Kindness and Honesty Change Lives in the 33d Illinois Normal Regiment

In the midst of the danger and the drudgery of war, do little things matter?  Is sending a box with some gifts and books worth the effort?  Is striving to live out one’s faith in Jesus worth the effort?  Here is a description of how a woman in Chicago helped encourage the Union soldiers through a box of gifts she sent to them.  And also a description of a young servant boy’s determination to keep serving Christ even as he served the officers of the 33d Illinois Regiment from Incidents of the U.S. Christian Commission [pp 58-60]:

    The first Delegation to the West, from the central office, was to the Cumberland Army, immediately after the Stone River battles, December 31st, 1862.  Earlier in the war, much valuable work was done in the Western armies, upon every principle battle-field, by various “Army Committees,” organized in Chicago, Peoria, St. Louis, etc.  (These “Army Committees” were appointed by the Young Men’s Christian Associations of the places named.)
    The war in Missouri was a succession of forced marches, toilsome retreats, and desperate battles between comparatively small armies.  Gens. Fremont and Hunter were successively displaced from the chief command, and Gen. Halleck, in November, 1861, assumed charge of the Department.
    Among the troops campaigning in Missouri was the famous “Normal School” regiment, the 33d Illinois.  Mr. B. F. Jacobs, of Chicago, (Secretary of the Chicago Army Committee, and of the Northwestern Branch of the Christian Commission, until the close of the war) gives the story of a Friday evening prayer-meeting, held in the First Baptist Church of that city, in the Fall of 1861, which is connected with the history of the regiment:
    Towards the close of the meeting, an officer rose and said: “I am a stranger to you, and in this city.  My reason for speaking is that I have a trust to execute.  Our regiment, the 33d Illinois, in the early part of its campaign, at a town in Missouri, received a box containing a few hymn-books and Testaments, some papers, housewives, and other soldier comforts.  A little ticket within the box informed us that it came from a lady of the First Baptist Church, Chicago.  So anxious were the men for the hymn-books that on account of the short supply, they loaned the precious volumes to each other, and more than one hundred committed to memory the principal hymns, that they might be able to sing readily at the meetings.  The books penetrated into the hospital.  One of my men sent for me to visit a dying soldier there.  His words were few but full and precious:
    ‘Captain, I am dying.  I long to see my wife and children, but I know I shall die without that.  I’ve been trying to think what I could send my wife.  I have nothing except these books,’ and taking one of the Testaments and hymn books from under his head, he added ‘Send these; and Captain, if you are ever in Chicago, I want you to go to the First Baptist Church, and tell the lady who sent those hymn books that the 27th hymn has led me to Jesus.  I am going home to wait for her.’”
    The story of the stranger Captain deeply impressed the audience.  There was a pause in his talk for a moment, when he went on again: “Among others in the regiment, there was a little boy, the servant of one of the Captains, who on account of his known religious principles was nicknamed ‘Little Piety.’  The Christian soldiers of the regiment organized a prayer meeting; and were holding it one evening in a tent, near the quarters of the officer of the day, a very profane man, who hearing the singing, started out, exclaiming with an oath, ‘I’ll stop that noise.’  As he approached the tent, the fly-door was up; Little Piety was speaking, standing near the cracker-box which served as a desk, so that the light of the only candle in the tent lit up his face.  The little fellow was telling of his mother’s last counsel to him as he went away from home: ‘My son, there are a great many men who don’t love Christ, and who will tempt you to swerve from your fidelity and purpose.  You may be subjected to trials on account of your faith; but, my son, I want you to promise that whatever else you forget, you will not forget your mother’s Savior.’  With tears in his eyes the little fellow told how he was trying not to forget Him.  The sight of the boy and the tone of his voice stopped the Captain. He listened till the meeting closed, when the leader asked –
    ’Where shall we hold our next meeting?’
    Stepping forward out of the darkness, the Captain responded, ‘In my tent.’
    That Captain was afterward converted to Christ, and since that time has been one of the most earnest Christians in the regiment.”
    The stranger sat down; and we felt in our prayer meeting, that night, our hearts somehow knit closer to the men who had gone out from our midst, and we owed them thenceforth more of prayer and more of work.

33d Illinois Normal Regiment was organized at Camp Butler, Springfield IL and mustered in on Sept. 3d 1861.  
    It was also known as the “Teacher’s Regiment” because many of its initial recruits were both teachers and students from Illinois State Normal School.  The school founded in 1857 chose that name because it was established to prepare teachers.  The term “normal school” is based on the French école normale, a sixteenth-century model school with model classrooms where model teaching practices were taught to teacher candidates to prepare them for teaching on the elementary level in public schools.
    Once officially mustered into the Federal Army, the 33d Regiment was sent to serve in the Missouri-Arkansas territory.  During the fall of 1861 they were stationed at Ironton, MO.  In October they were involved in the battle at Fredericktown in southeastern Missouri.  They would later also fight at Vicksburg in 1863.  

The box of gifts explored

What are “Housewives”?  

    It is a Civil War tag for a soldier’s sewing kit.  Civil War soldiers did not have many extra items of clothing, so the clothing they wore took a lot of wear and tear.  When a soldier left his home, he left behind often needed help he had typically depended upon to fix a fabric rip or a lost button.  The “housewife” became the soldier’s tag for his sewing kit. Not being government issued, each one varied in design and content.  These compact fabric strips were made to be folded or rolled up to keep the spools of thread, thimbles, needles, pins and spare buttons from falling out of the pockets attached along the main strip.  Some were plain.  Others were made fancy.  Some even had leather for the main outer strip.  The compact flexible construction of the “housewife” allowed the men to roll them up and stuff them in their pockets or knapsacks for easy storing.

From Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, carried by Captain John C. Landis,
Missouri Light Artillery, CSA

John Billings has an enjoyable description in his book Hark Tack and Coffee [p.85-86]:
    “In the department of mending garments each man did his own work, or left it undone, just as he thought best; but no one hired it done. Every man had a “housewife” or its equivalent, containing the necessary needles, yarn, thimble, etc., furnished him by some mother, sister, sweetheart, or Soldier’s Aid Society, and from this came his materials to mend or darn with.
    Now, the average soldier was not so susceptible to the charms and allurements of sock-darning as he should have been; for this reason he always put off the direful day until both heels looked boldly and with hardened visage out the back-door, while his ten toes ranged themselves en echelon in front of their quarters. By such delay or neglect good ventilation and the opportunity of drawing on the socks from either end were secured…
    Then, there were other men who, having arranged a checker-board of stitches over the holes, as they had seen their mothers do, had not the time or patience to fill in the squares, and the inevitable consequence was that both heels and toes would look through the bars only a few hours before breaking jail again.  But there were a few of the boys who were kept furnished with home-made socks, knit, perhaps, by their good old grandmas, who seemed to inherit the patience of the grandams themselves; for, whenever there was mending or darning to be done, they would sit by the hour, and do the work as neatly and conscientiously as any one could desire. I am not wide of the facts when I say that the heels of the socks darned by these men remained firm when the rest of the fabric was well spent.”

    You have to appreciate Billings’ humorous description of the need for and the use of the sewing kits by the soldiers.  While many of the men might have gotten a housewife from family when they marched off, the sewing kits could get lost or used up.  So the ones in the box the lady sent the 33d Illinois would have been treasured.  
    On personal note, my wife in the 1990s made up housewife kits for the men in our reenacting unit which we handed out at one of the events we were at.  She put in needles, thread, buttons etc.  Some of them actually got used occasionally, usually to sew on a button that came off.  She did this to represent to the men something the US Christian Commission had done during the war.  She invested time and creativity in sewing and assembling the housewives.  Knowing my wife’s heart to help and encourage the reenactors, I can honestly appreciate the heart of this unnamed woman who assembled the box shipped to the soldiers of the 33d Illinois.

Here is a copy of instructions given out by the US Christian Commission for making "housewife" kits to be passed along to the soldiers.  Obviously it is a more basic version than the one pictured above.  But it would hold the essentials needed to do the mending.

How valuable would a little book of religious songs be?  

    I would expect you should be able to understand that the New Testaments would be treasured, but did you ever think a hymn book would also be considered precious?  Remember this is before you could just hit a button and listen to music. You had to make you own music.  The scan of the hymn book attached is of a U.S. Christian Commission hymn book that I have (3” by 4”).  The paper cover is so badly worn that you can barely see the printed picture on the front, and you can barely make out the USCC tag on the back cover.  The soldier’s name is C R Taylor.  I don’t know any more details than it was purchased in an estate sale in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.  Am not sure if he wrote his name in the book, or someone else in his family wrote it in memory of him so it would be a treasured family memory.  Because it’s covers are so badly worn, he must have kept it with him a long time.  God made us to enjoy and respond to music.  Singing songs together is something that can unite us in focus.

    The officer’s description of how the hymn books were used by the soldiers of the unit shows how little things can be most precious.  I also think that the captain who shared this information valued the hymn books and Testaments since he made the trip to Chicago, which was not his home town to share how encouraging the small box of gifts was to the men in his unit.

In tough situations do little things matter?  

    More often than we might think -- “yes”.  A small gift, a simple gesture, a kind word might be the encouragement needed to enable someone struggling to “get through it”.  Share what you have, not for fame or glory, but to be helpful and God honoring to others.  “Little things” really can make a big difference.

Children Projects
1. Explore how the unknown woman’s gift box with the hymn books and housewives shows how little things matter.  Maybe then move on to discussing what “little things” your children could share or do for others today that might be encouraging and helpful.  And challenge them give things or help not to benefit themselves, but to encourage the one they are giving to.

2. Explore how Little Piety made an impact on his Captain’s life.  Remind them that long before the speech in the tent that his Captain responded to came many days of showing his faith in actions.  Remind your children that “talk” can be affirmed as true or shown to be fake by the “actions” of our lives.  Yes, actions do speak louder than words.

3. Discuss how and why music is important in our lives.  Explore the fact that the content of songs we listen to and sing can either positively or negatively affect our lives.  Will knowing this challenge your children to evaluate what music they listen to?  It should.

Hardtack in the Petersburg trenches -- A Soldier’s “Explanation”

 What might be a creative way to point out the deficiency of army rations to a superior?  Here is one interesting account:

    While before Petersburg, doing siege work in the summer of 1864, our men had wormy “hardtack,” or ship’s biscuit, served out to them for a time.  It was a severe trial, and it taxed the temper of the men.  Breaking open the biscuit, and finding live worms in them, they would throw the pieces in the trenches where they were doing duty day by day, although the orders were to keep the trenches clean, for sanitary reasons.
    A brigade officer of the day, seeing some of these scraps along our front, called out sharply to our men: “Throw that hardtack out of the trenches.”  Then, as the men promptly gathered it up as directed, he added: “Don’t you know that you’ve no business to throw hardtack in the trenches?  Haven’t you been told that often enough?”  Out from the injured soldier heart there came the reasonable explanation: “We’ve thrown it out two or three times, sir, but it crawls back.” 

            [H. C. Trumbull War Memories of an Army Chaplain

                (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York 1898) p.52-53]

Troops in the trenches
Library of Congress/ Getty Images
(Location is debated. Some sites tag this as picturing men in trenches at Petersburg.
But other sites say the location is unknown or at Fredericksburg.)

    I heard this joke about hardtack early on when we started reenacting many years ago, and have often used it myself over the years to explain to spectators, especially kids, about the “glories” of hardtack.  No one I talked to knew the source, even though they had heard the joke.  Some years later I finally learned the source of the story is from Henry Clay Trumbull, who served as a Chaplain in the 10th Regt. Connecticut Volunteers.  Was glad that I confirmed to myself that it had historical background instead of being just a modern reenacting joke.
    But what was Trumbull source?  Was it his personal slam on hardtack he would tell in a fictional story to make it sound good?  The joke about hardtack appears in his book in Chapter 3 entitled “Disclosures of the Soldier Heart”.  In this chapter Trumbull uses several incidents which he witnessed to give insight into attitudes and motivation of the soldiers he served with.  He cites various incidents of soldiers enduring hardship while still showing great dedication and fortitude in their service to their unit and their country.  Then he makes the following summary statement:

     “There was no show of heroism on the part of the average soldier, any more than there was a show of sentiment.  He simply was a loving-hearted hero, without saying anything about it, or making a demonstration of his feelings.  Indeed, a soldier tried to cover up his emotion; and in this effort he would frequently act as if he were ready to laugh, when he felt a good deal more like crying.  A joke, indeed, often took the place of an oath, starting a laugh instead of a groan or a sob, as the feelings must find vent in some way.” [p.50]

    Trumbull is saying the men he served with were not focused on being famous.  Their focus was on diligently doing their duty to comrades and county.  Trumbull follows the introductory summary with some examples of how humor helped the men handle the tedium or difficulty of their circumstances.  The Petersburg hardtack joke cited above is one of the examples he gives of humor being a vent for frustration.

    He then shares a second hardtack joke from the same Petersburg situation:

    About the same time, I was accompanying our brigade commander in a tour of observation along our front.  As he stopped in the trenches where the men were keeping up a sharp fire, he saw them opening a fresh box of ammunition, of which they constantly needed a new supply.  Noting the careful wrapping of the cartridges in their neat packages of a dozen each, he said pleasantly to the soldier who was taking them out:
    “’Uncle Sam’ is very careful that his boys shall have good cartridges while in his service.”
    “Yes, sir; I wish he was half as careful of their hardtack,” was the keen and respectful reply.
    This dry humor in the expression of strong feeling showed itself in the ordinary soldier in every phase of his service.”  [p.53]

    Trumbull then moves on from examples of humor giving vent to frustration over poor rations to explaining how general humorous contempt toward cowards helped the man in the ranks resist the temptation to shirk his own duty in the next few pages. 

    Trumbull does not tell how the officers reacted to the hardtack jokes.  Possibly his being silent on that aspect might mean the officer in each situation caught the point, knew it was an honest challenge about the poor quality of rations, and chose not to seek punishment on the man who said it.  Can’t say for certain.

    I do not present this information as being some profound historical discovery to impress you, the reader.  I just appreciate knowing the historical background of a joke I’ve often told.  And when I tell it to spectators now, I can add the insight which Trumbull gives about humor being a relief for the struggle to deal with difficult challenges like poor quality rations.  I have often thought reenacting the incident in front of a crowd of spectators would be ‘humorously educational’.

    Henry Clay Trumbull (1830 to 1903) was Chaplain of the 10th Connecticut Infantry starting in 1862.  The troops enjoyed his eloquent sermons, his dedication to helping and encouraging them, and his personal courage.  He was captured at the battle of Fort Wagner on July 19,1863 while searching for wounded Union soldiers, and held as a prisoner of war until exchanged on Nov.24, 1863, when he then rejoined the 10th Conn., serving with them until they mustered out in Aug. 1865.
    After the war, Trumbull became a prominent lecturer, an advocate for Sunday School being incorporated into the American church, and a scholar who wrote many books.  Among them was The Knightly Soldier (1865 biography of his friend, Adjutant Henry Ward Camp, who was KIA Darbytown Road, Oct 13, 1865), and War Memories of an Army Chaplain (1898).

Chaplain Henry Clay Trumbull
Picture from Connecticut Historical Society collection.
Rustic pulpit built by Army Engineers
below Richmond Va. in the winter of 1864-65.

    The 10th Connecticut Infantry Regiment was one of Connecticut’s most exemplary units, having fought in twenty-three battles and many smaller skirmishes.  It was formed in the summer of 1861, serving in the early war coastal campaign from the battle for Roanoke Island to the assault on Fort Wagner, then on to fight in the trench as the Union Army pressed in on Petersburg and Richmond.  They were present at Appomattox when Lee surrendered to Grant.  The Tenth was one of the top 300 Union regiments in the Civil War (out of over 1,700), according to historian William F. Fox.

Children Projects:  

    Might be an interesting opportunity to discuss options of handling frustrations.  Also, how humor could be better than outright anger, but can also lead to punishment if the superior gets angry.  Might look at Proverbs 15:1ff.
    For hardtack projects check out my other posts tagged with “hardtack” such as Oct.22, 2022 “Why was hardtack so disdained by the Civil War troops?”

New Enlistee’s Camp Life Reflections – T R Sterns – 29th Wisconsin Infantry

 What was life like for a newly enlisted Union soldier?

    The following transcript of a letter by Thomas Rescum Sterns, enlisted Aug.1862, to his wife Lavinia [in Iowa University Digital Library – Civil War Diaries and Letters] has some interesting perspectives on camp life’s challenges:

Camp Randall, Madison, Wis. Sept 24, 1862

Dear wife 
    I take the pleasure of writing a few lines to you to let you know how thing are here in camp. We arrived here last Saturday about 8 o'clock in the evening. After we arrived each one eat his allowance and went to repose. Our bunks as they are called are just wide enough for two to sleep in. In which is put about a handful of straw and then we spread down a blanket and crawl on that and spread another over and in this we start for the land of dreams. After we arrived here on Saturday night, we ate our supper and the next morning we had our breakfast about noon. I have a headache today caused from the loss of sleep being on guard duty last night but when I get my regular sleep again, I shall be all right. My duty was last night when on guard was to guard prisoners, that is men from our regiment that got drunk and was shut up in the guard house. We had three last night but none from our company. 
    Tell Mrs. Parsons that if she take the blanket back again I will much obliged as I drew one and shall not want more than one. I merely speak of it for she will be looking for the money for it. I cannot get a furlough until we are mustered in U. S. service which we expect to be this week and if we are I think I can get home next week and when I come, I shall bring home all of my old clothes for I expect to get my uniform as soon as we are mustered into U. S. service. The 29th is all here in camp now we are quartered new barracks. For breakfast we have bread, meat and tea or coffee. For dinner coffee, bread and meat. For supper meat, bread and coffee. Sometimes we have in addition to the above potatoes or beans. 
    I suppose you have heard what news there has been. I have not heard much and all I have heard is the President has issued a proclamation declaring all slaves free after the 1st of Jan, and also for 400,000 more troops. 
    Everybody that wants to hear from me must write me a letter and I will answer it; for if I have any more regular correspondents than I have got some of them will get neglected. I shall have five regular correspondents. They are yourself, mother, George, aunts [Huldah?] and [Bethia?]. I have not time nor space to write much more this time. Next time I will try to write something about this city as I have not seen much of it yet. Write as soon as you get this for I shall want to hear from home soon. If I should not get home next week, it would be lonesome if I should not hear from you. How is the little boy? No more at present. so good bye. 

From your Husband, Rescum 
Direct yours to Camp Randall Madison Wis. If you direct as I have told you I will get it for I am acquainted with the P. M.

    Camp Randall, in Madison, Wisconsin was established in 1861 and named after governor Alexander Randall who served from 1858 to 1861.  (Guess it has always paid to be a politician.)  It served as a training facility for over 70,000 recruits from the area during the Civil War.  Here they received basic training, uniforms and gear.  But they did not get weapons until they arrived at federal depots in other states.  During the course of the war 27 infantry regiments trained at Camp Randall as well as nine heavy artillery companies, two batteries of light artillery and a company of sharpshooters.  The army also set up a hospital there.  In the spring of 1862, it served briefly as prisoner-of-war camp.  Today there is an arch monument erected in 1912 by veterans of the war, and a marker to the confederate dead buried in Forest Hill Cemetery; at least as I write this, the monuments haven’t been torn down yet.

    Thomas Rescum Sterns was born January 18, 1839 in Amsterdam NY.  He married Lavinia on April 25, 1860 in Jefferson County, Wisconsin.  He farmed and also taught in the local school.  In August 1862 he enlisted for a three year service, received a $25 bounty and was mustered in as a private in Company F of the 29th Wisconsin Infantry on Sept.27.
    Sterns’ letter gives a brief glimpse into camp life from an enlisted man’s perspective.  Sleeping quarters sound luxurious, don’t they?  Food rations actually seem pretty good.  Wonder if it was all organic?  Evidently there were a few ‘troubled souls’ that had signed up, which had to be held in confinement until they ‘slept it off’.  Interesting that he wants to return the blanket bought with ‘credit’ since he has gotten a government issue one.
    There is mention of the Emancipation Proclamation issued on Sept.22, 1862 to go into effect on Jan.1, 1863.  Sterns does not have an accurate understanding of the details of Lincoln’s executive order (it only freed slaves in states in rebellion against the government), but shows it was evidently a topic of conversation at the camp.
    Again, we see that he highly prized letters.  He assures his wife he will write regularly to certain correspondents.  And he will try to answer letters from others as he gets them.  McCown says that Sterns wrote at least 77 letters to his wife (Books at Iowa, p.38), so we see Sterns was diligent in correspondence with Lavinia until he died Sept.2, 1863.

    The Patriotic Envelope -- The saying printed on it:

            The union of lakes -- the union of lands -- the Union of States none can Sever

            The union of hearts -- the union of hands -- the Flag of our Union Forever

                Sold by Bliss, Eberhard & Festner  Madison

    Since he is in Madison WI, it makes sense that Sterns bought this envelope from a local merchant, maybe even the printer directly. 

        The stamp position: I've always heard an upside down stamp means "I love you".  Did just a bit of research on stamp positions and found that meaning varies with time period as well as position like straight or at an angle etc.  At one angle it could mean "Do you still love me?".  At another angle it could mean "Write no more", which obviously Sterns does not mean. And people could have their own personal messages via the stamp's placement on the envelope.  So I will not pontificate on the meaning of the stamp Sterns put on the letter.

Children’s Projects:
1) Explore a bit about the Emancipation Proclamation that President Lincoln issued.  No, it did not resolve the issue of slavery.  But it was an honest step in that direction, and led to the 13th amendment being adopted in 1865.  In an imperfect world, steps in a good direction should be praised, not condemned “because it didn’t go far enough”.
2) Should the post-war monuments erected on the site to the Wisconsin veterans and also the confederate dead prisoners of war be torn down?  Discuss the attack on American history being waged today.  Or ignore it, to your children’s future detriment.  As I always say to spectators at Civil War reenactments:  Study history, learn from it, improve upon it.  Do not white wash it.  Also do not erase it.

The Army Sutler's Role in the Encampment -- an 1861 Description

  What was a sutler and what his role in Civil War camp life?  Here is an interesting first-person description of how the Army Sutler runs his business printed in the New York City Sunday Mercury Newspaper, September 29, 1861:

  The sutler’s tent is the same in all camps we ever visited.  Be it understood, for the benefit of those who are uniformed, that the sutler is the merchant of the regiment.  He sells lemonade, tobacco (in papers and plugs), cigars (of cabbage, oak leaves, or tobacco), red herrings, cracker, and molasses-cake.  He would sell whiskey if he dared.  His tent is always lumbered up with barrels and boxes, and at the customers’ end of it a board across two pork-barrels does duty for a counter.  Here the men come in crowds every hour in the day, to get some little delicacy (after salt fat pork and no vegetables, with the sun at ninety-eight degrees, even molasses-cake is a delicacy) to eat, or for a glass of cool lemonade to drink and make much of.

As the regiments are mostly supplied with water from muddy springs of their own digging (to prevent poisoning by our amiable Virginia neighbors); and as the sutler generally has the only ice in camp, a glass of even the sutler’s lemonade is a grateful beverage under the torrid circumstances.
The currency used by the sutler is paste-board tickets, representing respectively the value of five cents, ten cents, or twenty-five cents, payable in goods at the sutler’s store.  When a soldier desires to enter into commercial negations with the sutler, and has no money wherewith to achieve that mercantile desideratum, he naturally concludes to anticipate some portion of his pay.  He, therefore, obtains from his captain a printed order on the paymaster for one dollar or more, as the case may be, which is signed by himself, of course, as drawer of the order, and is then countersigned by the captain, as a guaranty that the sum of money called for in the order is actually due the man.  This document is now negotiable, and the sutler will take it and give for its “face,” not in money, but in tickets, which are simply due-bills on himself, which he binds himself to redeem in store goods.
All the goods are sold at his own prices; and as the tickets must eventually all find their way to his establishment, it follows that the office of regimental sutler usually pays better than that of major-general.  When pay-day comes round, the men, having spent all their tickets, have, as a general rule, little interest in the paymaster.  The sutler presents all the orders for pay which are in his possession, and from the paymaster received the gold.  This whole system is very objectionable and the French plan of paying the soldiers every ten days would be an infinite improvement.  As it is, the men do the work and dare the danger, while the sutler pockets the lion’s (or rather the sutler’s) share of the pay.
All sutler’s stores or tents are alike – are always thronged, and always making money.  There is usually a rear entrance for the officers, who are thus admitted behind the counter; and occasionally a sportive major takes a fancy to ride a frolicsome horse in the back door, and a smashing sensation is the result.
Though the sutlers are prohibited from selling spirits to the men, which rule they obey in most regiments, till, as a general thing, an officer need not languish for his liquor.  A colonel can have his cocktail, a major can procure his mint-julep, a captain his “cold without,” a lieutenant his “lemonade with,” and even a sergeant can procure his favorite “smash.”
But the whole sutler arrangement is bad, though it is so intimately connected with the system of army payments that a reform touching only the sutler’s department would be but half skin-deep.

Another description in a different Letter to the Editor by a different soldier tagged as being in the Ninth Regiment N.Y.S.M. at Camp Smith, Darnestown Maryland written Oct.5, 1861 and printed in the Sunday Mercury Oct.13th edition:

    Now for a few words for our sutler.  He is to outsiders a very pleasant man, but he has what the boys say "gone back on us."  His charges are outrageous, and what is still worse, he will not allow any outside peddler to come anyways near camp; so we are thus compelled to patronize him, and he has got us as his mercy.  We are unable to buy any luxuries from the farmers, as he buys up everything to supply the officers' table.  It would do you good to hear the boys grumble when pay-day comes.  As soon as they receive their hard-earned money from Uncle Sam, the sutler stands by the desk, and nine out of ten of the boys turn most of their money over to him to settle their accounts, and then commence grumbling; but there is no use of saying a word, as he will only tell that he don't care for you custom.  But, at the same time, he knows that he has got things most of the boys need, and so they are compelled to patronize him.

Background on the word “sutler”
Sutlers have been accompanying armies here since the colonial times during the French and Indian Wars, and before that in Europe.  Shakespeare has the character Pistol declare in Henry V (written in 1599) “For I shall sutler be, Unto the camp, and profits will accrue”.  Our English “sutler” comes from the Dutch word.  Merriam-Webster gives this background: “The Dutch adopted ‘soeteler’ from a Low German word meaning ‘sloppy worker,’ which itself traces to an even older verb that meant ‘to do sloppy work’ or ‘to dirty.’ Perhaps the snide designation was inspired by the fact that the traditional sutler followed troops and sold them supplies at hugely inflated prices.”
With the outbreak of the Civil War, “opportunities” or “needs” -- depending on how you want to describe it -- greatly increased because of the ever expanding size of the army as the war dragged on.  These were civilian merchants supplying non-military goods, both essentials like food variety and luxuries that were not supplied by the army for the soldiers on duty.  They could be located in a building at an established permanent military post.  Or if following a regiment in the field, they would typically set up a tent or even occasionally sell directly from their wagon if necessary.  The regulations over who could be a sutler and what they could do changed over the course of the war.  Typically, there was to be only one sutler per regiment or post.  And being a sutler meant you had to be in good with those in command of the unit.

Background Info on the New York City Sunday Mercury Newspaper
Started in 1840 the newspaper had achieved notoriety and circulation over the years to 145,000.  But when the war broke out it lost about 90,000 in the southern and western states subscriptions.  To help with the loss of circulation, the paper in April 1861 announced it would begin publishing letters and accounts sent to it from soldiers in the army, with a free copy being sent back to the soldier who contributes.  Over 3000 such contributions were printed during the course of the war, 1861-65.

Observations:
I always find “first person” accounts interesting helps to “step back in time” with greater understanding.  Yet I also realize that different people can have different perceptions of the same event, so not everything they say is automatically “fact”.  Use these accounts to explore an aspect of history not typically described.
These 1861 articles are interesting descriptions of how sutlers operated their business.  You can sense from how the writers words that while sutlers were considered “necessary”, they were not “necessarily appreciated” because of 1) their pricing which took advantage of the soldiers, 2) the often poor quality of what was being sold, and 3) the double standard of service given to the men in the ranks vs. the treatment of the officers.
It is said that many sutlers setup their tents just outside the encampment so they could also service civilians nearby as well as offer “services” that were restricted within the encampment by regulations such as selling whiskey. 
Though the first 1861 letter above mentions that the sutlers used “paste-board tickets”, some would later on issue token coins like the one pictured below stamped with the regiment designation they were serving along with their business name and a trade value (5 cents, 10 cents etc).  From the description of how payment was made by credit from the soldier’s future pay, you can see how many men would be lured into making purchases that might not have been wise even though desirable on the impulse of the moment.

Children projects:  
1) Explore why it might not be wise for a soldier to spend money that he had not yet actually gotten even though his circumstances might pressure him to need/want to make purchases.  How is this like “credit” buying today?  Remember that most of these soldiers had a family at home that they were needing to support with the money they were being paid.
2) How would your child feel about needing to drinking muddy water with no ice on a hot day?  It’s an interesting little historical tidbit that gives insight into the pressure that a soldier back then had to face.  No bottled water.  No ice in the fridge.  Drink it anyway. . .
3) Explore the issue of “rank has its privileges” back in then, and today.  Talk through the writer’s clear condemnation as unfair that officers can buy drinks while the men in the ranks are prohibited from buying.