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Oh, dear! This is quite distressing and somewhat embarassing! But I suppose that I ought to come clean with the whole issue, once and for all, for its has caused me no little anxiety from the very first. No doubt this will again make its way into the scandal sheets of the North, but wars have been fought and won in a number of ways other than upon the battlefield!
Some two years ago I recieved a confidential dispatch from a certain Confederate officer in high place, whom I cannot now name, but is noted for his proclivity in making obnoxious raids upon our Northern taverns. He advised me that I could easily reduce both the number and tone of his "raids" by regularly supplying him with Chicago Blue Light Ale, a particularly tasteful and rather virulent concoction brewed in very small amounts at the whim of the brewer. Whilst at first becoming very suspicious of such an offer, I was further induced to consideration of it by a letter coming from his wife, who had stumbled upon his hairbrain scheme when he had sent to her by drunken accident a copy of the message he had sent to me! Extremely desirous of effecting his eventual re-habilitation, but equally knowledgeable of the fact that only Chicago Blue Light Ale produced a very pleasing and amorous effect upon him for her, she appealed for my assistance, promising that his time on both the battlefield and in our forums would be more closely controlled!
The temptation to both reduce the outlandish visitations upon our forums and the prospect of depriving the Confederacy of the services of one of its most important officers for considerable lengths of time was too great to resist. Plans were immediately made by my staff in Washington as to how best procure the rather sporadic batches of the Chicago Blue Light Ale, and then how to confidentially and unobtrusively get them sent into the Confederacy.
A plan was finally devised wherein General Ernie Sands, Commander of the Union Western Theater, was charged with striking a contract with the brewer to buy up each and every batch of Blue Light as it was made and have it shipped east to Washington under dependable guard to be supplied by General Rusty Hodgkiss and Lt. Gen. Drex Ringbloom of the Army of the Shenandoah. This arrangement, however, was almost immediately met with dire warnings from the brewer that there would be serious repercussions from the commanders of the Union Armies of the Tennessee and Cumberland, who had already discovered the rather satisfying properties of the brew and had put claim on the first 100 bottles made from each batch! Faced with these unlooked for impediments, the two officers involved, Generals Peterjohn and Danner, were immediately summoned to my Headquarters and made to account for their highly irregular behaviors. Each was threatened with the forfeiture of their command unless they reduced their demands to 25 bottles each, which, of course, they were happy to accomodate given the reasons for my greater need.
The Washington staff then hit upon an almost foolproof way of getting the shipments properly delivered once they were in hand! A signal had to be arranged whereby the recipient would be notified that his Blue Light was ready for transfer. A remote area below Chaffin's Bluff on the James River, a place called Bottom Church (hex 57,283, HPSCP main map), was selected where the shipment would be landed each time from one of the Army's specially selected riverine gunboats, the Bonilla. The crew of this vessel was hand-picked by General Miller from members of the Army of the Potomac, a somewhat rowdy crowd who were told that they were involved in a secret plan to stock supplies for a coming second peninsula invasion. To make certain that the landing was not interfered with or shot upon, the highly placed Rebel officer whose disgraceful shenanigans precipitated all of this, guaranteed the boat's safety by stationing the brigade of Brigadier General L. O'Brien Branch in the area to prevent interference!
All that remained was to devise the actual signal by which all of this would be put in motion. By chance, it was noted that each Tuesday and Friday morning a group of very large women from the Bottom Church (so named evidently because of the strange requirement that its female parishioners must attain a 50-inch hip size before being baptized) would assemble along the river's bank to wash their sizeable wardrobes. It was a simple matter then for a Union operative to slip in during the early afternoon and add a extra pair of bloomers to those drying on the line. To distinguish the pair it was labeled as being of my personal property. Once discovered and taken from the line by a counterpart Rebel operative, word was then passed to Richmond, where arrangements would be made to receive the shipment as unobstrusively as possible that night and a crate of empty bottles from the previous shipment left in its place (a strict condition put upon the operation by the brewer who refused to pay the outrageous costs of new bottles), the bloomers tucked safely inside for the next deployment.
The entire enterprise was not so slyly code named, "Blue Light Bloomers," or Federal Project BLB.
As I stated, the project ran fairly well for these past two years, the obnoxious raids reduced to those infrequent times when the batches were not as forthcoming as they might have been, but with overall good results elsewhere. I am informed that the Bottom Church had received generous donations from an unnamed benefactor in Richmond to have all of the chuch's seats and pews both enlarged and strengthened with very durable oak wood.
This whole business has now come to an unfortunate end, as the newest Rebel operative, a Prussian immigant from Mississippi, pilfered three bottles of the stuff, drank each of them in quick succession and was found by Branch's troops crazily chasing the washer women with the bloomers tied around his neck. Unable to produce his bonafides he was arrested and sent back the CSA Western Theater, where this type of behavior appears to be very commonplace, for disposition. The rest, of course, is history. Lieutenant General Ludwig thought he had stumbled upon another piece of usable propaganda to shore up the Southern war effort, an unseemly tactic occasionally used by other notable CSA officers from time to time to make up for their horrendous losses upon the field.
Once discovered these types of things tend to have a immediate loud impact upon the morality crowds of both North and South, but quickly recede in importance as the more serious issues of the war retake center stage. So, I suspect, it will be with this. I am informed that the crew of the Bonilla, who were also pilfering bottles, have deserted their boat and have been incarcerated at Fortress Monroe. They will be released in due time, after the headlines have dissipated and there is a return to normalcy.
_________________ General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)
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