Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Monday
Discipline in the British army was important, and could be as cruel as any administered in the navy. Army men undergoing punishment for offences not too serious in the British military service were to appear in dress uniforms, at the unit's parade, and assigned to a horse. Describe that punishment? Also by British tradition, what was the normal (regular) military duty of those army men assigned to administer punishment to the offender?
Add above. Time:1720's through 1850's
Re: Monday
Imagination is a terrible thing. I 'm guessing it involves the horses back end. The official would be the rear guard.
John
Re: Monday
If it happened in the Navy it would take place on the Poop Deck.
Neither correct
Re: Monday
Did they have to log the punishment?
I think your headed there - not quite
Re: Monday
Anything to do with this?
Re: Monday answer
Dan was closing in with the log but no stars today. This was a throwback to more serious torture. The punishment of the horse (also occasionally called the cradle) was one of slow pain. It was used for any number of violations from drunkenness, beating your wife, not paying support, to avoiding telling about someone who committed a more serious breach of regulations. The British �horse� was a triangular angled block of wood on four stout wood legs. Some had a fake wood horse head, and on some the tail was a cat of nine tails, but it also could be a just a heavy table with a triangular top with an angle facing up. The hypotenuse of the triangle could be a side or the bottom and angles A, B, or C could be selected to point upwards. The sides of the horse could, by the addition of additional differently sized wood wedges decrease the angle at the top of the horse, and make the horse have a wider spread. The person to be punished had his hands tied behind his back and was sat astride of the �horse� for a predetermined number of hours. Like kneeling on a stick, the pain started gradually and grew over time. If the weight was distributed evenly it hurt equally on the punished soldier�s crotch. If asymmetrical pressure was provided by the wedges on the side, a �comfortable� balance was harder and as the �rider� tried to move to adjust, only drove him deeper into frayed nerves and pressure points down the legs. To make matters worse, the punished soldiers dangling legs could be fitted with weights. This punishment was relatively mild. During earlier times the triangle of the British horse was (Spanish or Italian) a pyramid, the sitting angle was fitted with a blade, or the stand was a tripod and the top portion was on a loose post able to turn and wobble. America also used the �horse� but the one at Fort Scott is a beam not a triangle. If you choose to view one on the web be careful, the sites I visited often as not were torture/bondage/masochism sites. The American version can be seen at the National Park Service Fort Scott site. http://www.nps.gov/fosc/forteachers/guarddiscip.htm http://fortress.uccb.ns.ca/schoolnet/punismen.html
From the web:
This is from one of the websites I found, which is reprinted from an 1896 book called "Curious Punishments of Bygone Days":
"Another common punishment for soldiers (usually for rioting or drinking) was the riding the wooden horse. In New Amsterdam the wooden horse stood between Paerel street and the Fort, and was a straight, narrow, horizontal pole, standing twelve feet high. Sometimes the upper edge of the board or pole was acutely sharpened to intensify the cruelty. The soldier was set astride this board, with his hands tied behind his back. Often a heavy weight was tied to each foot, as was jocularly said, "to keep his horse from throwing him." Garret Segersen, a Dutch soldier, for stealing chickens, rode the wooden horse for three days, from two o'cjock to close of parade, with a fifty-pound weight tied to each foot, which was a severe punishment. In other cases in New Amsterdam a musket was tied to each foot of the disgraced man. One culprit rode with an empty scabbard in one hand and a pitcher in the other to show his inordinate love for John Barleycorn. Jan Alleman, a Dutch officer, valorously challenged Jan de Fries, who was bedridden; for this cruel and meaningless insult he, too, was sentenced to ride the wooden horse, and was cashiered.
New to me. The person selected to administer punishment for British soldiers was any of the regimental drummers. They were the floggers and monitors of punishment. The drum major was their superior (usually a sergeant and not necessarily the highest rank in the group) and in the British army, regiment level, he was the lead punisher although he rarely did the work himself. Part of the symbolism of the Drum Major is the mace used to give direction to his drum and bugle communicators. It stems directly from the war maces used in battle and one of the weapons used to administer punishment.
By several minutes Dan gets the star.