When The Affair Commenced, The Captains And
Lieutenants Were Chosen By The Men; But It Was Found That This Would
Not Do.
When the skeleton of a State militia only was required,
such an arrangement was popular and not essentially injurious; but
now that war had become a reality, and that volunteers were required
to obey discipline, some other mode of promotion was found
necessary.
As far as I could understand, the appointments were in
the hands of the State Governor, who however was expected, in the
selection of the superior officers, to be guided by the expressed
wishes of the regiment, when no objection existed to such a choice.
In the present instance the Governor's course was very thorny.
Certain unfinished regiments were in the act of being amalgamated -
two perfect regiments being made up from perhaps five imperfect
regiments, and so on. But though the privates had not been
forthcoming to the full number for each expected regiment, there had
been no such dearth of officers, and consequently the present
operation consisted in reducing their number.
* The army at this time consisted nominally of 660,000 men, of whom
only 20,000 were regulars.
Nothing can be much uglier than the State House at Harrisburg, but
it commands a magnificent view of one of the valleys into which the
Alleghany Mountains is broken. Harrisburg is immediately under the
range, probably at its finest point, and the railway running west
from the town to Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Chicago, passes right
over the chain.
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