Posted on 09/28/2021 4:13:16 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
1850: Flogging of sailors in the Navy and Merchant Marine is outlawed by act of Congress.
Interesting. Awhile ago I was researching the word “decimate”. In modern writing it is used to describe severe destruction; and is correct in that modern usage.
However, the term was originally used in the punishment of a group of Roman soldiers. For crimes such as desertion and cowardness, 1 out of 10 soldiers would be picked out in a company using lots and then they would be executed. (10% = decimate).
Yet “blanket parties” live on
It’s Congress that needs to be flogged
The US Army abolished flogging completely in 1861 after reserving exclusively for desertion in 1833, and the Navy in 1850 as noted, but the British Army and Navy didn’t abolish flogging until 1879 and 1881 IIRC.
Whatever happened to walk the plank or keelhauling? Same end to the means with a lot less exercise.
wy69
What about women around midnight?
Darn! There goes Rum and the Lash! (I suspect if there are 20 posts here, at least 18 of them will be along these lines!)
We talked about them but never had one, but...we did drag a guy into the shower and scrub him with those really heavy brown stiff brushes until his skin was red because his hygiene was so poor..
We did the same to a guy nicknamed “Tex”. We used GI brushes and Pinesol concentrate right out of the gallon bottle. After that Tex was the cleanest, most strek troop you’d ever meet. Might seem cruel but that old boy wouldn’t shower and we lost three weekend passes in a row. He survived the scrubbing, though a might sore. He turned out OK.
LOL...Everyone had a guy named “Tex”...he was from Brooklyn!
Seriously, as you said, some people might think it was cruel, but there were cases you had to do that kind of thing.
We had a guy in my squadron who was nicknamed “Stinky”. He was a BIG guy who reminded you a bit of Mr. Incredible with his body type (enormous torso, neck and shoulders, and little-bitty legs) and was a very nice and friendly guy. But he had hygiene issues.
More than once I heard him growl at someone menacingly “Don’t call me Stinky!” and it occurred to me that if he hadn’t been such a good natured guy...they wouldn’t have called him “Stinky” to his face.
“1850: Flogging of sailors in the Navy and Merchant Marine is outlawed by act of Congress.”
BIG mistake.
Oddly enough, Herman Melville had a hand in ending flogging in the Navy. In his book “White Jacket” about is many months aboard a U.S. frigate, he gives a very graphic description of a flogging. When the book was published in early 1850, the publisher sent a copy to each Senator and Representative in the U.S. Congress.
“1850: Flogging of sailors in the Navy and Merchant Marine is outlawed by act of Congress.”
Good.
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