The Handicap of Unpreparedness
The efficient land was rising to the occasion with magnificent ability and temper. So far, those were justified who had said that America could meet a crisis with miraculous speed. But there were things that could not be met with speed—and these things were vital.
All the industrial efficiency on the land could not provide 35,000 trained and experienced officers: and that number was needed if the country was to put half a million volunteers into the field.
All the efficiency of men and engines could not correct, except by tedious, slow training, the defects in an army system that had made it impossible in peace times to concentrate 16,000 men and officers at the San Antonio border of Texas in less than three months after the order was issued.[166]
All the efficiency could not alter the fact that of the whole militia force of the United States, enrolled as “men armed with the rifle,” exclusive of the four divisions already with the army, there were only 24,000, or 38 per cent., who could shoot well enough to make them suitable for battle purposes.[167]
The capture of Massachusetts and Connecticut had cut off at one blow the source of 68 per cent. of all the ammunition and weapon works of the United States. The army, already short of cartridges, would have to remain short till all the complicated and minutely accurate machinery for making them could be built and established.[168]
There were only 425,000 rifles in reserve. The volunteers would have to drill without arms till factories could be put into operation.
What Had Been Lost