ties and his personal rights. Cowardice, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, is only a want of brains to conceive and heart to feel. Cowardice is brainless and heartless. Manly courage is thoughtful and sympathetic. The personal independence of the American (and by American I mean Americanized foreigners as well as natives) fosters and develops in the heart and head these elements of courage.

Between an army composed largely of such men and the armies. of the Old World there is a radical and almost immeasurable difference; the comparative strength of such armies is not correctly stated in giving the numerical strength of each.

To these qualities of the American soldier, the legitimate production of American institutions, should be added that practical knowledge which is the natural result of American life, and to which must be ascribed much of the adaptability of American character. This practical knowledge in the common soldier was exemplified in almost every movement of our armies during the late war. Western travel and pioneer life had developed engineers in every school district, who, though unacquainted, perhaps, with conic sections as taught in our schools, and unable, it may be, to scientifically project curves and arches, yet could lay out wagon-roads, corduroy swamps, bridge streams, make and destroy railroads, improvise breastworks for defense, and conduct sapping and mining projects. Every neighborhood supplied skilled mechanics capable of repairing arms, shoeing horses, making wagons and ambulances, constructing and repairing locomotives, and all with improvised tools and the most meager conveniences. It is of course understood that I speak of the volunteer, of our citizen soldier in time of war, for such only, I take it, are representative American soldiers. We have no distinctive American army in time of peace, and need none. We have, it is true, an organization of a few thousand men to police the borders and keep our arms bright, and to serve as "dummies" for our young officers to practice upon in the study of the "school of the soldier;" but the rank and file of our peace organization are not representative American men, and, correctly speaking, are not made of distinctive American soldiers. In general they are natives who lack the pluck and energy to encounter the struggles of our busy life, and foreigners who fail in their efforts to Americanize and slide into the army as the surest means of securing clothing and rations.

The standing army upon which we must depend for the defense and maintenance of our institutions when threatened, will be found in time of peace standing at the plow, the bench, the loom, the anvil, the counter; but convertible at an hour's notice into an army of invincible soldiery.

Foreign powers, when estimating our military strength, no longer ask how many soldiers in our army? but how many men in America?

Voltaire once said of the English: "They are like their own beer, froth at the top, dregs at the bottom, but excellent in the middle." The froth on top represented the English aristocracy, brilliant, sparkling, ornamental, but of little practical use; the dregs in the bottom, the menial, servile and pauper class; the good beer in the center of the mug, the great class of middle-men, embracing the virtue, the business, the energy and the practical intelligence of England.

This representation is equally true of much of Continental Europe. In the armies of those countries the officers are generally selected from the froth, and the common soldiers from the dregs. Between the officers and the men there is no thread of sympathy either in or out of the army.

In this country the case is quite different. Our mug of beer has less froth on top and less dregs in the bottom, but what little froth we have is very frothy, and our small amount of dregs is very worthless.

About Washington and other safe places during the war, were seen a few officers selected from the sparkling bubbles that floated on top of our mug. They wore clean linen, brilliant buttons, massive epaulets and huge feathers. Their toilet-cases were filled with attractive perfumes, from which, however, was carefully excluded as peculiarly offensive, the fragrance of burnt powder. They found congenial employment on courts-martial, recruiting service, and extended leaves of absence.

A very few regiments of the dregs were brought into the field from the wharves and moral cess-pools of the larger cities; but they were valueless as moonshine for the purposes of American warfare. The great body of our soldiery, both officers and men, in fact all who were worth the "hard-tack" upon which they fed, came from the "genuine beer," the great class of middle-men, which in this country embraces all of worth and value. Our

officers and men occupied substantially the same plane before the war, and returned to the same after. In very many cases the officers were officers instead of privates more from accident than from any superior merit or qualifications. Our ranks were thickly dotted with Sheridans and Thomases and Shermans and Grants, carrying muskets, and awaiting only time and opportunity for the God of Battle to deck their shoulders with single, double or triple

stars.

In brief, the material of which we make soldiers differs radically from the material used in the Old World. We use men; they, slaves. We muster in governors; they, subjects. An American army is a kind of joint-stock company, in which every officer and man has a personal interest. A European army is a power in the hands of its commander, to be wielded in his own interest or in the interest of his master. In our late war our officers were successful or unsuccessful (other things being equal) in proportion as they recognized this difference in their organizations, drills and strategic movements.

Those who encouraged and nurtured the personal interest and personal pride of their men were almost infinitely stronger than those who sought to crush out this individuality in their efforts to reduce their commands to mere brainless and soulless machines.

The tendency to excessive discipline and drill was, in my humble judgment, a great mistake upon the part of many. I am aware that this assertion is heresy in the orthodox military ear, yet, were the limits of this occasion sufficient, I am confident I could adduce facts sufficient to warrant the assertion. Our previous experience in war had been so little that we were compelled to go abroad for military history and knowledge; but our military students imported too much. Their effort to force American soldiers into the military straight-jackets of Europe was a little too much for even American adaptability. It could only be done by a sacrifice of all in them that was American. The impassable gulf and non-intercourse between officers and men is an importation pernicious in all its tendencies, and is non-American in its inception and development. In countries where soldiers are to be used only for the personal aggrandizement of their commanders and rulers, servility is a necessity, and the drill and discipline and intercourse must all go to establish that servility. But not so where men have interests involved equal to those of their rulers

and commanders.

A servile soldiery is always treacherous, and readily changes its allegiance; but men fighting to maintain their own institutions and freedom adhere to their cause with fervor and tenacity.

I would not speak disparagingly of drill. Every art has its own language-its own terminology; and to this general rule the art of war is not an exception. To obtain the proper familiarity with this language, to understand the use of the tools pertaining to the art, and to acquire the requisite facility in acting the part of each, where so many must instantly co-operate in accomplishing a desired result, requires persistent drill and rigid discipline. I would, however, insist that there is a point beyond which, in an American army, drill and discipline are damaging and destructive to the best interests of the Government; and that point, in my opinion, is where the soldier begins to lose himself in the organization, where his individuality and manly independence begin to give way to servility-where he begins to be less of a man and more of a machine.

West Point may give a knowledge of military technology, may teach tactics and sum up historic strategy, may solve the problems of civil and military engineering, and teach the art of organizations; but, superadded to all this, must be a correct understanding and thorough appreciation of what is peculiarly American in the rank and file, or the technical education will contribute but little toward making the successful officer. Our most successful officers in the war of the rebellion were those who, after graduating at West Point, had returned to civil life, and, in the free intercourse of business transactions, had learned to respect the individualism peculiar to our citizens, and afterward to so organize, and drill and campaign as to secure the proper unity of action, yet save the self-respect and manhood of the common soldier.

The idea that the soldier must surrender his individuality, must lose his personal identity, blot out his heart and brains, and become a mere minor part of a machine in the hands of his commander before he is fit for active service, is a relic of olden times, an importation from other lands, and has no proper place in this country, and can not have until our institutions cease to be free, and our citizens cease to be American.

Our late war did very much toward Americanizing the military branch of our Government, and none needed it more. The war had

no parallel in history. The contestants were unlike any other that ever fought. The prize to be lost or won differed from any other ever placed in jeopardy; hence the tactics and strategy of the Old World were inadequate for the occasion.

General McClellan went to the end of the books, and no one had studied them more thoroughly or understandingly than he, but he found no chapter directing how to move Americans against Americans. He adhered too closely to precedents. He clung too tenaciously to European'usage. He made a magnificent organization, equipped it thoroughly, but I suspect he lacked faith in his men. He governed too much and drilled too long. His men had left their business and families to crush the rebellion and save the Government. This they desired to do quickly and return home. They had no heart for dress parades and gaudy reviews, and consequently were half whipped before they left Arlington Heights. How much of this is chargeable to McClellan, and how much to his immediate proximity to Washington, it is not easy to determine, but that the influence was softening to the nerve and chilling to the spirit of his men is, I think, very certain. I would not speak disparagingly of the services of General McClellan. I have no shadow of sympathy with the heartless suggestions that he was infected with disloyalty. His heart burned with the same patriotic fire that warmed the bosoms of those ultimately more successful. He was pushed earlier to the front, surrounded with dictatorial advisers of high rank, annoyed and harassed by a howling public press, and it is not astonishing that he did no better.

General Grant exhausted the strategy of olden times in his efforts to reach Vicksburg by way of Holly Springs and Grenada, Chickasaw Bluffs, the Yazoo Pass, Bayous Baxter and Tensa, but, when he resolved to strike out beyond the books, to make precedents rather than be chained by them, then he struck the key-note that sounded the death-knell of the rebellion. When he manned those frail, open-sided river steamboats with his trusted soldiers, to run a blockade that even gun-boats under trained seamen dared not attempt. he went beyond the books and made new history. When he packed his base of supplies in the soldiers' haversacks and cartridge-boxes, and started for the battle-fields of Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, Big Black, and the walls of Vicksburg, a chapter of stategy was written that only needed to be followed at Chattanooga, Atlanta, Sherman's glori