Apart from the rare tailor or shoemaker, the 37th was a regiment of farmers. As a result, the men shared the same ideals: they were volunteers, citizen soldiers, and every man had the right to speak his mind. Military protocol and chain of command meant little–Kincaid’s “children” often bypassed the colonel and flooded Baker’s office with grievances. Some of their complaints concerned Kincaid. One letter accused the colonel of interfering with company elections. In the spirit of democracy, however, the aging soldiers also complained about each other. Company F wrote a group letter to Baker detailing the flaws of their fellow soldiers. One, they wrote, was “nothing more nor less than a walking bottle of morphene unfit for anything but eating, at which he cannot be beat.”

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The soldiers of the 37th rendezvoused in October 1862 at Camp Strong, on a windswept island near Muscatine, Iowa, a few miles down the Mississippi from Davenport. They spent most of their time outdoors despite the weather, which grew more and more blustery as winter approached. It was an unkempt crew, and the island soon showed it. Private John Wagner wrote that the entire place was “covered in the greatest effusions of Snot that human eyes have ever beheld.”

While the troops underwent rudimentary training–which included both battalion drilling and corn husking–their proud colonel busied himself with what he considered more important matters. He arranged for more comfortable quarters for his officers and then dunned Kirkwood for the cost. Next, Kincaid appointed his 19-year-old son Charles quartermaster sergeant. Stanton refused to accept the boy, but Kincaid kept him anyway, at least long enough to land him a commission in a black regiment.

Finally, on December 15, the Greybeards mustered into Federal service. Given Kincaid’s ambition and his enlistment of youngsters, the colonel undoubtedly harbored visions of leading his rickety legion against the enemy. The troops even heard rumors that the 37th was bound for Washington, D.C., perhaps to face off against General Robert E. Lee himself. Such grandiose rumors proved untrue; Stanton and Kirkwood expected the men to do nothing more glamorous than guard duty.

In January 1863, the Greybeards left Camp Strong for St. Louis, Missouri, where they guarded arsenals, trains, and the Gratiot Street Prison. The bitter winter took its toll on the aging soldiers; desertions, discharges, and sicknesses mounted. By February, the effective strength of the regiment had plummeted from 900 to 700.

The Confederates imprisoned at Gratiot Street described the Greybeards as “old gentlemen–kind and fatherly.” Their colonel, however, enjoyed no such favor, and with good reason. Kincaid strode into the prison one day and announced to a group of Confederate officers that all Southern women, including their wives, “were prostitutes of the very lowest class.” Griffin Frost, one of the prisoners, wrote that Kincaid was a “disgrace to the military service” and that “nothing was too low, mean or insulting” for the colonel to say.

Kincaid did not confine his insults to prisoners. His “children,” who apparently failed to meet their “father’s” expectations, got more of his attention than they could bear. Desertion rates climbed, and a number of non-commissioned officers were demoted for drunkenness and disobedience. One lost his rank for singing while marching; others, disenchanted with their growing responsibilities, requested their own demotions.

Such chaos could not be tolerated, so Kincaid ruled harshly. According to one member of the 37th, Kincaid had a favorite remedy for malcontents. He would order the accused “to be placed…under a hydren and the water from same be let upon his face, eyes, and mouth until he was perfectly suffocated and apparently dead.” This unique brand of discipline was imposed on 13 men “for trivial offenses…[and] without trial.” Several members of one company later tried, unsuccessfully, to bring charges against Kincaid for such maltreatment.

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