What would you have? The esprit de corps, which has more or less been kept alive in civilized armies since the days of the Tenth Legion, is, perforce, wanting here. All military organization is posterior to the War of Independence. It is certainly not their fault if even the regular battalions can inscribe on their colors no nobler name than that of some desultory Mexican or Border battle. If Australia should become an empire, she must carry the same blank ensigns without shame. But when a regiment has no traditionary honors to guard, it lacks a powerful deterrent from self-disgrace.
It is easy to deride martinets and pipe-clay: all the drill in Christendom will not make a good soldier out of a weakling or a coward; but, unless you can turn men into machines, so far as to make them act independently of individual thought or volition, you can never depend on a body of non-fatalists for advancing steadily, irrespective of what may be in their front; nor for keeping their ranks unbroken under a hail of fire, or on a sinking, ship. As skirmishers, the Federal soldiers act admirably; and in several instances have carried fortified positions with much dash and daring; it is in line of battle, on a stricken field, that they are—to say the least—uncertain. In spite of the highly-colored pictures of charges, &c., I do not believe that, from the very beginning of this war, any one battalion has actually crossed bayonets with another, though they may often have come within ten yards of collision. This fact (which I have taken some trouble to verify) is surely sufficiently significant.
The parallels of our own Parliamentary army, and of the French levies after the first Revolution, suggest themselves naturally here; but they will not quite hold good. The stern fanatics who followed Cromwell went to their work—whether of fighting or prayer—with all their heart, and soul, and strength, conning the manual not less studiously than the psalter, while their General would devote himself for days together to the minutest duties of a drill-sergeant. With all this, and with his "trust in Providence," it was long before the wary Oliver would bring his Ironsides fairly face to face,
With the bravos of Alsatia and the pages of Whitehall.
It is true that the Revolutionary army of '93 was utterly different from those, wherein the Maison du Roi took the right of the line. It was hastily raised, and loosely constructed, out of rude material perilous to handle. But—putting aside that military aptitude inherent in every Frenchman—in all ranks there was a leaven of veterans strong enough to keep the turbulent conscripts in order, though the aristocratic element of authority was wanting. Traditions of subordination and discipline survived in an army, not the less thoroughly French, because it was rabidly Republican. The recruits liked to feel themselves soldiers; they were willing to give up for awhile the pageantry of war, but not its decorum; and, in that implicit obedience to their officers, there mingled a sturdy plebeian pride; they would not allow that it was harder to follow the wave of Colonel Bonhommne's sabre, than that of Marshal de Montmorenci's baton; or that the word of command rang out more efficiently from the patrician's dainty lips, than from under the rough moustaches of the proletarian.
The regular army here does little to help the volunteer service, beyond giving subalterns as field-officers (a lieutenant would rarely be satisfied with a troop or a company); the rank is, of course, temporary, though sometimes substantiated by brevet. It is possible, that a few non-commissioned officers may be found, who have served in a similar or subordinate capacity in the regular army during the Mexican war; but such exceptions are too rare to affect the civism of the entire force.
True it is, that the Federal levies have to face enemies not a whit superior in discipline. Indeed, Harry Wynd's motto, "I fight for mine own hand," is especially favored in the South. But when one side is battling for independence, the other for subjugation, there must ever be an essential difference in the spirit animating their armies. The impetuosity of the Confederate onset is acknowledged even here: on several occasions it has been marked by a wild energy and recklessness of life, worthy to be compared with the Highland charge, which swept away dragoon and musketeer at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans.
I am not disposed to question the hardihood or endurance of the Yankee militant; nor even to deny that a sense of patriotism may have much to do with his dogged determination to persevere, now, even to the end: but as for enthusiasm—you must look for it in the romances of war that crowd the magazines, or in the letters of vividly imaginative correspondents, or—anywhere but among the Federal rank and file. Such a feeling is utterly foreign to the national character; nor have I seen a trace of it in any one of the many soldiers with whom I have spoken of the war. All the high-flown sentiment of the Times or Tribune will not prevent the Yankee private from looking at his duty in a hard, practical, business-like way; he is disposed to give his country its money's worth, and does so, as a rule, very fairly; but military ardor in the States is not exactly a consuming fire at this moment. The hundred-dollar bounty has failed for some time to fill up the gaps made by death or desertion: and the strong remedy of the Conscription Act will not be employed a day too soon. Perhaps those who augur favorably for Northern success expect that coerced levies will fight more fiercely and endure more cheerfully than the mustered-out volunteers. Qui vivra verra.
It is simple justice, to allow that the native soldiers have borne themselves, as a rule, better than the aliens. The Irish Brigade—reduced to a skeleton, now, by the casualties of two years—has performed good service under Meagher, who himself has done much to redeem the ridicule incurred in early days; but the Germans have not been distinguished either for discipline, or daring. The Eleventh Division, whose shameful rout at Chancellorville is still in every one's mouth, was almost exclusively a "Dutch" corps.
But other difficulties beset a Federal General, besides the intractability of his armed material, and the jealousies of immediate subordinates. The uncertainty of his position is in itself a snare. When the chief is first appointed, no panegyric seems adequate to his past merit, and the glories are limitless that he is certain to win. If he should inaugurate his command with the shadow of a success, the Government organs chant themselves hoarse in praise and prophecy. But the popular hero knows right well, that the ground is already mined under his feet; the first reverse will drag him down into a pit of obscurity, if not of odium, deep and dark as Abiram's grave. Of all taskmasters, a Democracy is the most pitilessly irrational; it were better for an unfaithful or unlucky servant to fall into Pharaoh's hands, than to lie at the mercy of a free and enlightened, people. Demagogues, and the crowds they sway, are just as impatient and impulsive now, as when the mob of the Agora cheered the bellowing of Cleon; neither is their wrath less clamorous because it has ceased to lap blood. A Federal chief must be very sanguine or very short sighted, who, beyond the glare and glitter of his new headquarters, does not mark the loom of Cynoscephalæ. Conceive the worry, of feeling yourself perpetually on your promotion—of knowing, that by delay you risk the imputation of cowardice or incapacity, while on the first decisive action must be periled the supremacy, that all men are so loth to surrender. The unhappy commander, if a literate, might often think of Porsena's front rank at the Bridge, when