Monday, April 14, 2008
The Army Alphabet
Upstairs in the boys’ room is a glass bookcase that has largely held the same books since about 1915, with a few additions and subtractions over the years. Most of these are what we could call “chapter books” in 21st century progressive child reading lingo, but there is also a stack of picture books for smaller children, several of which, published in the 40s, no doubt belonged to my father and his brother, and many of which belonged to the preceding generation.
A book that seems to have captured the imagination of my boys is from this last, older stack. It is The Army Alphabet, an ABC book from a different time. Written by L. Frank Baum, author of the myriad Oz books, the Army Alphabet was published in 1900 and depicts US troops as they might have looked in the Spanish American War, wearing blue uniforms, cowboy hats, swords, and on foot or horseback. It is a confident, patriotic book and profoundly politically incorrect by today’s “popular” standard.
The Army Alphabet is always the first choice of my 5 year old son, who can’t get enough of it, and when we are there I read it to him several times over the course of a weekend. On so many levels it is remarkable the degree to which The Army Alphabet reflects such a different America than we know today.
I believe the 108 years since its printing puts The Army Alphabet into the public domains, so here it is.
The Army Alphabet
By L. Frank Baum
Pictures by Harry Kennedy
1900 Geo. M. Hill Company
A represents the Army great,
The safeguard of our nation.
Whene’er our country goes to war
It fights with desperation;
And when we do not care to fight
It forces arbitration.
B represents the Bayonet,
Tis useful in a fight;
For when tis pointed at the foe
He takes to instant flight,
Or else is pricked quite full of holes
Which spoils his appetite.
C represents the tin Canteen,
A water bottle quaint.
It cheers the worn and weary, and
The wounded when they faint.
When soldiers have their canteens full
They seldom make complaint.
D represents the Drummer boys,
They’re young and frolicsome;
Drum majors drill the boys with skill
To beat and roll the drum,
And soldiers march in better time
Behind the drum’s “tum tum!”
E represents the Enemy,
He’s also called the foe.
In war he’s a necessity;
We could not fight, you know,
Unless an enemy stood near
In waiting for the blow.
F represents the starry Flag,
For which our soldiers fight.
When on the battle field it waves
It is a glorious sight,
And every one who sees it knows
Our cause is surely right.
G represents the General
Who issues the command
To march into the awful fray
And all repulse withstand,
Until the battle’s fairly won
And victory’s at hand.
H represents the Helmet worn
By brave artillerymen;
It shades their eyes so they can see
The foemen now and then,
And pop a shot, well aimed and hot,
To thin their ranks again.
I represents the Indian Scout
Employed to slyly creep
Upon the army of the foe,
And at its movements peep.
He’s full of cunning and of guile,
And harmless, when asleep.
J represents the Journalist,
He’s always in the van,
And wires his paper all the news
With truth, whene’re he can.
He’s very brave, and full of fun,
And quite a useful man.
K represents the big Knapsack
Each soldier has to bear.
It is his trunk, and cupboard too;
He packs it with great care.
For it contains his spare wardrobe,
And oft his bill of fare.
L stands for the Lieutenant,
Each company has two.
The Captain orders them around,
And bullies them, tis true;
But they in turn, can nag the men,
And so of course they do.
M represents the Medal won
By heroes brave and true;
Tis pinned upon the soldier’s breast
For all the world to view.
A mark of manly courage,
But worn by very few.
N represents the Red Cross Nurse,
Her name all soldiers bless;
Mid shot and shell she bravely walks
With skill their wounds to dress.
Gentle alike to friend or foe,
All love and tenderness.
O represents the Orderly,
Who dashes to and fro
And swiftly carries the command
To charge upon the foe.
He’s quite a useful fellow, but
Is scolded if he’s slow.
P represents the Prisoner,
A luckless man is he;
For he is seized and marched away
Into captivity,
And cannot fight again until
His captor sets him free.
Q stands for the Quartermaster
Tis he who deals our food
And medicines and clothing
And many things as good.
He’s very kind to soldiers,
When he is in the mood.
R represents the Rifle grim
Which all the soldiers shoot.
When they are marching on parade
The rifles voice is mute.
When war is rife, the rifle’s strife
Will make the cowards scoot.
S represents the glist’ning Sword
That every Captain wears.
Tis in its sheath in times of peace
In war aloft he bears
The gleaming blade, and sore afraid
Is every foe he scares.
T represents the Tent so white
In which the soldier sleeps,
While just outside throughout the night,
A watch the sentry keeps,
To see no prowling enemy
Upon the sleeper creeps.
U represents the Uniform
So handsome and so gay,
That ev’ry dashing soldier wears
In his own jaunty way.
No wonder ev’ry maiden’s eyes
Upon the soldier stray.
V represents the Volunteer,
In front you’ll always find him,
Defending well his country’s cause,
For every day reminds him
Of mother, home and oftentimes,
“The girl he left behind him.”
W is the Wagon train
That carries the supplies
Of food and ammunition
To where the army lies.
Sometimes tis captured by the foe
When taken by surprise.
X represents the Xalatin,
A trumpeter is he;
He wakes the soldier in the morn
With tuneful reveille,
Or calls to arms,
Or sounds the charge,
Or toots the jubilee.
Y represents the Yankee-yell
That stands for victory.
On ev’ry foe it works a spell
Which causes him to flee
Before the might of those who dwell
In this land of the free.
Z represents the fierce Zouvave,
No power can him withstand.
The way he rushes on the foe
Is wonderful and grand;
And, ev’ry time he fights, his life
He carries in his hand.
And now we hope all boys and girls,
And men and women too,
Will look with love and reverence
Upon our boys in blue,
For nation never army had
Of men more brave or true.
I invite readers to catalog the many things presented in this children’s book that would be wholly unacceptable in a children’s book today or even at a mainstream cocktail party. I think the list probably starts at letter A. While regular Tigerhawk readers will surely note that the Army Alphabet does not contemplate a counter-insurgency, it must have been nice to live at a time when it was ok to think that winning a war is desireable, and it was an opinion shared by all your fellow countrymen. Things are more complicated now.
Google, by the way, turns up the interesting fact that Baum also wrote a Navy Alphabet around the same time. We don’t happen to have this, but if someone does, I’d love to see the text.
12 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Apr 14, 11:17:00 AM:
I like that a lot. I found two things in particular interesting: 1, it calls the journalist useful; and 2, Yankee Yell? Is that some sort of descendant of the famed, fearsome rebel yell?
By 
GreenmanTim, at
Mon Apr 14, 12:22:00 PM:
Now you've gone and done it, CV, with a post worthy of inclusion in next weeks Cabinet of Curiosities blog carnival during a month where I've actually outsourced it to another host! If you start getting all sorts of unexplained links from the 6th CofC at Bioephemera next week, you have me to blame for it.
By Noumenon, at
Mon Apr 14, 12:28:00 PM:
I'm just going to state the standard line I was taught by my government approved textbooks, and see if you have any quibbles with it:
"In 1900, everybody was jingoistic and thought war led to glory. So they all signed up excitedly for World War I. Then everybody realized war was horrible and pointless, and switched to reading poems like 'Dulce et Decorum est' instead of 'The Army Alphabet.'"
This seems way too stereotypical to be true, since war became popular again pretty fast (but never as popular) and I'm not sure why it would be so popular in the first place.
By Charlottesvillain, at
Mon Apr 14, 12:29:00 PM:
Thanks Gman T! As I was working on this post I thought to myself that this was right up your alley.
By , at
Mon Apr 14, 12:43:00 PM:
Scrolling through the alphabet, I was certain "V", when I arrived there would be for "Victory!" given the tenor of the previous stuff. I'm embarrassed but happy to see I was wrong.
By , at
Mon Apr 14, 12:45:00 PM:
Noumenon -
I am reminded of that Tom Lehrer line about how we whipped the Germans in 1914 and haven't heard much from them since.
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Apr 14, 12:48:00 PM:
Those 19th century uniforms really were pretty gay.
By , at
Mon Apr 14, 02:49:00 PM:
For what it's worth , this volume is available at Amazon for $400.00 plus shipping. I found it because I was so impressed with it that I thought that I would buy it.
By Eric, at
Mon Apr 14, 08:45:00 PM:
alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot golf hotel india juliet kilo lima mike november oscar papa quebec romeo sierra tango uniform victory whiskey x-ray yankee zulu
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Apr 14, 10:33:00 PM:
This reminds me a little of our favorite litigator from Storm Lake, who taught his son to say "I want to be an airborne Ranger, I want to live a life of danger" when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up.
By , at
Tue Apr 15, 12:15:00 AM:
I guess that "I wanna be an Airborne Ranger, Live a life of sex and danger" was too much for the little guy?
But it would have been way funnier.
By Eric, at
Tue Apr 15, 10:30:00 PM:
Oops, V should be victor, not victory.
Hm, my cadences were cleaned up because I went to a co-ed Basic Training, and then trained and served in a co-ed branch (MI). I remember it as 'I want to be an Airborne Ranger, live the life of guts and danger'. Of course, most every SGT had his own slightly different version of the classics.
