Under Pressure
Of This Kind I Have Gone About From One Army To Another, Looking At
The Drilling Of Regiments, Of The Manoeuvres Of Cavalry, At The
Practice Of Artillery, And At The Inner Life Of The Camps.
I do not
feel that I am in any degree more fitted to take the command of a
campaign than I was before I began, or even more fitted to say who
can and who cannot do so.
But I have obtained on my own mind's eye
a tolerably clear impression of the outward appearance of the
Northern army; I have endeavored to learn something of the manner in
which it was brought together, and of its cost as it now stands; and
I have learned - as any man in the States may learn, without much
trouble or personal investigation - how terrible has been the
peculation of the contractors and officers by whom that army has
been supplied. Of these things, writing of the States at this
moment, I must say something. In what I shall say as to that matter
of peculation, I trust that I may be believed to have spoken without
personal ill feeling or individual malice.
While I was traveling in the States of New England and in the
Northwest, I came across various camps at which young regiments were
being drilled and new regiments were being formed. These lay in our
way as we made our journeys, and, therefore, we visited them; but
they were not objects of any very great interest. The men had not
acquired even any pretense of soldier-like bearing. The officers
for the most part had only just been selected, having hardly as yet
left their civil occupations, and anything like criticism was
disarmed by the very nature of the movement which had called the men
together. I then thought, as I still think, that the men themselves
were actuated by proper motives, and often by very high motives, in
joining the regiments. No doubt they looked to the pay offered. It
is not often that men are able to devote themselves to patriotism
without any reference to their personal circumstances. A man has
got before him the necessity of earning his bread, and very
frequently the necessity of earning the bread of others besides
himself. This comes before him not only as his first duty, but as
the very law of his existence. His wages are his life, and when he
proposes to himself to serve his country, that subject of payment
comes uppermost as it does when he proposes to serve any other
master. But the wages given, though very high in comparison with
those of any other army, have not been of a nature to draw together
from their distant homes, at so short a notice, so vast a cloud of
men, had no other influence been at work. As far as I can learn,
the average rate of wages in the country since the war began has
been about 65 cents a day over and beyond the workman's diet.
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