—indeed, by all who hold it no economy to be ill served, for any but purely defensive purposes, a humbug, which costs in campaigns more blood and gold—neglect of business is perhaps the chief item of the expenditure—than a standing army would. As a "Garde Nationale" it is quite efficient. When called out for distant service, as in the Mexican War, every pekin fault becomes apparent. Personally the men suffer severely from unaccustomed hardship and exposure; in dangerous climates they die like sheep; half are in hospital, and the other half must nurse them: Nature soon becomes stronger than martial law; under the fatigue of the march they will throw away their rations and military necessaries rather than take the trouble to carry them: improvident and wasteful, their convoys are timid and unmanageable. Mentally they are in many cases men ignoring the common restraints of society, profoundly impressed with insubordination, which displays equality, which has to learn all the wholesome duty of obedience, and which begins with as much respect for discipline as for the campaigns of Frederick the Great. If inclined to retire, they can stay at home and obtain double or treble the wages: not a few are driven to service by that enthusiasm which, as Sir Charles Napier well remarked, readily makes men run away. Their various defects make organization painfully slow. In camp they amuse themselves with drawing rations, target practice, asking silly questions, electing officers, holding meetings, issuing orders, disobeying orders, "'cussing and discussing:" the sentinels will sit down to a quiet euchre after planting their bayonets in the ground, and to all attempts at dislodging them the reply will be, "You go to ———, Cap.! I'm as good a man as you." In the field, like all raw levies, they are apt to be alarmed by any thing unaccustomed, as the sound of musketry from the rear, or a threatened flank attack: they can not reserve their fire; they aim wildly, to the peril of friend and foe, and they have been accused of unmilitary cruelties, such as scalping and flaying men, shooting and killing squaws and children. And they never fail, after the fashion of such men, to claim that they have done all the fighting.[1]
Such is, I believe, the United States militia at the beginning of a campaign. After a reasonable time, say a year, which kills off the weak and sickly, and rubs out the brawler and the mutineer; when men have learned to distinguish the difference between the often Dutch courage of a bowie-knife squabble and the moral fortitude that stands firm in presence of famine or a night attack, then they become regulars. The American—by which I understand a man whose father is born in the United States—is a first-rate soldier, distinguished by his superior intelligence from his compeers in other lands; but he rarely takes to soldiering. There are not more than five of these men per company, the rest being
- ↑ These remarks were penned in 1860; I see no reason to alter them in 1861.
