"War Department, Adjutant-General's Office,
"Washington, November 20, 1861.
"General Orders
No. 101.
"The intention of the Government, in reserving the original vacancies of Second Lieutenants for the most deserving among the non-commissioned officers of the new regular regiments, was twofold: to secure the services of brave, intelligent, and energetic officers, by appointing only those who had fully proved themselves to be such, after a fair competition with all who chose to enter the lists against them, and to give to the young men of the country—those especially who were poor, unknown, and without any social or political influence—an equal opportunity with the most favored. In General Orders No. 16, of May 4, 1861, this intention was publicly announced. It is now reaffirmed, and commanding officers of the new regiments will see that it is carried out in good faith.
"By order,
"L. Thomas,
"Adjutant-General."
Immediately the newly enlisted men of the Regulars became inspired with ambitious hope and self-reliance; promotion from the ranks was the rule, and the recipients of that period have ever since proved equal to those commissioned from other sources.
It may be said that the proposed change of giving one-half the vacancies to the enlisted men would be a hardship to the graduates of the Academy when there are now barely sufficient vacancies in the Army to give them all commissions, but it can hardly be considered a hardship to a young man favored with an appointment there and graduated free of expense to himself and family, when if thrown upon the world he would be better qualified than almost any of his fellows to fight the battle of life, and in case of war would prove, like the ex-officers before referred to, most valuable to this country. If it should be a hardship, it would be no greater than would befall the hundreds of enlisted men who under this project would doubtless qualify themselves quite as well for commissions as the graduates, and for whom, likewise, there would be an insufficiency of vacancies.
No one will assail the excellence of the Military Academy, though the present course there seems too severe in the higher mathematics and directed mostly to the production of engineer officers rather than officers for the command of men; for the former there should be an extended course, as in the military schools of other nations, but while admitting the excellence of this course for a portion of the officers of the Army, from long and varied contact with the people of almost every State and Territory, I know that he misjudges them seriously who thinks there is no other method equally good by which at least a portion of them can be supplied. No profession can maintain a healthy status where its members are derived solely from one source.
It ought to be understood by the law-makers in dealing with the Army, as it is in relation to every other service, public or private, that the Nation is but a joint stock company of seventy million holders, each with a certain amount of stock; that they require but 2,000 Army Officers; that commissions, as far as practicable, should be open to all competitors; that the best qualified may win on original entrance, promotion thereafter to be on lines of merit which can not be the case under present methods.
John Stuart Mill says:
"The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something better than customary, which is called, according to circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or improvement. The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people; and the spirit of liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may ally itself locally and temporarily with the opponents of improvement; but the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centers of improvement as there are individuals. The progressive principle, however, in either shape, whether as the love of liberty or of improvement, is antagonistic to the sway of custom, involving at least emancipation from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes the chief interest of the history of mankind. The greater part of the world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of custom is complete."