Episode #41： The Gentlemen and the Roughs with Dr. Lorien Foote
Episode Stats
Summary
Dr. Lorian Foot is the author of the book The Gentleman in the Roughs: Manhood, Honor, and Violence in the Union Army, a fascinating history of honor in the Civil War. She is a professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas and a fellow-Oklahoma, and she got her PHD in American history from the University and a M.D in the history of American history.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well uh if you
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were reading the site a few months ago you probably saw that massive series we did on
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the history of manly honor in the west and in one of the articles we wrote we focused on what honor
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meant to men living in the american north at the time of the civil war and one of the sources we
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used for that article was a book called the gentleman in the roughs manhood honor and
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violence in the union army a fascinating read very good book and today we're lucky enough to have the
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author of that book on the podcast her name is dr lorian foot she is a professor of history at the
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university of central arkansas she's also a fellow okie and a fellow sooner she was from oklahoma
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originally and she got her phd in american history from the university of oklahoma and uh so we're
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going to talk to dr lorian foot today about the history of manly honor in the union army
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well uh welcome to the show lorian foot i really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us
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today thank you i'm just thrilled to talk to you i love your site oh well thank you very much so your
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book uh the gentleman in the roughs uh it's violence honor and manhood in the union army um how did you
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get interested what piqued your interest to start researching about honor and manhood specifically in
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the union army during the civil war because it's such a such a narrow topic what what piqued your
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interest to research that well what happened this book actually evolved out of the sources because i
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didn't originally intend to write about this i was interested in questions of discipline and military
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justice so i'd gone to the national archives to read court martial records and as i was reading these
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cases they just raised all these questions for me about honor about manhood um so for example i'd be
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reading trials of men who were court-martialed for conduct and becoming an officer and a gentleman
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and in some cases these were men who had shot an opponent or beaten somebody up and it would be a 50 or 60
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page trial and 10 to 15 pages of it would be long discussions about whether or not this person had used
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the phrase a son of a bitch and i'm thinking okay he killed somebody so why do they care whether he
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said son of a bitch while he killed someone and you know those kind of questions led me down the road
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of looking at how these men conceived of honor and how they conceived of manliness and it was really
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driven by what i found in the sources well that that's fascinating um so let's talk a little bit about
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that because it's it's a lot more complicated than you think a lot of people think honor it's oh you
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know i know what honor means and uh of course you you don't need to write a whole book about how
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men and women uh perceived honor um but you found that there was actually honor for the union soldiers
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was sort of this there was two kind of main threads but it was sort of ambiguous sometimes
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you had one view and then sometimes you could slip into this other view so it was like the honor
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of the gentleman and then the honor of the roughs can you kind of briefly explain
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uh what those two types of honor meant to these guys sure and and let me do it by by rephrasing a
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little bit how how we think about honor because one of the things that that i found when people think
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about that concept and it was a mistake that i made as well is they think of honor almost synonymously
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with virtue when i talk to people about the book i've noticed that they think of honor as being someone
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with good character and honor is a is a particular way of of looking at the world where you only have
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as much worth as other people give to you and so you truly can't have any self-esteem or any sense of
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self-worth unless your peers recognize your claim and so that definition of honor applies to different
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cultures in different groups in different periods of history in different places in the world so if we
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look at the united states and the confederacy during the civil war we can apply that definition of honor
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and say okay what groups lived by that definition and then how do they display honor so what i found was
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a difference in how men displayed honor so for both the roughs and the gentlemen their self-worth comes
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from whether their peers give them worth whether they have public recognition of what they're
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claiming but they have very different rituals about how they display their honor and what they do if
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they're shamed in front of other people okay so just i guess to clarify for the readers the roughs
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were uh primarily lower class right uh immigrants and the and they're usually the infantrymen typically
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roughs are men from the lowest socioeconomic classes in the north and they can be both immigrants but
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also um they could be rural farm laborers men who didn't have property and who were moving from place
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to place trying to find work so regiments from indiana and illinois um had men in them that they called
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roughs and these men generally weren't immigrants they were native-born americans but they were men without
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without property without education on the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder and in the roughs their
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version of honor was very much a if you are shamed in public it is a violent response and and they proved their
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manhood through rituals that showed that they could take and give pain so they got reputation among their peers by showing how tough
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they were that they could give pain that they could take it in brutal fights yeah you uh i remember you called
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they called them rough and tumbles right yes can you describe like what a rough and tumble exactly is what
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it entails sure a rough and tumble is they would call it and it's also a no holds barred fight where there's
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basically no rules and you put two men um you know inside a ring where other men are watching and they just
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fight each other using their hands until one of them is incapacitated and cannot go on and there was often eye gouging
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that was the thing that surprised me yes and i mean particularly that comes from men in in the rural areas but yeah men would
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actually grow um fingernails several inches long um in order to use that as a weapon to gouge out somebody's eye and of course
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because in honor it's about this reputation for toughness for these guys if you had an eye missing
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from one of these fights i mean it was actually a mark of honor wow and and so not only was violence a part
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of it i also you also talk about how uh drinking was an important aspect of displaying honor manhood
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amongst the roughs as well yes i mean it's how much liquor can you consume you know how how much can you
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drink and then of course the the liquor led to a lot of the fighting as well okay so that was the
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honor of the roughs what about the gentlemen so these were typically upper class and they were officers
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correct right and even though there were men who considered themselves gentlemen who who would have
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been in the infantry as well um but generally the gentlemen are men who who have some kind of um economic
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status education they're recognized in society um as gentlemen and then for them they cannot endure a
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public insult and neither can the rust but for a gentleman your response is is i guess in some ways
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more refined it's still a violent response but it's a challenge so if you receive a verbal insult as a
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gentleman you have to respond to that with a public vindication by showing that you are willing to
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fight to defend your honor um so if somebody you know liar puppy coward words like that if those
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words are applied to another man that's an indication that you have shamed him and a man of
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honor among the gentleman class will know that he now has to vindicate himself publicly by responding
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with an offer to fight and how was what was the form of fighting was it like rough and tumbles or
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do they actually use dual gentlemen would not um would not do a rough and tumble fight generally it's a
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formal um either written offer to duel or there are some men um in some regions of the union who the
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fight would be a fist fight or um some of them did offer to shoot at each other's with pistols but it
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wasn't quite the same form as a duel so how did that uh you talk about this too in your book um
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dueling was illegal uh in the military yes how did they get around that and um i mean what sort of
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conflict did that have with these men where they they had to you know vindicate themselves but at the
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same time the military was saying no you can't do that right well where it really places a lot of the
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pressure is on some of the officers of the regiment so men who are the lieutenants and the captains
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because no one would be prosecuted unless an officer brings a charge against someone so what we see is
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that in some regiments men do these fights of honor and they never even get prosecuted because their
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officers believe in that kind of honor and so their officers just aren't going to bring charges against
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them for men who do get formally charged um you know it's a real issue because they have to defend
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themselves and claim that they are gentlemen which is why they had to defend their honor but yet the
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military has told them to do this is not gentlemanly and you know that so now they feel the shame of being
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put on trial for what they've done and it creates a lot of conflict for them internally but also conflict
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among officers and i think that's why we see that it's the the cases of men who are charged with
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dueling that there is the most inconsistent application of justice that there is in the
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union army i mean there's some men who are found guilty some men who are found not guilty and it just
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depends on whether the members of the court martial who are trying the case agree that dueling is a form
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of honor we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show
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and then you'd like you said sometimes like the fact that if they said son of a bitch would when you
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killed when that would that would change things somehow yes well because what what's interesting
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about it is you can be charged during the civil war under the 83rd article of war with conduct and
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becoming an officer and a gentleman and then what that conduct is is what has to be proved in the trial
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and then you have to prove that that conduct is not the conduct of a gentleman so those were some of
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my favorite cases because there were many men in the union army who believe that profanity is one of
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the worst vices that it's using profane language corrupts your mind and then leads you down the path to
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other vices to sexual immorality or to drinking so they view profanity as truly an act that no gentleman
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would ever publicly use whereas for other men um speaking in that kind of language is part of their
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display of manliness i mean they curse and they drink and they fight so it it really becomes a place
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where these different definitions of manhood get fought out is in these trials where an officer
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uses a phrase like that and another thing i thought was fascinating the difference between the roughs and
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the gentlemen uh it seems like the honor of the roughs of the on the manhood of the roughs was very
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passionate and uh you know as soon as something happened you had to respond right away and the
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gentlemen seemed a little bit more reserved and i liked how they described it as you know you had to
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keep your cool that was the the goal of the the gentleman can you describe the that sort of like stoic
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honor that those guys had yes so the idea of being cool is that in any circumstance you can act with
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complete calm and indifference as if nothing unusual is happening to you so i mean in in battle you would
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be walking through this hail of bullets and shrapnel and and and walking as calmly as if you were just
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walking down the street at home and if somebody is in your face insulting you you are responding
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you know cleverly making jokes but just as if nothing was wrong and so that's what's interesting
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because the gentleman i mean a duel you could kill someone but in their mind what's key is that
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their violence is restrained they're only going to display violence in a ritual under certain
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circumstances that show that their violence is under their control whereas with the roughs their violence
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is out of control and another i thought was interesting too as well is that idea of being in control
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um the temperance movement was really big amongst uh the the gentleman the officer class and i thought
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that was there's also very humorous uh antidotes where uh the officers would try to start temperance
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uh movements amongst their men and the men would sort of rebel against that the infantrymen would
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yes now even though and that's what's interesting i think that's why in so many companies and regiments
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in the union army there ends up being a lot of conflict between men because there are infantrymen
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in private who they also believe in a manliness that has a lot of moral character and you don't drink
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and you don't curse and so sometimes you have officers allied with their enlisted men whereas there's
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other officers and other enlisted men who drink and fight and when these men get together in the same
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regiment it can really cause conflict so i think one of the stories that i told in the book is is in
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one particular regiment there are some officers who have temperance meetings um with some of the men
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in their regiment and those so then some of the other men in the regiment throw mule urine on their
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tent when they're trying to meet and then there's another regiment where officers and men form an
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anti-temperance society and you know where they say the purpose of their society is to drink as much as
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possible and and so that's what i think is interesting is that sometimes gentlemen have
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men i think who are hoping someday to become gentlemen themselves that that want to display
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these values of gentility and refinement let's talk a little bit about the conf the conflict between the
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rest and the gentlemen because that was another very fascinating part of your book um because these
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are two completely different ideas of manhood uh one you have more refined more uh you have to be in
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control of your emotions the other one is more violent um and you just you act whenever you need
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to act um how did besides the temperance uh issue how else did that conflict arise are there any
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instances in particular where it really you found there's like a perfect example of these two conflicting
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views of manhood and honor um butting heads i think a big way that i thought was in the issue of
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cleanliness this is a time period where americans are only just now coming to embrace the idea of
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bathing and um you know taking good care of themselves and uh so gentlemen part of their
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belief in what makes you a man is that you are clean in your presentation of yourself clean clothes clean nails
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your hair is trimmed and i mean the rust we have to picture that these men are dirty and that they have
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long hair and untamed hair and that they revel in that as part of their manliness and so when you have
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genteel officers some of them want to clean up these men they want to force them to cut their hair they
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want to force them to to take a bath two or three times a week and there was a lot of conflict over
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that issue so did um the i know one aspect of the the honor of the gentleman was you weren't supposed
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to ever duel or fight someone that was beneath you yes but were there instances where that was ignored
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and they actually did you know duked it out with someone from the rough class um well duked it out yes but
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not in a sense that they would call it a duel so what i found is that officers who were gentlemen
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when they were trying to discipline or punish rust they would inflict incredible physical corporal
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punishment on these men beat them kick them tie them up um you know use water torture on them in some
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cases so they're using very physical punishments but that's in their capacity as an officer to an
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enlisted men they would never have fought with any of these men you know with their uniform off or
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um you know just as an issue a personal issue between them yeah that's interesting about the um
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the bars right like they talked about the roughs would talk about the to the gentleman oh it's only
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those bars that are keeping you safe you didn't have those bars on you i would i'd give you a licking
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yeah if you take off those shoulder straps and and fight me yeah they were always because they knew
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of course with army regulations trying to impose the automatic obedience of privates to officers
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i mean you could really you could face the death penalty if you hit an officer so it was important
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for these soldiers when they were trying to assert their manhood to these officers they wanted these
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officers to take off their uniforms go outside the lines of the camp you know and fight it out man to
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man and i think it was also an assertion of their equality to these officers so how so a lot of
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uh the focus on the history of honor in america typically focuses on southern or confederate honor
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right because that you know the south's very famous for their honor culture how did the i mean in your
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research have you what's the difference between southern honor and the honor of northern men
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well i think the biggest difference is just that there's a class of northern men
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who they would they would have a ritual of honor where they would issue a verbal offer to fight
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and if someone calls them a coward they'll say okay let's let's go fight and by that they just mean
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kind of a fist fight whereas for southerners they really do embrace that ritual of the duel and there
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were northern men who dueled and that's what i think my book brings out and makes clear
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um but i think the dueling ritual was was much more widespread in in the south
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but i think part of what i'm trying to argue in the book and and what has has seemed to resonate
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with historians who have read the book is that there wasn't as big a difference between northern
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and southern honor as we have tried to claim very interesting um so how did the civil war
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do you think shaped america's conception of honor and manhood i mean do we still see these strands
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today or did one form of honor win out um i mean what what's your take on that well i think i think
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that dueling as a ritual um the civil war kind of is part of a process of putting an end to that
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but certain ways of thinking about honor i think the civil war actually gives a shot in the arm to
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because i mean both sides viewed the war itself as a test of honor they i mean men talk about this
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this we're fighting for the honor of our nation or the honor of our state or so they think about it in
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terms of honor and historians who have looked in at the philippine war for example have found that men
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use a lot of the language of honor in talking about the philippine war and why that war needs to be fought
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and why some of the men fight in the war i've got to to show my honor in this war so i think
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in terms of men thinking about i have i have or the section of the country that i live in or then even
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my country has honor that must be defended that must be fought for i think that way of thinking
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really continues to today and i think it's interesting because sometimes when i've made
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presentations about my book and there have been veterans in the audience i mean they'll come up
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and say it's still like that in the military they'll say this doesn't sound that different to
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me well dr foote thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us thank you i really appreciate
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the opportunity to talk about my work our guest today was dr laurian foote she's the author of the
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book the gentleman in the roughs violence honor and manhood in the union in the union army and you
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can pick up her book on amazon.com well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast
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for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at
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art of manliness.com and until next time stay manly