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. I
feel convinced that I am putting this somewhat too low, taking the
average of all the markets from which the labor has been withdrawn.
In large cities labor has been much higher than this, and a
considerable proportion of the army has been taken from large
cities. But, taking 65 cents a day as the average, labor has been
worth about 17 dollars a month over and above the laborer's diet.
In the army the soldier receives 13 dollars a month, and also
receives his diet and clothes; in addition to this, in many States,
6 dollars a month have been paid by the State to the wives and
families of those soldiers who have left wives and families in the
States behind them. Thus for the married men the wages given by the
army have been 2 dollars a month, or less than 5l. a year, more than
his earnings at home, and for the unmarried man they have been 4
dollars a month, or less than 10l. a year, below his earnings at
home. But the army also gives clothing to the extent of 3 dollars a
month. This would place the unmarried soldier, in a pecuniary point
of view, worse off by one dollar a month, or 2l. l0s. a year, than
he would have been at home; and would give the married man 5 dollars
a month, or 12l. a year, more than his ordinary wages, for absenting
himself from his family. I cannot think, therefore, that the
pecuniary attractions have been very great.
Our soldiers in England enlist at wages which are about one-half
that paid in the ordinary labor market to the class from whence they
come. But labor in England is uncertain, whereas in the States it
is certain. In England the soldier with his shilling gets better
food than the laborer with his two shillings; and the Englishman has
no objection to the rigidity of that discipline which is so
distasteful to an American. Moreover, who in England ever dreamed
of raising 600,000 new troops in six months, out of a population of
thirty million? But this has been done in the Northern States out
of a population of eighteen million. If England were invaded,
Englishmen would come forward in the same way, actuated, as I
believe, by the same high motives. My object here is simply to show
that the American soldiers have not been drawn together by the
prospect of high wages, as has been often said since the war began.
They who inquire closely into the matter will find that hundreds and
thousands have joined the army as privates, who in doing so have
abandoned all their best worldly prospects, and have consented to
begin the game of life again, believing that their duty to their
country has now required their services. The fact has been that in
the different States a spirit of rivalry has been excited. Indiana
has endeavored to show that she was as forward as Illinois;
Pennsylvania has been unwilling to lag behind New York;
Massachusetts, who has always struggled to be foremost in peace, has
desired to boast that she was first in war also; the smaller States
have resolved to make their names heard, and those which at first
were backward in sending troops have been shamed into greater
earnestness by the public voice. There has been a general feeling
throughout the people that the thing should be done - that the
rebellion must be put down, and that it must be put down by arms.
Young men have been ashamed to remain behind; and their elders,
acting under that glow of patriotism which so often warms the hearts
of free men, but which, perhaps, does not often remain there long in
all its heat, have left their wives and have gone also. It may be
true that the voice of the majority has been coercive on many - that
men have enlisted partly because the public voice required it of
them, and not entirely through the promptings of individual spirit.
Such public voice in America is very potent; but it is not, I think,
true that the army has been gathered together by the hope of high
wages.
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