"The first infantry drill-master [in the Richmond Military College] said he had had experience of boys from the Duke of York's and the Royal Hibernian Schools, and that they made excellent soldiers, and required little or no additional drill, and that they were promoted to be non-commissioned officers in large proportion.
"Mr. S. B. Orchard, drill-master, has been sergeant in the 3d Light Dragoons. Whilst in the army, has had to drill, as recruits, boys who had been in the Duke of York's School, at Chelsea, and at the Royal Hibernian School, where they had been taught the drill. He found that they took the drill in one third the time that it was usually taken by other recruits who had been previously undrilled, and took it better,—that is to say, the horse as well as the foot-drill,—although these boys from the Duke of York's and the Hibernian Schools had had no previous horse-drill."
It is obvious that boys thus trained will not look upon an occasional period of militia service with the bashfulness of raw recruits, nor yet with the ennui of veteran soldiers. The revival of their boyish pursuits will create some fresh interest; they will take pride in exhibiting the training of their respective schools, and will be pleased at finding the public utility of this part of their preparation. Instead of being a Primary School for military duty, the musters and encampments will have the dignity of a High School. Young men will find themselves forming a part of larger battalions than ever before,—placed under abler officers,—engaged in more complex evolutions. They will also have an opportunity to practise camp and garrison duty, which they have before learned in theory alone. Three or four consecutive days of such instruction will be of substantial service to those already well grounded in the rudiments, though they avail almost nothing to the ignorant.
Further than this the present essay hardly aspires to go, in treating of our future militia. It is enough to have indicated its proper material. The proper employment of that material involves separate questions. These have lately been discussed, with abundant citations and statistics, in a valuable pamphlet, entitled, "The Militia of the United States; What it is; What it should be," attributed to Colonel Henry Lee, Jr., of Boston, whose position on the staff of the Governor of Massachusetts, during the whole war, has enabled him to understand the strength and the weakness of the existing systems. His pamphlet also includes the whole of Mr. Clarke's report, above mentioned, and I am indebted for valuable information to both.
As to the form which future militia laws should take, the following appear among the points of most prominent importance, and may be briefly stated.
1. There should be no exemption from personal service, except on the ground of age or physical infirmity. The necessary limitation of number should be obtained by varying the prescribed ages in the different States, according to the proportion of young men in the population.[H]
2. Whether the appointment of officers be elective or gubernatorial, they should equally undergo a strict examination.[I]
3. The strictest military law should be enforced during the musters or encampments.[J]
4. There should be a national Inspector-General of Militia, appointed by the War Department, with Assistant-Inspectors-General for the different States,—all to be Regular-Army officers, if possible, thus securing uniformity of drill and discipline.[K]
The recent transformation of our array is almost as startling as the changes which followed the Revolution and the War of 1812. After the Revolution, there were retained in service "twenty-five privates to guard the stores at Fort Pitt, and fifty-five to guard the stores at West Point and other magazines, with an appropriate number of officers." After the War of 1812, the army was cut down from thirty-five thousand to six thousand. It behooves us, who have just seen a far grander host melt away almost as rapidly, to turn our eyes forward to the next national peril, and be prepared. The coming session of Congress should give us, partly by edict, partly by recommendation, a system that will put the mass of our young men inside instead of outside the class of trained militia; exchanging our town-meetings-in-uniform for an effective force, and all our Blanks for prizes.