A Soldiers' Life in the 18th Century
by Tom Harper as told to Gail Lang

Life was very rough for a soldier in the 18th century. The only way he could get out would be to die or be pensioned out by going to Chelsea Hospital in London. It's still there, the old soldiers' home. Most joined up for life. They would take their families with them wherever they went if there was a spot on the muster role. Some women were carried on the muster roles. Others had to scavenge for themselves. But they did not provide for the whole family. It was left up to the Colonel of the regiment whether you had to leave your family behind or whether there would be room for them to come.

Military life was tough. For minor infractions you could get flogged 200 times with a cat-o'-nine tails. That was really minor stuff. If you tried to leave, they would kill you. If you deserted, they'd shoot you.

As rough as it seemed though, there was not much choice for many men at this time. You should have seen life in London at the time. Out on the farms, there was no income at all and people were starving to death. This war was a big boom. The recruiting sergeants offered bounties up to 20 guineas to join up. That was 10 years salary for some people. Often they figured they could join up, get the bounty, then skip; but it didn't work out that way because they were under such close scrutiny.

Like I said, for the most minor infractions you would get lashes, 20, 30 40, even 200. We had one guy at Ft. Loudoun who received 200 lashes for speaking sedition, Henry Hammond. You couldn't even look at an officer. You couldn't walk between them and a wall. Didn't dare touch them.

Life in the 18th century in general was a class system, and no one stepped beyond his class. You didn't dare look someone like the engineer or an officer in the eye. You'd likely get the back of a sword across your face.

It was tough for a woman. The statement "You've come a long way baby." is really true. As bad as men treated women in the first part of this century, it was nothing to what it was in the 18th century. A woman was often turned out onto the street to fend for herself which often meant only one thing, and that was pretty tough.

I got into this living history partially because of my love of history. I've been in this about 12 or 13 years now. I like to hunt and fish and that helps some too. I bought a muzzle loading rifle kit one time and happened to pick up a magazine at the store. I was flipping through the magazine and saw people dressed in period attire. People dressed in period attire who went hunting that way. That was very interesting to me. I investigated it further and found that there were many people who hunted that way. It presented a new challenge for me. I thought it added adventure and excitement to the hunt.

Some of us not only do military 18th living century. We do civilian living history as well. We portray the long hunters, like Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, and others, by going on long hunts and things like that. The living history is portrayed in truth too. We do actually go on the extended hunts, bring back the animals, and use all the pieces from the kills much as they were used in the 18th century, making our own whippage for our own stuff such as moccasins.

We go on what we call period treks with the civilian stuff. We'll go off for three or four days, living off what we take in our haversacks and what we can take from the land. You learn a different respect for what it took to make this country. Daniel Boone was a long hunter, meaning that he would go into the wilderness either by himself or he'd team up with two or three other people. They'd try to make their fortune by killing deer and other fur bearing animals and bringing them back to civilization. In those days it wasn't unheard of to kill 200 - 300 fur bearing animals in a season. That was a lot of money. The reason they called them long hunters was because their hunts could last for two years. In fact, during one hunt Daniel was gone so long that, when he returned, his wife had a child by his brother believing Daniel to be dead. Boone was not the only long hunter from history. He was just one of the more famous.

This 18th century living history hobby is all encompassing. People portray the French voyeurs that came down from Canada to trade. Charlie portrays a trader who trades with the Cherokee Indians. Then, of course, you also have the people at places such as Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

Living history is good in many ways. It can bring a feeling of achievement to learn and share knowledge with others in a way that will help them remember it, to watch the children's eyes light up as they learn why we do this or where that came from, to be able to help the children relate the past to the present. Just like our drummer, he's a young lad but was unable to join us on this journey. He was the one who punished the people, the one that actually did the lashes. It wasn't his desire to do this. It was done under the orders of his superiors. On his side he carried a little red sack on his waist belt. In that sack was a cat-o'-nine-tails. Well, the sack was scarlet red, just like the officers' uniforms. Have you heard the expression, "the cat's out of the bag"? That's where the saying comes from. Children love stories like that, to understand what hides behind such simple sayings in life.

Another one, "He's just an old flash in the pan", is representative of the guns of the period. The guns have a touchhole and a pan. You fill the pan full of powder; and when the flint struck it, it sets a spark in the touchhole that ignites the powder inside causing the gun to fire. When the touchhole was stopped up, the spark could not get through, and the flash accomplished nothing. A worthless attempt that cannot accomplish the goal. Just like the misfire, makes a lot of smoke, but doesn't do anything. Not dangerous.

There are lots of terms like that where the true meanings and origins have been lost over time. These sayings are used in everyday life. Yet people have no idea where they came from. They just use the words. Some things have been perverted over the years. But for the most part, many of the old sayings still hold true to the original meanings.

"Lock, stock and barrel" is another example. On the guns then, the three parts that made the whole of the gun were the lock, stock and barrel, representing the entire gun in these three parts. So when you refer to the "lock, stock and barrel" of anything, it's referring to it as a whole in its entirety.

It's fun to teach people the fun side of history in little details like this. At the same time we want to be sure that children, as well as adults, realize that, while learning about the various wars in history, they need to realize that warfare is a very bad thing. We aren't here to glorify war in any way, but to simply teach what was there, to understand how people lived and what things affected their lives. Also we want people to be aware that history repeats itself, that wars come and go. People fight and people die.