Former Commander Chronicles Ability of Famous Command
to Either Quaff From Cup That Cheers or Fight

By George Prince Arnold

It has been established that from the beginning of their picturesque organization, about 145 years ago, members of the Richmond Light Infantry Blues have drunk enough toasts to drown the whole Japanese fleet, about which so much concern is being aired these days, but, so far as the records show, the drinking was never done officially at Christmas.

In all of the 399 pages of Colonel John A. Cutchins' book, "A Famous Command: The Richmond Light Infantry Blues," Christmas and the Blues are mentioned only once. This was when, after the first six months of the war for Southern independence, during which the company had been in Western Virginia under Brigadier-General (former Virginia Governor) Henry A. Wise, the outfit was ordered back East.

"Thus," says Colonel Cutchins, "the members of the company had the good luck to spend this first Christmas after the war in their native city." And thus endeth Christmas, so far as the Blues as a military outfit is concerned in this immensely entertaining chronicle, one which parallels and reflects in an inevitably charming light many phases of the history of the city.

But after all, Christmas, here as elsewhere, is the great home festival and even military men are supposed to have homes. If the Blues, as an organization , went drinkless at Christmas time they did not fail to launch a thousand beakers at frequent intervals in between for nearly a century and a half.

And the way they could think up toasts would make crimson the face of any ordinary modern toastmaster! They had an elegance, graciousness and gallantry which apparently cannot be approached in these days of repeal and realism.

On one occasion they actually toasted "the press," which is practically a record since the press apparently is more often "roasted" than toasted.

It is true that the rhetoric of an earlier day was tinged with an exaggerated and flowery style which modern speakers are inclined to shun, but nevertheless it makes delightful reading for sentimentally inclined moderns--and what Richmonder can fail to be at least slightly touched by sentimentality when he reads of the sportiness or the courage of his papa and his great-great-grandpa?

When the Blues celebrated their anniversary on May 10, 1860, a year before the outbreak of the War Between the States they spoke like this: or, rather, they "drank" such toasts as this:

"Virginia: It is the duty of her sons to make her field fruitful, her waters teem with commerce, her men eminent, virtuous and wise. Her daughters are already flowers of loveliness."

"The State: When the ties of common kindred grow weak, it is the part of wisdom to bind them with the ties of commerce, of trade and interest."

Realizing that war could not hope to be averted, they nevertheless drank a toast like this:

"The Union: To a perverted vision, everything appears black; but the sunlight of affection, like the prism, separates the tints and shows that each has its beauty, and all combined are unsurpassed in richness and brilliancy."

It is still customary among the very elder generation of Virginians to speak of Virginia's daughters as "flowers of loveliness," but where is the man now who, on the abyss of war, can think of invoking the "sunlight of affection" as a means of avoiding such a dreadful catastrophe?

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Unfortunately Colonel Cutchins, who dedicates his book to his father, Sol Cutchins, the last captain of the original Blues Company and the first major of the battalion, which was organized in 1894, does not give the name of the man who offered the last toast.

It would be interesting to know who he was. He must have been one, although militarily inclined, who knew the futility of war as a means of settling any dispute.

Whoever he was, he was, of course, one of the comparatively "modern" members. Although the Blues for more than a hundred years have dated their origin from 1793, Colonel Cutchins presents convincing evidence that the original company was formed in 1789, exactly 10 years after the capital of Virginia was moved from Williamsburg to Richmond and eight years after Richmond was incorporated as a city, with about 5,000 inhabitants.

He quotes several letters in support of this, chief among which is one written in 1855 by William H. Richardson to Isaac L. Cary and which says, in part:

"The Richmond Light Infantry Blues was raised by my uncle, Captain William Richardson, and first commissioned the 10th of May, 1789. My father, his youngest brother, afterwards Major George Richardson, brigade inspector of General (Judge) Marshall's brigade, was the first lieutenant."

The General Marshall referred to was the Chief Justice of the United States.

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But really in the 1789 days the volunteer company, one of the oldest in the country--second only perhaps to the Ancient Artillery of Boston--was not the "Blues." the original outfit had a hard time because it started out with a red-coat uniform, and since the war against the British red-coats was still extremely fresh in everyone's memory the patriotic early Richmonders didn't think much of the company's taste.

Recruits were hard to get until, in 1793, the organization dropped its red costume and adopted a blue one. Then the town responded, realizing that an organized armed body might be very useful in time of disturbance, and also taking a great fancy to the blue and white regalia.

From then on the company was known as the "Blues," which is probably why the outfit celebrates 1793 as the anniversary of its origin; but it still sticks to the May 10th date mentioned in Mr. Richardson's letter.

There were a great many minor changes in the uniform during the course of years until the present one was accepted, which is said to be a replica of that of the famous Swiss Guards. This consists of white-striped blue coat and trousers, with a white waistcoat and a hat topped by white plumes. In such dress the Blues have been the admiration of throngs of people all along the Eastern Seaboard from Norfolk to Boston, and they have even "knocked the populace cold" in such hardbroiled" cities as Chicago and San Francisco.

But by no means have they always been on parade. They have been mixed up in every disturbance the country has known since they were really born, including the "General" Gabriel insurrection in 1800; the pusilannimous war of 1812; the Nat Turner rebellion in Southampton County; the various other alarms, the War Between the States; the Spanish-American War and the World War. They were always gallant in every circumstance, whether acting as a unit, which they never did in the World War, or as individuals.

But in between times of trouble the Blues of yesterday were perhaps the gayest outfit in Richmond. They took the most picturesque part in every great ceremonial. They were escorts for Lafayette in 1824; they helped welcome a dozen Presidents here in addition to innumerable Confederate generals; and, after the World War, they were the chief escort of the late Marshall Foch, the great French leader against the Germans.

Colonel Cutchins presents all this with unusual vividness, using a style that, characteristic of the Military, is free from rhetoric and therefore full of vigor and "realism."

He has carefully compiled an index of all the Blues he can find, a veritable godsend to Richmonders who are interested in ancestry; he has more than 30 illustrations, virtually all photographs, in his book which was published recently by the celebrated local publishing house of Garrett and Massie.

has quoted at length from the press of the city in connection with every major event in which the Blues participated here. The newspaper stories, including a brilliant one by William B. Southall of the Times-Dispatch on the reception given here to Marshal Foch, following the World War, add much to the realistic tyle of Colonel Cutchins.

It was due in part at least to the press accounts, which he quotes freely and handsomely admits are vivid portraiture, that the Blues are pictured as gay social dogs and gallant fighters. They were all of that--and still are--as this book reveals. But the book does more than this. It paints a picture of Richmond from its infancy as an incorporated city which could not possibly be complete without the story of the Blues and all the ceremonials they attended and all the toasts they drank.

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Shortly after the War for Southern Independence--thanks to Dr. Lyon G. Tyler for this name of that famous struggle--the Blues celebrated what they then thought was their seventy-third anniversary, at the old Exchange Hotel on the night of May 10, 1866. It was actually, according to Colonel Cutchins records, their seventy-seventh birthday. But no matter; they had a swell time.

They drank 20 toasts, 13 of which were "regular" and seven of the "volunteer" variety. All of them save one were greeted by "rounds of applause." The exception was that to General ("Stonewall") Jackson, which was:

"The only unconquered general--the Christian hero whom even his enemies revere." This was "drunk in silence."

It was at this time that the toast to the press, the Southern press, naturally, was drunk. This was kind and generous, and it was "responded to in a brief and appropriate speech by Captain Dawson of the Dispatch," but there was nothing ornate about it. The flights to the heights of lovely speech were served chiefly for the women. One of the 13 "regular" toasts was "The Women of the South."

"Their smiles," according to this outburst, "cheered us in days of trial. Their angel presence soothed the sick, the wounded and the dying. Their hands this day plant flowers on the graves of the fallen. May those flowers be as unfading as their love."

That is good and full of touching sentiment, though it is not quite as lively as the one by the "volunteer" toaster--name not given--who offered this one to "Woman":

"The joy and torment of Man's life, the mainspring of all his actions, the tyrant from whom there is no appeal, whose slightest caprice is law, whose subjects are slaves, yet whose thraldom we all desire to last forever."

If the author of this masterpiece was not more than 95 or 100 years old he should have made a great hit with the ladies. He deserved it, although of course the intelligent girls knew he was a big fabricator.

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All this is by no means intended to indicate that the Blues were not as ready to fight as to frolic. They responded readily to every call in the way of military duty, and such calls were numerous, including "insurrections" strikes, and of course all the wars, including the War for Southern Independence, the Spanish American War, and the World War during which, much to their regret, they were scattered among all sorts of outfits.

But they were, and are, a jolly crowd. In the long years of their history, so intimately related with that of the city itself, they have given parties and dances galore, they have helped dedicate practically every monument that has been placed in Richmond, they have paraded with every military celebrity who ever came to town, and they have likewise taken part in many military ceremonials elsewhere in this country and abroad. they have been reviewed by the captains and the kings and, as a military unit, they have never failed to put on a good show. They are invariably greeted with "rounds of applause" wherever they go. They are, in fact, as good and as picturesque as the best of them.

Colonel Cutchins has written a delightful chapter in the history of Richmond. He links the Blues, an organization which he headed for years, with virtually every major event in the life of the city, but, leaves it to the Richmond Dispatch of May 11, 1866, to say the really grand word about the outfit.

"The Blues is, perhaps," said this famous old newspaper, "One of the most extraordinary military organizations in America. It is a remarkable and noble company in all respects, and we doubt whether there is a community on this continent that can point to a similar organization in its midst with as much pleasure as to the people of Richmond to this. It has been the pride of more than two generations of Virginians who have been gathered to their fathers.

"Its celebrated punch bowl is linked with the most pleasing traditions of the State, and the career of the Blues themselves runs like a golden fibre through the fabric of Richmond's history. The celebrations of their anniversaries and the hospitality of their festive boards have always been a bright epoch amid the convialities of our city.

"In peace they embodied the manhood and gentility, and were an emblem of the gallantry of Virginia; in war they wrote their names in letters of light upon the pages of history, and gave a glorious illustration of Southern honor and chivalry by their constancy in camp and on the march, and their valor in battle. More than once in the 'imminent breach' have they, with self-sacrificing grandeur, changed the fortunes of a memorable day, and plucked glorious triumph from the nettle crown of danger."