Colonel Alford, 1861

 

[This article was originally published in AAFA ACTION, Issue #6, September 1989.]

 

 

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, by James M. McPherson (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), contains a reference to a Colonel Alford, p. 329:

 

Many officers did little to inspire respect. Some had a penchant for drinking and carousing—which of course set a fine example for their men. In the summer of 1861 the 75th New York camped near Baltimore on its way to Washington. “Tonight not 200 men are in camp,” wrote a diary-keeping member of the regiment despairingly. “Capt. Catlin, Capt. Hurburt, Lt. Cooper and one or two other officers are under arrest. A hundred men are drunk, a hundred more at houses of ill fame ... Col. Alford is very drunk all the time now.”

 

 

Anyone want to claim him?!