Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 130.djvu/591

Rh  to a fort under Federal keeping, thus carrying it direct to Washington. Nor was it until some time after that Lincoln, forced by representations of the mischief this competition caused the volunteer movement, ordered that these independent corps should be officially enrolled as parts of the contingents of the States from which their members were actually drawn. Before this decision reached the Sickles brigade, it had actually lost half its original numbers by wounds or sickness from service in the field.

Whilst praising the spirit which made so little of the difficulty of the first levy, the Comte de Paris, speaking here from close observation, declares plainly that its mass was of inferior material. The well-to-do and steady citizens were not at first sensible of the duty of personal exposure in the ranks; and as a rule "these volunteers were collected from the disorderly classes of the towns and villages," whilst the short limit of their three months' engagement prevented from the first any hope of seriously disciplining them. In a word, "they were much like the militiamen of the War of Independence that gave Washington so much anxiety;" and carried their loose principles out soon afterwards so far as to leave their posts the very night their engagement was up, regardless that a battle might be expected within a few hours. Such contingents, however, formed the larger part of the force collected in June 1861, under MacDowell, and it need hardly therefore be wondered at that the war opened with disaster. The second and third levies, on a larger scale and for three years' duty instead of three months, reached a different social class altogether. Many, it is true, in enlisting were still actuated more by the spirit of adventure than that of patriotism; but the real imminence of the national peril now began to affect all hearts, and the new recruits were animated by a stern resolution that had been wanting in the first. "They were not good soldiers; they were hardly soldiers at all. But they really wished to become such, and that was the proper condition by which to attain the result." And this, although among them was a certain proportion of that large mass of the restless and unfortunate which America continually receives from Europe, and which is apt in quiet times to float as a scum over the great trans-atlantic cities. These, however, were held very much apart from the native Americans, and it was they who thronged particularly into the ranks of regiments like the "Fire Zouaves" of New York, where a showy uniform had for its complement a very small share of discipline. Making all deductions, there is no doubt that the comte is in the right when he asserts that on the whole the medley mass of volunteers of the first year of the war represented fairly enough the nation that produced it, and as a whole was thoroughly moved by a national spirit. In the ranks, indeed, were already numbers of men who quitted good positions in civil life, with others advanced in years or bound to their homes by strong family ties. And that such men took up arms voluntarily when there was not only no glut of the labor-market but a great temporary rise in all wages and profits, is proof sufficient of disinterested patriotism, or true martial ardor, or of both combined. As to the assertion often made by foreign critics that the Americans at this period of the war were hiring immigrants to do their fighting — a remark no doubt arising from mistaking the composition of certain special corps for that of the Federal army — the statistics since collected show that of the whole of the volunteers of the first year, one-tenth barely were non-naturalized, while six-tenths were American born, the rest being of course American citizens originally of European birth.

All the world is aware how the sharp defeat of its first levies at Bull Run changed the whole aspect of the war, on the Federal side especially. If on the one hand it raised the spirits of the South, seeming to assure it safety for its new capital, and a strategic position that menaced Washington itself, it acted far more against its cause in reality by calling forth the latent strength of its foe. The advocates of peace at any price had been struggling in Congress against the proposition the Lincoln Cabinet had resolved to put forward of a new levy of four hundred thousand long-service volunteers to replace the first draft of three months' men already about to be discharged. Their objections had been patiently listened to, and negatived already by the supporters of the administration. But the final discussion was fixed, by a strange chance, for the very day that the bitter news of the defeat arrived; and the solemnity and decision with which the bill was at once approved that augmented the levy to half a million of men, and raised the loan accompanying it from four to five hundred millions of dollars, showed that the representatives of the Union cause were thoroughly in earnest, and felt they had their people's full support. So 