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Authors: Robert J. Mrazek
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investigator for the provost marshal to know that the easiest place to find laudanum would be at a hospital. There was a new one just ten minutes on foot from Mrs. Wardenâs. Formerly a government office building, it took up a whole city block on Seventh Street and was already brimming with hundreds of army casualties.
The morning after my breakdown, I found the man I was looking for in a saloon on Sixth Street that was frequented by the hospital staff. For agreeing to supply me with two quarts of laudanum, I promised to pay the young attendant ten dollars. Two hours later, I was on my way home with the hoard that he had brazenly stolen from the dispensary. I tried not to think about the men who might be suffering without it, and vowed that I would find another source as soon as possible.
On Monday morning I started my job at the Provost Marshal Generalâs Department. Mrs. Warden informed me that a military van regularly traversed the route from the War Office on Seventeenth Street to the asylum. I rarely had to wait more than fifteen minutes for transportation to and from work.
On my first morning, Val Burdette explained the procedures he wanted me to follow in reviewing court-martial cases. It was my job to confirm the factual basis for the pending charges that had been brought. The first step was to interview the accused. If the person admitted guilt, I was to try to ascertain whether or not there were extenuating circumstances in the matter. If the accused claimed innocence, I was to use my initiative in determining whether the evidence was sufficient to bring the matter forward to a military tribunal. My legal colleague in the office, Harold Tubshawe, was available for consultation.
As it turned out, the overwhelming number of those accused were clearly guilty of the crimes they were charged with. Occasionally, I would conclude that there was an extenuating reason for what they had done. Val Burdette would take my findings and recommendations into account before deciding whether to turn the case over to the Judge Advocate Generalâs Office for prosecution.
In that first month, I handled twenty-seven investigations, most of them involving the court-martials of soldiers accused of desertion, cowardice, theft, bounty jumping, embezzlement, sexual deviancy, drunkenness, and assault. I also investigated the dealings of two small contractors who were accused of selling shoddy equipment to the army and one case of bed-wetting.
I awoke each morning to the aromatic splendor of Mrs. Wardenâs freshly baked breads and pastries as the smell drifted up the back staircase and slowly filled my room. My appetite returned like a lost muse, and by August, I had gained back much of the weight I had lost in the hospital. My cheeks filled out, and my eyes emerged again from their sockets. In fact, it would have been hard for a stranger to look at me and know that I had ever been wounded. There were only two constant reminders of what had happened to me on the windswept plain above Ballâs Bluff.
The first was revealed each time I disrobed and saw the intricate network of jagged lines that were etched in livid red across my abdomen. The second was the fact that I was consuming a steady flow of opiates laced with grain alcohol every twenty-four hours. Although I was always under the influence of opium, it did not prevent me from functioning in the job I was assigned to do.
My routine did not vary in any material way from one day to the next. While shaving each morning in my room, I consumed the first cup of laudanum in the collapsible tin mug my mother had sent me upon my enlistment in the army. After going downstairs to breakfast, I would return to my room for a second measure. Then I would go to my office in the asylum.
At work, I would wait until shortly before my lunch break at 11:30, and then adjourn to the washroom down the hall from my office. There I would remove the bottle labeled âdisinfectantâ
The morning after my breakdown, I found the man I was looking for in a saloon on Sixth Street that was frequented by the hospital staff. For agreeing to supply me with two quarts of laudanum, I promised to pay the young attendant ten dollars. Two hours later, I was on my way home with the hoard that he had brazenly stolen from the dispensary. I tried not to think about the men who might be suffering without it, and vowed that I would find another source as soon as possible.
On Monday morning I started my job at the Provost Marshal Generalâs Department. Mrs. Warden informed me that a military van regularly traversed the route from the War Office on Seventeenth Street to the asylum. I rarely had to wait more than fifteen minutes for transportation to and from work.
On my first morning, Val Burdette explained the procedures he wanted me to follow in reviewing court-martial cases. It was my job to confirm the factual basis for the pending charges that had been brought. The first step was to interview the accused. If the person admitted guilt, I was to try to ascertain whether or not there were extenuating circumstances in the matter. If the accused claimed innocence, I was to use my initiative in determining whether the evidence was sufficient to bring the matter forward to a military tribunal. My legal colleague in the office, Harold Tubshawe, was available for consultation.
As it turned out, the overwhelming number of those accused were clearly guilty of the crimes they were charged with. Occasionally, I would conclude that there was an extenuating reason for what they had done. Val Burdette would take my findings and recommendations into account before deciding whether to turn the case over to the Judge Advocate Generalâs Office for prosecution.
In that first month, I handled twenty-seven investigations, most of them involving the court-martials of soldiers accused of desertion, cowardice, theft, bounty jumping, embezzlement, sexual deviancy, drunkenness, and assault. I also investigated the dealings of two small contractors who were accused of selling shoddy equipment to the army and one case of bed-wetting.
I awoke each morning to the aromatic splendor of Mrs. Wardenâs freshly baked breads and pastries as the smell drifted up the back staircase and slowly filled my room. My appetite returned like a lost muse, and by August, I had gained back much of the weight I had lost in the hospital. My cheeks filled out, and my eyes emerged again from their sockets. In fact, it would have been hard for a stranger to look at me and know that I had ever been wounded. There were only two constant reminders of what had happened to me on the windswept plain above Ballâs Bluff.
The first was revealed each time I disrobed and saw the intricate network of jagged lines that were etched in livid red across my abdomen. The second was the fact that I was consuming a steady flow of opiates laced with grain alcohol every twenty-four hours. Although I was always under the influence of opium, it did not prevent me from functioning in the job I was assigned to do.
My routine did not vary in any material way from one day to the next. While shaving each morning in my room, I consumed the first cup of laudanum in the collapsible tin mug my mother had sent me upon my enlistment in the army. After going downstairs to breakfast, I would return to my room for a second measure. Then I would go to my office in the asylum.
At work, I would wait until shortly before my lunch break at 11:30, and then adjourn to the washroom down the hall from my office. There I would remove the bottle labeled âdisinfectantâ
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