Flogging

I've just started reading the first of Bernard Cromwell's series following the adventures of Richard Sharpe, a British soldier in the early 19th century. In this first novel, one of the characters is sentenced to receive the punishment of 2000 lashes, which seemed such an absurdly high number, I had to do some research.

I was blown away when I found this quote here:

"At the time of the American Revolution, the British Army's limit on lashes was flexible--up to as many as 500, 1,000, or even 2,000 lashes. The Massachusetts legislature, however, imposed the New Testament maximum of 39 strokes, and that standard was established in the Continental Congress's Articles of War of 1775"

Holy Shit!!! Imagine any movie where you have seen some poor soul get ten strokes with the cat. Now multiply that two hundred times. Even if the punishment was being received at the blistering speed of one stroke every five seconds, this would still translate to practically three solid hours of whipping.

The article cited above also talks of how George Washington had congress raise the maximum number of strokes to 100 and then pushed for 500.

That's all I've got...just awe for the amount of fleshripping that kept men in line as late as 1881 in the British military.

Same to same,

Hendry