Soldiers Wives were subject to military discipline and one who misbehaved could be flogged: women were flogged in the peninsular saluting and suchlike offences. This wasn’t as shocking then as it seems now: flogging for women in British civilian jails was only abolished in 1817. If a woman was a nuisance to the Regiment she could also be formally drummed out of it: she was then no longer on the strength and lost all her rights as far as the Regiment was concerned she was a non-person.

next in the series “Not Camp Followers”

Reproduced with kind permission from the author Victoria Solt Dennis