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Andrew Foulke, Civil War Sutler
By Craig L Barry
(Image courtesy Library of Congress) The sign reads “A Foulke, Sutler 1st Brigade Hse Artillery”
Definition: “A sutler or victualer is a civilian merchant who sells provisions to an army in the field, in camp or winter quarters. The sutler sold wares from the back of a wagon or temporary tent, traveling along with an army to remote military outposts.” [1]By Craig L Barry
(Image courtesy Library of Congress) The sign reads “A Foulke, Sutler 1st Brigade Hse Artillery”
The US Army Manual of 1857 states the following regarding the appointment of camp Sutlers:
“By Order of the Surgeon-General United States of America... ARTICLE XXV. SUTLERS, p.196. Every military post may have one Sutler, to be appointed by the Secretary of War on the recommendation of the Council of Administration for a term of three years...”
Once a Sutler received his appointment, it was necessary for him to invest in a stock of merchandise from a wholesaler based on what he anticipated would be in demand. Civil War-era photographic images of “Sutler’s stores” are rare like most other photographs of camp life. Most images of these establishments are in the form of drawings or sketches. The above image of A. Foulke is one of the clearest and best detailed of a Sutler’s establishment. It was a wet plate collodion taken in February 1864, at Brandy Station, Virginia. The image shows a semi-permanent log structure under a canvas tent roof as one might expect in a winter quarters setting. The proprietor of the establishment was Andrew Foulke, who followed Capt James Robertson’s 1st Brigade, Horse Artillery.
Andrew Foulke was born in Pennsylvania in 1821. In the 1850 census he was listed as a farmer living in Chemung County, near Elmira, New York. Ten years later, the 1860 census finds Andrew Foulke employed as a shoemaker in Virginia by which time he is also listed with a wife (Susan) and three sons. Sometime around 1863, Foulke was appointed as a Regimental Sutler in the Army of the Potomac, invested in saleable inventory and a rig to haul it then took to the road following the Union Army. In 1865, he is still listed as a Sutler based out of Washington, DC but by 1870, he owned and operated a hotel in Prince George, Maryland. [2] One can connect the dots from the surviving historical information and conclude that Andrew Foulke was able to make enough profit during his role as Regimental Sutler to not only support a wife and three sons during the war, but improve his station from ante-bellum farmer/shoemaker to a post-bellum hotel owner. Foulke for his part seems to have avoided many of the misfortunes reported by other Sutlers on the front lines in Virginia.
Smith & Wesson .32 cal rimfire revolver belonging to Andrew Foulke. It was his revolver during his days as a Civil War Regimental Sutler or at least it is a surviving artifact with his name ornately etched in the frame. Such small arms were sometimes carried by Sutlers, either for sale or their own personal protection. There is an account of an officer named Hugh Harkins in the 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves who was court-martialed for stealing a “silver plated revolver” from their Regimental Sutler in July 1863. (image public domain)
Sutlers were fixtures of military camp life and they facilitated off-duty activities enjoyed by soldiers in camp whether on campaign or in semi-permanent winter quarters. The Sutler’s “store” itself was usually a large tent that offered non-military or at least non-essential items. The products provided for sale usually included: apples, eggs, sausages, butter, canned goods, cakes, pies---avoid the meat pies by general consensus---candy, dry goods, alcoholic drinks like warm porter or ale, cider and although prohibited by regulation, whiskey (usually under the counter). Some had soft drinks like lemonade as well as pipes, tobacco, scissors, ink, playing cards which were very popular and all things in between. A period description from September 1861 of one such store in a Civil War camp notes:“The Sutlers tent is the same in all camps…His tent is lumbered up with barrels and boxes, and at the customer ends of it a board across two pork barrels which does duty for a counter. Here the men come in crowds every hour in the day to get some little delicacy to eat or a cool glass of lemonade to drink and make much out of it. As the regiments are usually supplied with water from muddy springs of their own digging; and as the Sutler generally has the only ice in camp, a glass of cool lemonade is a grateful beverage under the torrid circumstances. All Sutler tents are alike…always thronged and always make money. There is usually a rear entrance for officers who are permitted behind the counter.” [3]
Officers may have been permitted behind the counter but they were forbidden under penalty of court martial from involving themselves in the affairs of the Regimental Sutler. It was an imperfect set-up but it seemed to work out reasonably well most of the time. Soldiers received tokens to use for purchases and (in theory) no more than 1/3 of their monthly pay could be used for this purpose.
A frequent complaint concerned pricing. One must judge the prices charged based on a soldier’s income of only $13 to $15 per month. Was the Sutler a conniving, profiteering miscreant as portrayed by so many soldiers in their accounts or simply a businessman in a risky enterprise expecting a reasonable rate of return from his investment and time? One officer wrote, “When one carefully considers the expense of transporting his goods to the Army, the wastage (spoilage) of the same from exposure to the weather, the cost of removals and the risk of disaster to the Army I do not believe the Sutlers as a class can be accused of overcharging.” [4] Well, yes and no.
Suffice to say, many soldiers felt differently on the subject. There was obviously some degree of greed and price gouging due to the Regimental Sutler having a captive market. The soldier either paid the asking price or did without the item. However, we should not minimize the risk of injury or economic ruin faced by Sutlers lingering very close to the battlefield (where his customers are). On June 9, 1864 near Petersburg, Virginia a wagon full of goods along with two AoP Sutlers inadvertently wandered too near the battlefield while peddling their wares to the soldiers entrenched there. They were struck by hostile fire from across the field. Their horse panicked and the cart ended up topsy-turvy in a ditch. One of the peddlers died in the crash as did the horse (who had to be shot). The nearest soldiers freely availed themselves of the scattered stock of goods before helping the survivor from beneath the wreckage. The Sutler limped away from the scene with little more than the leather harness from the dead horse and his life. [5] He was lucky.
There is a famous case of stolen inventory at Murfreesboro, TN by the same men the Sutler was appointed to serve. It involved Company C of the Chicago Board of Trade battery after the battle of Stones River in early January 1863. Beer had been in short supply and when the Regimental Sutler was able to secure twenty kegs, he began offering it for sale at ten cents a glass. In fact, it proved so popular with the men that he had to hire two assistants to help him run the counter. After the first half of his beer supply disappeared within a couple days, and knowing he would not be able to resupply, he raised the price to thirty cents a glass. This resulting in some grumbling but did not slack the demand for the beer among the soldiers. When only six kegs were left the Sutler upped the price again, this time to fifty cents per glass. The account continues:
“Then came the finale, the boys held an indignation meeting and demanded the Sutler lower the price of his goods. The merchant replied he would have fifty cents per glass for what beer he had left or drink it himself…This settled it, night soon came on and when the camp was quiet one of the boys took a long rope and fixed it to the tongue of the wagon. They slowly pulled the wagon away and distributed the contents along the way…about $1,500 in goods in all were scattered across the camp. It did not take long for the goods to disappear.” [6]
If this estimate of $1,500 in lost inventory was accurate the economic setback for the Sutler would be potentially ruinous, over $27,000 in today’s dollars. [7] It certainly helps explain not only the financial risks involved but also why a Regimental Sutler might keep a loaded revolver handy, as Andrew Foulke did. This particular Sutler was dismissed when he threatened (at gun point) the Captain of the Regiment to return a barrel of butter crackers. Brandishing his own revolver, the Captain refused on the grounds that they were a gift from his men and he had no way of knowing the crackers were stolen.
There were additional risks of loss by outside agencies for fully loaded AoP Sutler wagons operating behind enemy lines. Union Sutlers were required to follow to the rear, behind all of the US Army supply wagons. Whenever a Sutler fell too far behind, or was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Confederate patrols would capture the wagon along with the Sutler’s entire inventory of goods and enjoy the spoils. This apparently happened with some frequency and it appears Sutler wagons were the intended target of Confederate raids. As a Partisan Ranger, John Singleton Mosby regularly went after freshly re-supplied Sutler wagon trains. Mosby and his men captured 118 Sutler wagons full of goods leaving from Washington, DC on the Warrenton turnpike during a single two week period. The waylaid Sutlers were also “encouraged at gunpoint to exchange their greenbacks for Confederate currency.” General Robert E. Lee commented that he “…wished Mosby would concentrate less on Sutler stores and more on military objectives.” [8]
NOTES
1. Francis Lord, Civil War Sutlers and Their Wares, T. Yoseloff Publishing, (New York) 1969, p. 8.
2. US Census reports for 1850, 1860 and 1870 and Washington, DC City Directory for 1865.
3. Ibid, Lord, p. 31.
4. Davd Delo, Peddlers and Post Traders: The Army Sutler on the Frontier (Kingfisher Books, Helena, MT) 1998, p. 109.
5. Ibid, Delo, p. 116
6. Washington Davis, Camp Fire Chats of the Civil War, PA Stone Publishing (Lansing, MI) 1889, p. 151.
7. $1,500 in 1863 = $27,778.78 in 2013. (www.davemanual.com/inflationcalculator).
8. John M. Crawford, Mosby and His Men (Carlton & Co, New York) 1867, p. 154. See also James A. Ramage, Gray Ghost: The Life of John Singleton Mosby (U of K Press, Lexington, KY) 1999, ch. 8 for more on Mosby’s preference for preying on the Union Regimental Sutlers.
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