horse."

The cruel punishment of "picketing," which was ever the close companion
of "riding the wooden horse" in the English army is recorded by Dr. Rea
as constantly employed in the colonial forces. In "picketing" the
culprit was strung up to a hook by one wrist while the opposite bare
heel rested upon a stake or picket, rounded at the point just enough not
to pierce the skin. The agony caused by this punishment was great. It
could seldom be endured longer than a quarter of an hour at a time. It
so frequently disabled soldiers for marching that it was finally
abandoned as "inexpedient."

The high honor of inventing and employing the whirlgig as a means of
punishment in the army has often been assigned to our Revolutionary
hero, General Henry Dearborn, but the fame or infamy is not his. For
years it was used in the English army for the petty offenses of
soldiers, and especially of camp-followers. It was a cage which was made
to revolve at great speed, and the nausea and agony it caused to its
unhappy occupant were unspeakable. In the American army it is said
lunacy and imbecility often followed excessive punishment in the
whirlgig.

Various tiresome or grotesque punishments were employed. Delinquent
soldiers in Winthrop's day were sentenced to carry a large number of
turfs to the Fort; others were chained to a wheelbarrow. In 1778 among
the Continental soldiers as in our Civil War, culprits were chained to a
log or clog of wood; this weight often was worn four days. One soldier
for stealing cordage was sentenced to "wear a clogg for four days and
wear his coat rong side turn'd out." A deserter from the battle of
Bunker Hill was tied to a horse's tail, lead around the camp and
whipped. Other deserters were set on a horse with face to the horse's
tail, and thus led around the camp in derision.

There was one curious punishment in use in the army during our Civil War
which, though not, of course, of colonial times, may well be mentioned
since it was a revival of a very ancient punishment. It is thus
described by the author of a paper written in 1862 and called _A Look at
the Federal Army_:

"I was extremely amused to see a rare specimen of Yankee invention in
the shape of an original method of punishment drill. One wretched
delinquent was gratuitously framed in oak, his head being thrust through
a hole cut in one end of a barrel, the other end of which had been
removed, and the poor fellow loafed about in the most di