Cigarette Smoking in the Confederate Army

(you can feel less guilt now you dexterous rollers...)

From a letter of Captain John Hampden Chamberlayne to his sister, dated October 26th, 1864, published on page 286 of Ham Chamberlayne - Virginian, Dietz Printing Co. (1932).

"It is the fashion in 1st Corps  among my friends to smoke cigarettes. I don't yet but part my hair in the normal way, but I have taken a fancy to the cigarette & find I smoke less which is good."

In other words, Chamberlayne, a 3rd Corps battery commander on secondment to the 1st Corps, is saying to his sister that his new colleagues have induced him to take up the feminine habit of smoking cigarettes, but that he has not yet become so effeminate as to adopt a centre parting.

From an article by Allen Christian Redwood of Co. C, 55th Va published in Battles and Leaders, Vol. 2, page 535. The quote below relates to a time during the Second Bull Run campaign when Redwood found himself temporarily attached to a Louisiana battalion.

"The battalion did a good deal of counter-marching, and some skirmishing, but most of the time we were acting as a support to a section of Cutshaw's battery. The tedium of this last service my companions relieved by games of  "seven-up," with a greasy well-thumbed deck, and in smoking cigarettes, rolled with great dexterity between the deals."

From page 9 of The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T. Grisamore, CSA, published by the LSU at Baton Rouge in 1993. The quote relates to a time early in 1862, when Grisamore was quartermaster of the 18th Louisiana infantry.

"Our major... often was noticed in the afternoon to extend himself on the grassy lawn in the shade of the moss-covered oak.., smoking his cigarette, and amusing himself in the perusal of the illuminated and interesting pages of one of Hardee's best novels."

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