Northern Army

“ They could have bridged the Mississippi, rebuilt the Tredegar works, finished the Tower of Babel, drained the Chesapeake, constructed the Great Eastern, paved Broadway, replaced the Grand Trunk railroad, or tunnelled the Straits of Dover. I have often thought that the real greatness of the Northern army lay in its ingenuity and industry, not in its military qualifications. ”

“ Demoralized by hard service, insufficient food and clothing, with their pay in arrears, and consequently no money to send to their starving families, the Northern army could accomplish little except to gain in discipline and knowledge of military tactics. ”

“ The Northern army has been numerically so immense as to be unwieldy, so well provided with military material as to be embarrassed it its movements by its own affluence of means, so confident of success as to be disheartened by the least reverses and thoroughly demoralised by successive defeats, which were partly due to the ignorant interference of the civilian at the head of the Federal government—constitutionally the commander-in-chief—a man vacillating because new to command and unequal to his position ”

“ The superiority of our veterans over those of the rebel armies was evinced not only in the grand result of the war, but in all its details. Their superior endurance was acknowledged by their enemies on dozens of fields, and their superior discipline was generally confessed. Northern men are by nature no braver than Southern men, and the superiority of the Northern army was not the result of natural gifts, but of cultivation. The Northern people are the superiors of the Southern classes, first, in education, and, secondly, in habits and physique. ”

“ The disaster to the Northern army, its apparent testimony that the North lacked real fighting men, bolstered that British opinion which regarded military measures against the South as folly--an impression reinforced in the next few months by the long pause by the North before undertaking any further great effort in the field. ”

“ The German and Irish volunteer regiments were formed into special brigades in the Northern and Pacific armies, whereas the other militia and volunteer regiments were attached to the various divisions promiscuously. General MacArthur's corps was composed of three divisions, commanded by Fowler, Longworth and Wood, respectively, each consisting of thirty thousand men. To these must be added one German and one Irish brigade of three regiments each, about sixteen thousand men altogether, so that the Northern army numbered about one hundred and ten thousand men and one hundred and forty guns. ”

“ Later on, during the War, when the South was invaded by the Northern Army, we younger boys were often kept busy hiding valuable stock, horses and cattle on the place, and even the poultry, by driving it into some out-of-the-way woodland, in safe keeping from the repeated foraging raids of the Northern army. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI.
"On to Richmond," said the Northern papers. "Sweep the flag of rebellion to the Gulf!" And obedient to popular clamor, and in defiance of common sense, the Government ordered its little army—a handful of regulars and marines, three dozen regiments of State militia, or of half-drilled, unseasoned volunteers—to advance and attack an army of equal size, made up of enthusiastic Southerners as undrilled as the Northern volunteers, but the flower of their manhood, defending their own soil, in their chosen position. ”

“ It might not be out of place here to say that nearly all Northern-raised men among us within my knowledge pursued the same course. They invariably proved gallant soldiers and did their duty for the South to the limit of their ability, returning South after the war and spending the balance of their lives as our most honored citizens. We had twenty-six generals of Northern birth in the Confederate Army, twelve of whom were graduates of West Point, and were offered high rank in the Federal Army. ”

“ Men who were then serving in the Confederate army, know little, of course, of the temper of the Northern people, at that time, but many were impressed with the idea, then, strengthened by conversation with Northern men since, that, if ever the Northern people doubted of subjugating the South, it was at that period. ”

“ All the regular army east of the Rockies, seasoned veterans of Indian campaigns, were joined with the immense force of volunteers from the Northern States—fifty full regiments of volunteers, eight companies of regular infantry, four companies of marines, nine companies of regular cavalry and twelve batteries of artillery with forty-nine big guns. ”

“ The animosities inflamed by a four years' war, and its distressing incidents, cannot be easily overcome. But they extend beyond the limits of the army, to the people of the north. I have read in southern papers bitter complaints about the unfriendly spirit exhibited by the northern people—complaints not unfrequently flavored with an admixture of vigorous vituperation. But, as far as my experience goes, the "unfriendly spirit" exhibited in the north is all mildness and affection compared with the popular temper which in the south vents itself in a variety of ways and on all possible occasions. ”

“ Battle of Cold Harbour—Siege of Petersburg—The General intrusts a mission to his son Robert—Battle of the Crater—Grant crosses the James River—General Long’s pen-picture of Lee—Knitting socks for the soldiers—A Christmas dinner—Incidents of camp life
From the North Anna River the Federal Army moved by its left flank, seeking to find its adversary unprepared, but the Army of Northern Virginia steadily confronted it, ever ready to receive any attack. ”

“ The late introduction of conscription, the abominable substitution clause, and the prevalence of bounty-jumping combined to reduce both the quantity and quality of the recruits obtained by money or compulsion. The Northerners that did fight were generally fighting in the South, among a very hostile population, which, while it made the Southern lines of communication perfectly safe, threatened those of the North at every point and thus obliged the Northern armies to leave more and more men behind to guard the communications that each advance made longer still. ”

“ Federal volunteers walking away from their guns, guessing they’ll go home and see how the old woman and the farm get on, and then come back; the whole field of the struggle, and all the details, are so unlike any conception of warfare in Europe as to be worth, as I said at the beginning, a close and patient study.
There is no doubt, I suppose, in anybody’s mind that the Northern men will succeed, in their own way, and after certain delays. ”

“ Wild and shrill bursts over that Indian plain the rude notes of the Northern music. But louder yet, drowning them and the roll of the artillery, rings out that Highland war-cry that has so often presaged victory to British arms. The Ross-shire men are in and over the guns ere the gunners have time to drop their lint-stocks and ramming-rods; they fall with bayonets at the charge upon the supporting infantry, and the supporting infantry go down where they huddle together, lacking the opportunity to break and run away in time. ”

“ With the full command of the sea and all its advantages—with commerce free—with a wonderful unanimity in the object of the war—with immense exaltation of spirit, and unparalleled expenditure of money, the Northern Americans have not yet subdued the Southern States, though they have more than tested the quality of their inner armour. ”

“ In a very short time, the Army of Northern Virginia was face to face with the Army of the Potomac. ”

“ Wherever the hand of the Northman touches, in these times, it shows a superior touch, whether in improvising a six-action cotton-gin, in repairing locomotives, or in sarcastically seizing a 'Secesh' newspaper and reëditing it with a storm of fun and piquancy such as its doleful columns never witnessed of old. In this and in a thousand ways, the Northern soldier realizes that he is in a land of inferiors, and a very rich land at that. At this point, his speculations on manifest destiny may very appropriately begin. There is no harm in suffering this idea to take firm hold. ”

“ In the Western theatre of war we must remember first the enormous length of frontier in proportion to the population on either side. This necessarily made the progress of Northern invasion slow, and its proper direction hard to determine, for diversions could be created by a counter-invasion elsewhere along the frontier or a stroke at the invaders' communications. The principal feature of the whole region is the great waterways, on which the same advantages which gave the sea to the North gave it also an immense superiority in the river warfare of flotillas of gunboats. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the North should be obliged to abandon her project of forcing the carcase of the South back into the Union by the sword, she will suddenly find herself with a large army on her hands, with a ruined exchequer, and an immense fund of mortified ambition and angry passion to discount. ”

“ They all trace their ancestry back to some nobleman in some mysterious way, and think their blood better than that which courses in the veins of any Northern man, and honestly believe that one of them in war will be the equal of five men of the North. They think because Northern men will not fight duels, they must necessarily be cowards. In the first contest my judgment is that they will be successful. They are trained with the rifle and shotgun; have taken more pains in military drill than the people of the North, and will be in condition for war earlier than the Union forces. ”

“ Indeed so long as the Northern people furnish the means of paying and equipping armies perfectly competent to do their work, and equal in numbers to any demands made for men, they may rest satisfied with the accomplishment of that duty, and with contributing from their ranks the great majority of the superior and even of the subaltern officers; but with the South it is far different. ”

“ The regular military force of Northern Nigeria consists of the 1st and 2nd Battalions Northern Nigeria Regiment, a battery of 6 guns and a company of Mounted Infantry. The corps are entirely unknown by sight in England. They have taken no part in royal processions and a detachment has never figured at the Military Tournament. There are less than 1,000 whites in the whole of Northern Nigeria, and only comparatively few have seen the troops with which we have won the country. ”

“ The North had four times as many whites as the South; it used more blacks as soldiers; and the Page 80 complete grand total of all the men who joined its forces during the war reached two millions and three-quarters. But this gives a quite misleading idea of the real odds in favor of the North, especially the odds available in battle. A third of the Northern people belonged to the peace party and furnished no recruits at all till after conscription came in. ”

“ But we are in a position to set over in England, in the shortest time, six divisions of infantry, or five divisions of infantry and one cavalry division.
How a well regulated operation against England is to be conducted across the sea, obviously cannot be forecasted here. The passage in moderate weather is a little over thirty hours' ride from our North Sea harbors. The English coast affords extensive stretches of shore which are suitable for landing troops. The land contains such large resources that the invading army can procure a living therefrom. ”

“ It is interesting in this connection to record the fact that in our greatest previous war, the Civil War, 2,400,000 men served in the Northern Armies and in the Navy. In that struggle 10 men in each 100 inhabitants of the Northern States served as soldiers or sailors. ”

“ We revere and honor every Federal soldier who enlisted in the interest of his country from the Northern States, where they knew nothing about war except what they read, their families being left in comfortable circumstances, with plenty to eat and wear and friends to speak works of comfort to them, while their husbands and sons had gone to the front and were willing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of their country, if it became necessary. ”

“ The twenty thousand men now encamped at the mouth of the valley would need to be multiplied ten or twenty times before there would be the slightest chance of success. There might, in truth, be many more such army corps massed farther northward; but the task of pushing an invading force, adequate to the undertaking, through the narrow gorges of the valley, where for long stretches three horsemen could not ride abreast, with the necessary artillery, ammunition wagons and commissariat, would prove too much for the most consummate military organizer. ”

“ Pillars of white smoke rose on the lofty brow of the Sierra, the heavy sound of artillery came rolling over the valley, and the garrison of Fort Napoleon, crowding on the ramparts, were gazing at those portentous signs of war, when, quick and loud, a British shout broke on their ears, and the 50th Regiment with a wing of the 71st, came bounding over the low hills. ”

“ At times like these, with Germany fighting the whole of Europe, they can't afford to let a regiment remain idle."
"That's very true," nodded Ned thoughtfully. "Germany has won a victory over Russia, and that may relieve some of her forces in the east, at least temporarily, until Russia gathers enough of an army to make another assault. In that case they might send the cavalry regiment toward the western front in Prance or Belgium, where Germany is meeting the French, English and other troops."
"Do you think they will make Jimmie go along and fight the allies?" questioned Jack. ”