Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/284

 movement, was, in the spring and early summer of 1861, either awed into silence, or its utterances were at least so feeble as to be hardly audible in the roar of the patriotic storm. It was a genuine uprising of a people with all its noble inspirations. For once there was a true spirit of equality and fraternity in this great popular impulse to rescue the Republic. Social distinctions were forgotten. The rich merchant's son found it quite natural to shoulder his musket by the side of his porter, or to be drilled by his clerk who happened to have learned the manual of arms as a member of a militia company. Nor was the foreign-born citizen less zealous than the native. The Irish, although they had almost all been Democrats, were conspicuous in their warlike spirit, and it has been calculated that the Germans furnished, from first to last, a larger contingent of men in proportion to their numbers, than any other nationality.

There are interesting stories told of the tricks resorted to by some patriotic youths to smuggle themselves into the ranks as private soldiers under the first limited calls for troops. Then very many well-known instances in which the privilege of being accepted as a private soldier was not only sought with irrepressible zeal, as if it had been a most valuable office, but in which it was obtained by very questionable means, such as buying off with heavy bribes and then fraudulently personating more fortunate applicants who had actually been enrolled. Such cases came to my personal knowledge—among others, that of a well-educated youth who was rejected by the enlisting officers because he labored under some serious physical disability. He thereupon effected his enrollment by something very much like bribery and false swearing; then by acts of extraordinary bravery he won promotion to the rank of captain; although lame on one side, he was one of the most efficient