Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/305



HE process by which men were made soldiers in our late war was one of the most remarkable things in that phenomenal conflict. Men who had no taste for military life, no desire for martial glory, and none save the most rudimentary military training were enlisted, uniformed, organized into regiments, officered often with those as ignorant of war as themselves, equipped, armed, and sent into the field within a few months, or even a few weeks, after being mustered into service. And these raw regiments were speedily molded into well-disciplined and effective battalions, fit to be members of a famous army.

All this is history more or less well known, but the way in which the result was accomplished is not so familiar, and perhaps the experience of one who was a member of one of these regiments may be worth telling.

I remember—I was but a boy then—how, at the time of the news from Sumter and the President's first call for troops, the pastor of the village church spoke on a Sunday morning to a breathless congregation and closed with the trumpet call, "Who will go to the war?"

Instantly in the gallery one man stood up. He was a veteran who had served in the regular army in Mexico. There were others, but I mention him because he was typical. Into the earliest formed regiments went the few like the soldier of Mexico who had seen actual warfare, also the pick of the members of the city militia organizations; and into these first regiments went the enthusiasm of the nation's first burst of patriotism. Then, too, the delays of the first year of the war gave opportunity for drill and discipline of the regulation sort, often under officers of West Point training. These oldest regiments were, therefore, the flower of the army, and in a peculiar way the model and foundation of it. But after Gettysburg—indeed, before that memorable battle—they had become terribly reduced in number and actually formed but a fraction of the mighty host.

The history of the later regiments was different. Enthusiasm, though it did not die, cooled. Something else took its place, something more truly characteristic of the great crisis. I do not know how to give it a name. It was a spirit that entered into the nation, a solemn and compelling impulse that seized upon men whether they would or no. Many attempted to resist, but successful resistance was blasting to peace of mind. The voice of this spirit asked insistently, "Why do you not go to the war?" And it was not easy for an able-bodied man to prove his right to stay at home. It was in obedience to this impulse that men went into regiments formed during the year of 1862. The day for illusions was, passing; the grim character of the