"A Wretched Class of Swindlers"

To the soldier in need of supplies, the sutler's tent offered a tantalising bounty: tobacco, candy, tinned meats, shoelaces, patent medicines, pried pies, newspapers. But unscrupulous sutlers - a Dutch word meaning "to undertake low offices" - were legion, and often the soldier paid five times the true value of an item. Resentment of steep prices and often-shoddy goods ran high in both Armies. A newspaper correspondent covering the war wrote that sutlers were "a wretched class of swindlers and well deserved all their troubles."

Their troubles were many indeed. Following armies on campaign, they risked being caught up in the action: At least one sutler was killed by stray fire. Yet their greatest problems came from irate customers. Midnight raids by soldiers on sutler's tents were commonplace - and mostly overlooked by sympathetic officers. To avoid ruinous loss, sutlers sought to time the arrival of their wares with pay-day, and tried to sell out quickly. As one soldier wrote, "The law recognised the sutler and the orders shielded him. That was theory. Everybody kicked and cursed him and plundered him. That was practice."

Sgt. Martin Cross, 1^st V.A.

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