"It is a perfect hell to me": L.R. Webber Experiences Soldiering in Civil War Missouri

Abstract

At the close of more than six months of soldiering in Missouri during the opening year of the American Civil War, L. R. Webber, a private in Company D of the First Kansas Volunteer Infantry, wrote to a friend in Lawrence, Kansas, "I almost wish sometimes that I might fall in battle fighting bravely and thus be discharged honorably from farther service in this Regiment." He then elaborated as to why he wished to be separated from the regiment in such a drastic manner: "If what is practiced in this outfit is good soldiering then I never can get to be a good soldier. Getting drunk, stealing, shirking duty, rioting and imposing upon the few who are steady is the prevailing discipline in this Regiment. It is a perfect hell to me.''¹