Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 130.djvu/590

582 the national roll-call embraced over three millions of soldiers, "the men who felt a real vocation for military studies," says the comte, "were obliged, like Sherman, to turn their knowledge to account as professors in the special colleges founded in the South;" which portion of the States, as he has elsewhere pointed out, had more occasion to keep up the true martial spirit. But when the rude events of the spring of 1861 opened the eyes of the least far-seeing to the reality of the coming crisis, "the formation of an army charged to defend the Constitution was held to be a national business;" and so each person of energy went to work with the feeling that his duty was to act without waiting for any orders. The apparent want of any general rules of organization was but conformable, it is well observed, to the administrative system of a country which everywhere leaves so much to local and individual activity, and where the central authority has no army of functionaries vested with an almost sacred character. The levy once ordered, the Federal authority did nothing more for its share in raising it than taking over the regiments sent up by each State as its quota. The States themselves were almost equally deficient in administrative machinery, and confined their action chiefly to guiding individual effort. The comte adds that popular supervision kept their higher magistrates free from the favoritism which is the vice of functionaries frequently elected; but here we think that opinion in America will hardly confirm him, and certainly the recorded incompetency of its officers, of whom the army was purged afterwards with difficulty and trouble, as the comte himself shows in the sequel, was in the higher ranks often the direct result of patronage exercised by governors, as in the lower it was due to the elective system of the volunteers.

Thus left to itself, or but slightly aided by authority, the national movement to arms went rapidly on under the stimulus of individual spirit. The recruiting office that was opened in every village became the popular rendezvous. Some, moved by a spirit of adventure, some by genuine love of the Union, and many by the abolitionist sentiments which Longfellow's songs and Mrs. Stowe's tales had nursed, and which were already fairly aroused, entered their names in the volunteer lists as privates. But the more important classes could do more than this, and in doing it win for themselves a new position. So those who united means and popularity sufficient, undertook to raise their own company, or battalion, or even brigade. The governors, who could dispense colonels' commissions freely, used their power to promise one to any person who would undertake to put his regiment together effectively by any means within a certain limit of time; and with no more than a written provisional authority for this purpose many individuals actually accomplished the task within the short space allowed by simply appealing to the public round them. Any one so engaged in his turn promised the most active of his associates commissions or a canteen contract as a reward for bringing in a certain number of volunteers; and gigantic handbills, with illustrations to show the deeds of heroism the future corps was destined for, covered the walls, and in some cases streamed as banners across the streets. The first recruits, as soon as dressed in uniforms chosen for show more than use, were sent out into the highways and lanes to bring others in. The Zouave dress, though looking ridiculous in the comte's critical eyes on the bony American who strutted about in it, proved an immense attraction in those days, when the capture of the green hill of Solferino by Zouave skirmishers was still fresh in men's minds. But the invitations sent out by no means always appealed to purely warlike instincts; and one regiment of heavy artillery, specially distinguished two years later at Gettysburg, filled its ranks by advertising itself "to those who wish to enter the military service," as sure of the inestimable advantage of being kept constantly in garrison at Washington, and so spared the privations of camp life in the field. On the other hand, a fine example was set in Indiana, whose troops had been accused of panic-flight in the war with Mexico; for this State saw crowds coming in voluntarily to wipe away the stain, and enlisting in regiments which assumed the device, "Remember Buena Vista," that being the action of which the men of Indiana were resolved to redeem the memory. The individual action which in the first few days raised a force of seventy-five thousand men, and another large draft a month later, was carried sometimes beyond the limits of State control by those who were not on good terms with their governors. Thus General Sickles, of New York, who had offered the president to raise a brigade directly for the Union, did so by placing his recruiting depot on ground 