But Even Discipline Is Not Everything; And Discipline Will Come At Last Even To The American Soldiers, Distasteful As It May Be, When The Necessity For It Is Made Apparent.

But these volunteers have great military virtues.

They are intelligent, zealous in their cause, handy with arms, willing enough to work at all military duties, and personally brave. On the other hand, they are sickly, and there has been a considerable amount of drunkenness among them. No man who has looked to the subject can, I think, doubt that a native American has a lower physical development than an Irishman, a German, or an Englishman. They become old sooner, and die at an earlier age. As to that matter of drink, I do not think that much need be said against them. English soldiers get drunk when they have the means of doing so, and American soldiers would not get drunk if the means were taken away from them. A little drunkenness goes a long way in a camp, and ten drunkards will give a bad name to a company of a hundred. Let any man travel with twenty men of whom four are tipsy, and on leaving them he will tell you that every man of them was a drunkard.

I have said that these men are brave, and I have no doubt that they are so. How should it be otherwise with men of such a race? But it must be remembered that there are two kinds of courage, one of which is very common and the other very uncommon.

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