camp follower

1. A civilian who follows a military unit from place to place, especially as a vendor of supplies or as a prostitute.
2. One who follows but does not belong to a main body or group.

noun

A woman who engages in sexual intercourse for payment: bawd, call girl, courtesan, harlot, prostitute, scarlet woman, streetwalker, strumpet, tart, whore. Slang hooker, moll. Idioms: lady of easy virtue, lady of pleasure, lady of the night. See sex/asexual.

1.  A civilian who follows or settles near a military camp, especially a prostitute who does so. For example, The recruits were told not to associate with camp followers. [Early 1800s]
2.  A person who sympathizes with a cause or group but does not join it. For example, She's only a camp follower so we can't count on her for a contribution.

A term used to identify those civilians that followed in the wake of an army or served its needs while encamped or on campaign. From the start of organized warfare to the end of the 19th century and in some cases beyond, camp followers were a vital part of any army's support structure, responsible for cooking, laundry, nursing, and sexual services without which armies could not function in the field. Until sutler services were militarized, even specifically military goods were supplied by camp followers. They accompanied the baggage trains and, during times such as the Thirty Years War when to remain in one place was to court despoliation and death, they outnumbered the army itself, multiplying rather than solving logistical problems.

Thus, although much support was provided by camp followers, their numbers could become a liability. The problem was often exacerbated by soldiers acquiring local ‘wives’. Some generals were offended by this, for example the austere Cromwell, who banned his soldiers from marrying, under pain of expulsion from the army. But until armies expanded the services they provided to encompass most of their soldiers' needs, camp followers were an integral part of warfare. The French even had field bordellos at Dien Bien Phu, but the prudish Anglo-American style was to ensure heightened attrition by venereal disease, despite the efforts of such as Montgomery to introduce some common sense.

Camp followers fulfilled a variety of roles in many armies, blurring the line between combatant and non-combatant. The Mexican soldaderas, for example, developed the inherited tradition of Spanish warrior women well into the 20th century. Aztec armies utilized novice soldiers as well as slaves to transport most of the army's belongings, weapons, clothing, and supplies using a primitive backpack. It has been estimated that these porters could move 15 miles (24 km) a day carrying 75 lb (34 kg). The Greeks also used young pre-warriors to carry the panoply of the hoplite and to take care of the needs of the older men generally. Zulu soldiers were followed by young herd boys, called Izindibi/udibi, carrying the army's impedimenta in the rear or on the flanks of the advance. During the Indochina and Vietnam wars, the secret of the North Vietnamese Army's astonishingly successful logistics was a dual-purpose army of male and female soldier-porters using specially adapted bicycles.

Camp followers shared the military fortunes of the armies they accompanied. At the battle of Lützen in 1632, Wallenstein used camp followers as decoys and their arrival on the field at Bannockburn was decisive. Even with the baggage train to the rear, the lives of camp followers were at risk. At Naseby in 1645, the royalist train was assaulted and many camp followers were massacred by New Model Army troopers, who mistook the followers of the king's Welsh infantry for ‘mercenary’ Irish. But this was contrary to accepted practice, as illustrated by the massacre of valuable French prisoners at Agincourt in retaliation for an attack on the English train.

In late medieval Europe the schultheiss or sutler appeared from the ranks of the landsknechts. Their job was not only to sell food and drinks to the troops, but to organize market stalls in the army encampments. By the Napoleonic period the sutler had become an almost semi-official part of the regiment. In the French army most battalions possessed prettily uniformed vivandières or cantinières, who accompanied a unit on campaign selling alcohol, food, and other choice items to supplement the men's everyday rations. Often married to a senior NCO of the regiment, they were usually adopted by the units as mascots and earned all the respect accorded them. Accompanying the unit into action they performed countless acts of kindness such as those of the 26th Léger at Austerlitz who handed out cups of brandy against payment the following day, in full knowledge that many of their customers would die before the debt could be repaid. As national identities evolved, so military attitudes towards camp followers came to illustrate the cultures of their societies, the Germans efficient and exploitative, the British and Americans hypocritical, the Italians and French permissive and humane.

As the 19th century progressed, armies began to establish properly constituted support services and the role of the camp follower became marginalized. In the 20th century most western armies have dispensed with camp followers, but military nurses and female entertainers in the field (see, for the use of the M-16 as an aphrodisiac by United Service Organization dancers, the film Apocalypse Now), and the profiteering merchants, innkeepers, and pimps clustered around permanent military establishments, remind us of a long and sometimes honoured tradition.

— John Buckley/Hugh Bicheno

Although this expression has been corrupted into a synonym for prostitutes who follow army camps, it historically referred to all civilians, male and female, associated with the military. Followers accompanied military units to pursue profit, find employment, or remain with loved ones. American military forces have always had such followers; their number, kind, activities, and administration, however, have changed over time.

Camp followers helped the Continental army during the Revolutionary War. Sutlers—those merchants authorized to peddle provisions in camp—sold such merchandise as soap, thread, and liquor. They served both morale and supply functions. Family followers also affected a soldier's welfare and his will to fight. Finally, an assortment of civilians served the army in key staff and logistics positions, releasing soldiers and officers for combat.

Followers continued to be important to the maintenance and morale of military forces in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Authorized merchants suttled goods at posts established across the continent; in the twentieth century, suttling became big business in the form of base exchanges. Spouses and children endured hardships to maintain their families, and in so doing provided a civilian—some might say civilized—context to military life.

Civilian employees also continued their labors in the military. During the Civil War, they clerked, drove teams, nursed, spied, and operated telegraphs; since then the services have experimented with the civilian‐military mix in attempts to find the most efficient, cost‐effective formula.

As camp followers could hinder as well as help the military, they had to be controlled. Although not subject to military law, these civilians did have to conform to regulations and were liable for punishment—generally revocation of privileges or banishment—if they did not. The legal basis for such control was established via a clause in the first American Articles of War and maintained in subsequent revisions, including, in a modified form, the Uniform Code of Military Justice that replaced the articles in 1950.

[See also Bases, Military: Life On; Families, Military; Justice, Military; Logistics; Women in the Military.]

Bibliography

• Edward M. Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898, 1986.
• Betty Sowers Alt and Bonnie Domrose Stone, Campfollowing: A History of the Military Wife, 1991

A civilian who works in or is attached to a military camp.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

A camp follower is a term used to identify civilians who follow in the wake of armies or service their needs whilst encamped, in order to sell goods or services that the military does not supply. These can include cooking, laundering, liquor, nursing, sexual services and sutlery.^[1] The term is also sometimes used to describe the families of military personnel who accompanied soldiers on campaign, or on posting from base to base; it may also be applied to someone who scavenges after a battle. From the beginning of organised warfare until the end of 19th century camp followers were a vital part of an army's system of support and before sutler services were militarised even military goods were often provided. Camp followers usually accompanied the baggage train and they often outnumbered the army itself, adding to its logistic problems.^[2]

In United States history, Molly Pitcher was considered a camp follower during the Revolutionary War, while there were also a number of camp followers on both the Union and Confederate sides of the American Civil War. The term "military brat" refers to the mobile children of career soldiers, who traditionally have been camp or base followers. This practice of base-following has continued up to the present and today at least 12 million Americans aged between 18 to 80 grew up moving from base to base all over the United States, and around the world.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

1. ^ Holmes et al 2001, p. 170.
2. ^ Holmes 2001, p. 171.

References

• Holmes, Richard; ed (2001). The Oxford Companion to Military History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198662092. 

External links

Look up camp follower in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• "Brats: Our Journey Home" (Award Winning Documentary about the mobile lives of Modern-Day Military Brats)

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