h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The man who did more than most to make "horizontal refreshment" possible for Union troopers, against fervent religious and puritanical opposition, was General Hooker.

Like the equally abstemious Bernard Law Montgomery eighty years later, he was motivated by pragmatism.

Montgomery advocated freely available brothel facilities for British soldiers in WW2, knowing full well his men would seek it out anyway regardless of whether it was officially sanctioned or not. This echoed Hooker in the ACW: his reasoning extended to the fact that if it were legal in his military jurisdiction, it would be far easier to police and regulate all aspects of the trade, from fixing a fair price, to ensuring the men were not being robbed or putting themselves at risk, and (and this was well advanced social thinking for the 1860's) looking after the welfare of the women involved. (Hooker realised that as he was effectively the womens' employer, he had a duty of care towards them)

Most importantly, to provide free medical services and to ensure disease was kept out of the picture as far as possible.

Hooker suceeded so well in this that his "camp followers" became known as "Hooker's Ladies" - hence the eponym for "prostitute" that survives to this day.

As for Montgomery in 1943? The amazing statistic for the British Eighth Army in WW2 (Britain's biggest fighting army) is that at any one time, no less than 23% of its strength was medically unfit to fight owing to STD. The comparable figure for Hooker's command was 6-8% of his stength.

Monty realised that if he followed Hooker's example he could halve this figure or more.

But his biggest defeat of WW2 was against organised religion and narrow-minded politicians, who blocked all move for prostitution to be legalised in British garrison areas on the grounds that it was "immoral" and "unchristian".

(Note the priorities expressed here: "we don't mind sening British soldiers off to die, but by God they die virgins!"