Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-40.djvu/135

Rh arrangement will serve as a suggestion. Let the 1st infantry be known as the 1st and 2d battalions of the 1st New England regiment, and be recruited in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut. A regiment of Maine militia would be the 3d battalion, and a 4th battalion might be supplied by the militia of the other States, though this would probably prove impracticable, and it would be better for each of the four States to furnish one regiment of militia as a battalion attached to this regiment. The 2d infantry would be the first two battalions of the 2d New England regiment, and would be recruited from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. A regiment of Massachusetts militia would be the 3d battalion, and a regiment of Rhode Island militia the 4th battalion. The 3d and 4th regiments would be known as the 1st and 2d battalions, respectively, of the 3d and 4th New York regiments, and the New York militia would furnish the four reserve battalions for these two regiments. In the same way the 5th and 6th infantry would be Pennsylvania regiments, the 7th would be furnished by New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, the 8th by Virginia and West Virginia, the 9th by the two Carolinas, the 10th by Georgia and Florida, the 11th infantry might be the Gulf regiment, and would be recruited in Alabama and Mississippi, the 12th, recruited in Louisiana and Arkansas, might be the Lower Mississippi regiment, the 13th would be the Texas regiment, the 14th and 15th would come from Kentucky and Tennessee, the 16th from Ohio, the 17th from Indiana, the 18th and 19th from Illinois, the 20th from Missouri, the 21st from Michigan, the 22d from Iowa, the 23d, or Upper Mississippi regiment, from Minnesota and Wisconsin, the 24th from Kansas and Nebraska, and the 25th from the Territories and the Pacific coast. This does not provide for two regiments of colored troops. White men and black men serve side by side on our men-of-war, and they may eventually serve in the same regiment, if not the same company, in our army. If the present arrangement is to be maintained, it can be done without preventing the territorialization of the army. If there were not two regiments of colored troops in the infantry and two in the cavalry, the graduates of West Point might not have such a marked preference for the artillery, in which there are no colored troops, as they now have.

Several good results would follow the territorialization of the army. The people would feel an interest in the army that they never have felt in the regular establishment. The army would feel itself to be a part of the nation, as it does not feel now. The militia would be improved in prestige and discipline: it would be more military and less of a lark. There would be a friendly rivalry between regiments from different sections of the country and commonly known by geographical names,