Fegisar med gul markering

[Hexmaster]

I en tråd om ett annat ämne, vilket det än kan vara, förekom följande påstående. Stämmer det?

ett uttryck från amerikanska inbördeskriget, där desertörer och fegisar i strid målades med gul rand över ryggen och sändes ut i främsta ledet. Om de ertappades med att försöka smita hade var och en rätt att skjuta dem i ryggen.

Googlande leder till en film där Gary Cooper deltar i inbördeskriget, Springfield Rifle (1952); där förekommer straffet. Är det historiskt?

[Hans]

Vagt relaterat men inte fick jag något riktigt med en snabbtrål.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... ow-bellied

http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:QQA ... en&ct=clnk

MVH

Hans

[G:son]

Jag tror åtminstone inte, att någonting sådant skulle ha förekommit, i alla fall inte allmänt, på någondera sidan. Men om någon presenterar en trovärdig källa, är det ju en annan sak:

Union Army:

To suppress desertion the extreme penalty of death was at times applied, especially after 1863; but this meant no more than the selection of a few men as public examples out of many thousands equally guilty. The commoner method was to make public appeals to deserters, promising pardon in case of voluntary return with dire threats to those who failed to return. That desertion did not prevent a man posing after the war as an honorable soldier is evident by a study of pension records. The laws required honorable discharge as a requisite for a pension; but in the case of those charged with desertion Congress passed numerous private and special acts "correcting" the military record.

Confederate Army:

Many of the deserters were mere boys. Poor food and clothing, lack of shoes and overcoats, and insufficient pay inevitably produced disaffection. Sometimes the pay was fourteen months behind; often a soldier on leave could not pay the transportation to return to his command. Unsanitary camp conditions had their debilitating effect. Soldiers kept in unwholesome inaction were more than commonly subject to homesickness and depression. Often the alternative was abandonment and neglect of wife and children or departure from the army - in other words a choice between two kinds of desertion, a dilemma in facing conflicting loyalties. Men felt that their services were actually more needed at home than in the army. Not a few Southern soldiers found themselves in the situation of an Alabaman who deserted the army when his wife wrote him: "We haven't got nothing in the house to eat but a little bit of meal. . . . I don't want you to stop fighting them Yankees . .but try and get off and come home and fix us all up some and then you can go back."

http://www.civilwarhome.com/desertion.htm

Allmänt om disciplinproblem:

Mutiny and threats of murder were not usual discipline problems. Straggling, drunkenness, fighting, dereliction of duty, theft, desertion, malingering, cowardice, bounty jumping, and insubordination were the common fare at courts-martial. Both Union and Confederate services made provisions for military courts and prescribed specific punishments for some offenses. But often, because of pressures of time, courts were not called in noncapital cases and commanding officers dispensed justice on the spot with some form of minor or corporal punishment. These included the Buck and Gag, walking guard duty carrying a heavy log instead of a rifle, being tied up by the thumbs, riding the "wooden mule" (a soldier was forced to sit for hours atop a narrow rail set high enough so his feet did not touch the ground), extra duty, fines, time in the guardhouse, and reduction in rank.
Cowardice, desertion, theft, sleeping on guard duty, treating with the enemy, spying, murder, and bounty jumping brought the hardest punishments. Execution by firing squad or hanging could be applied to all of these, but frequently cowards, thieves, and some deserters were branded (either on the face or the hip) and drummed out of camp in disgrace. In the artillery or cavalry, being tied for hours spread-eagled on a gun carriage wheel was common, and sometimes, when the culprit was hung horizontally, crippling. In both the army and navy, flogging had been outlawed several years before the war.
The hardest punishments could only be ordered by a court martial (a select board of 3 or more officers), and in the case of a decision for execution, its vote had to show a 2-to-I majority in agreement. Only the commanding general ordering the court or the U.S. or C.S. president could award a pardon.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/discipline.htm

Att vem som helst skulle ha haft rätt att skjuta en desertör förefaller inte sannolikt.

/G:son

[Dûrion Annûndil]

Det verkar dessutom riktigt farligt att ha en sådant förfarande på ett slagfält där soldater springer runt med all sorts uniformsdetaljer som kan misstolkas för ett "gult band" över ryggen, eller har ryggsäckar, och färger förändras av dålig sikt och krutrök och damm.

Jag tror Lawrence bara bedriver lite fantasifull folketymologi kring amerikanska flygares möjliga ordlek kring svenska flaggans gula inslag.

Yellow
[...]
Sense of "cowardly" is 1856, of unknown origin; the color was traditionally associated rather with treachery. Yellow-bellied "cowardly" is from 1924, probably a rhyming reduplication of yellow; earlier yellow-belly was a sailor's name for a half-caste (1867) and a Texas term for Mexican soldiers (1842, based on the color of their uniforms). Yellow dog "mongrel" is attested from c.1770; slang sense of "contemptible person" first recorded 1881.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?sea ... hmode=none

Mvh - Dan

[Lawrence]

Dûrion Annûndil:

Oh no man, har det från trycket, men det kan stämma att det är ett ganska okänt talesätt, (boken ej om inbördeskriget).
Kommer nu att tänka på en ganska känd hit från 1970tal: Tie a yellow ribbon (down?) the old oak tree, som var en
signal om att fästmannen - ( i inbördeskriget 1860-65,U.S) dragit ut i kriget, nånting sånt, eller kommit hem.
Vem har inte hasat runt till den nångång ?