But at one end of that great, orderly, formidable camp were hordes of organized militia firing at targets. With the enemy on the coast, these men were still being broken in to shoot—not to become sharp-shooters, but to qualify merely as second-class marksmen that they might at least learn enough about the use of their rifles to be not entirely useless in battle. Ever since the militia of the coast States had come in, small-arms experts of the army had been clutching greedily at every bit of daylight, to teach 14,000 men how to shoot—14,000 men of an armed force that was offered by the States to be the country’s first line of defense.[14]
Into that camp had marched a month before, with flags flying, bands gallantly playing, weapons gleaming, one whole State’s militia organization of which only 700 men had fired regularly in practice during the whole preceding year. Only 525 of even that small number had qualified as shots, and more than a thousand were carried as utterly unqualified. Of that entire State force, only one man had passed through the regular army qualification course with the rifle, and only twelve had qualified at long range practice.[15]
“Brave?” said the hapless General of Brigade who had them under his hands. “Brave? If we gave ’em the order, they would charge an army with their bare hands, sir—and they might as well.”
He fluttered a sheet of paper in his hard, hairy fist. The sheet showed 25,353 organized militia enrolled as “trained men armed with the rifle.” Of these 15,927 men had qualified sufficiently to be fit for firing in battle. There were a thousand men in that command whose records showed that they had not fired their rifles a single time in a year: and the General had reason to believe that many of these never had used weapons except as instruments of parade.[16]
State Artillerymen That Have Never Qualified as Gunners.
A mile away, in the artillery encampment, a field artillery battery of regulars from Fort Sill swept their guns at top speed through passages so tight that it seemed impossible for the flying wheels to clear them. Sharply they wheeled and came to position, just as a militia battery arrived.
The militia guns were hauled by horses that their State had hastily hired or bought. The brutes had hauled trucks in a city; and in trying to wheel, one of them straddled the gun. In a moment the gun-team was around and over the guns in a confusion of chains and leather.
“Do you stable your mounts on top of your guns in the milish?” shouted a regular, gleefully. But he and his fellows helped good-naturedly enough.
“We never had horses till now,” growled one of the militiamen, who was stooping to tug at a trace-chain. It made his face fiery red. “State wouldn’t give us any, and we didn’t have stables, anyway, in our armory. So we couldn’t break in any mounts.”
“Nor you couldn’t break yourselves in, chum, I guess,” spoke another regular. “How the devil did you get gunnery practice? Haul your little gun out by hand to the firing ground?”