SUPPLYING SPIRITS IN THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES ................105 4. “LADIES ARE AFRAID TO GO INTO THE STREETS”: SOLDIERS, CIVILIANS, AND THE REGULATION OF ALCOHOL ........................142 5. “WILL NOT THE PREVENTION BE WORSE THAN THE DISEASE?”: MEDICINAL ALCOHOL AND ITS THREAT TO TEMPERANCE............................182 6. “THIS RUM AND SLAVE BENIGHTED COUNTRY”: LOYALTY, SLAVERY, AND LIQUOR .......................................................................225 EPILOGUE: “LET TEMPERANCE MEN THROUGH THE LAND WAKE UP” ..................271 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................275 vi Introduction A Revival of the Temperance Cause? When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, members of the American Temperance Union rejoiced. “Two thorough temperance men” had been elected to the presidency and vice-presidency.1 For decades, reformers had been fighting a moral crusade against the demon rum, and now, with Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin at the helm, abstainers believed that their time had come. Campaign season had been distracting, but the “political excitement” of the election had passed, explained The Templars Magazine, and temperance reformers seemed to be under the impression that there was “nothing of general interest to engross the public” in December 1860.2 Something had to fill the void, and temperance reformers thought that time was perfect for “a revival of the Temperance Cause.”3 A few decades earlier, the temperance movement had counted more than a million followers among its ranks, but in the 1850s, membership in the American Temperance Union (and similar organizations) was on the decline (in part because Americans were not consuming as much alcohol).4 Reformers, though, blamed slavery for distracting Americans from the more dangerous problem 1 Journal of the American Temperance Union and New-York Prohibitionist (JATU) 23 (December 1860): 184. 2 The Templars’ Magazine (Cincinnati) quoted in the JATU 23 (December 1860): 188. 3Quoted in “What Next?,” JATU 23 (December 1860): 184. 4 It’s difficult