Armed group

“ We may be better prepared to resist invasion than we were in 1859, but are we so fully prepared, and are our forces so numerous, so armed, so fully equipped and so fully provided with guns, hospital comforts, carriage and commissariat, as would allow of our auxiliary forces being called upon suddenly to serve and, so serving, to hold their own and keep the field for a prolonged period? ”

“ If you despise the little troop which, in these numerous experiments, did make good its landing, take with you, if you please, this prècis of its exploits: eleven hundred men, commanded by a soldier raised from the ranks, put to rout a select army of 6,000 men, commanded by General Lake, seized their ordnance, ammunition, and stores, advanced 150 miles into a country containing an armed force of 150,000 men, and at last surrendered to the Viceroy, an experienced general, gravely and cautiously advancing at the head of all his chivalry and of an immense army to oppose him. ”

“ These troops could reach Paris in one day's march. There you have fifteen thousand men in trained and equipped corps, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, devoted to the Republic and the Convention; troops equal in number to your fifteen thousand insurgents. We can number the Jacobin population of the suburbs and the Sections, and the hordes of the federations, at thirty thousand—scamps, armed with pikes or guns, and provided with cannon as well! ”

“ Each division to be under the command of a quarter-master.
‘The privates of the company of artillery to be blacks. To have no other arms but swords, and to be accoutred for drawing the guns. The non-commissioned officers to be whites, and to be armed with muskets and bayonets. The whole to have infantry pay. Permission to be granted to take one private from each troop of dragoons for a drummer to receive pay as a private. ”

“ This force was to consist of four hundred men from each of seven divisions, mounted, armed, and equipped as infantry or riflemen, and formed into companies according to law, thus making a force of 2,800 men. ”

“ The law specifies that the total armed force shall include the regular army, volunteer army, officers' reserve corps, enlisted reserve corps, and the National Guard of the various States, subject to call for duty within the borders of the United States. ”

“ It is like a brain: it gathers useful information of all kinds, studying the latest weapons and methods of warfare, the plans and equipment of the enemy, the country in which fighting is to be done. It regulates the various branches of the army so that the artillery and the infantry shall not be working at cross purposes, but shall help each other. ”

“ In a word, it produces nearly the same results as a rising en masse of a population, causing trouble on the front, flanks, and rear of an army, and reducing a general to a state of entire uncertainty in his calculations.
Any system of organization, therefore, will be a good one which provides for great enlargement of the cavalry in time of war by the incorporation of militia; for they may, with the aid of a few good regular squadrons, be made excellent partisan soldiers. ”

“ As the war was a sectional one in its origin, many of our best officers believed that the volunteer regiments should be formed into brigades and divisions, without reference to the States from which they came. They held that an army organized in this way would more rapidly develop the national spirit and become a more efficient military machine than one formed on state or sectional lines, and the general practice to the end of the war, in the Union army, was in accordance with this idea. ”

“ When regiments are combined into brigades, brigades into divisions, and divisions into army corps, cavalry, artillery, and certain other auxiliary troops, such as engineers, signal corps, aeroplane corps, etc., are joined with them in such proportions as has been found necessary. Every unit, from the company up, has its own supply and ammunition wagons, field hospitals, etc. ”

“ But more than grouping battalions of the regular army together is the uniting in one common bond the other parts of our fighting strength. The addition of militia to the regiment, and of the volunteers to the same, both promotes a real and wider esprit de corps, and facilitates recruiting in every way. ”

“ When the men were all back in their places in line, the command to advance was given. As I looked down that long line of about three thousand armed men, advancing towards a larger force also armed, I thought what a fearful responsibility General Taylor must feel, commanding such a host and so far away from friends. The Mexicans immediately opened fire upon us, first with artillery and then with infantry. At first their shots did not reach us, and the advance was continued. As we got nearer, the cannon balls commenced going through the ranks. ”

“ Within the military organization itself, we may note the increasing assimilation of the volunteer forces to the regular army, now going to the extent of a movement for making them available abroad, so that, instead of defensive action for which they were created, they can be used for offensive action ”

“ Large numbers of untrained men, without organization to embody them in, add little to actual military strength.
Armies of First Line
The Army which will take the field at the outbreak of war is the Regular Army, which is organized, kept up, and trained, year by year, in peace. The War Army will be this Peace Army mobilized, or brought up to war strength and completed in every essential, by calling up reserve officers and men to fill its ranks. ”

“ In every part of the country there was one absorbing topic of conversation, while men were being hastily gathered into companies, officers were forming their regiments to march to the scene of conflict, women were hurriedly joining hospital brigades, and the government was rushing the purchase and manufacture of ammunition and weapons, and collecting an adequate supply of horses and army-wagons, camp equipments and provisions and uniforms for the soldiers. ”

“ I have seen the three divisions of my army corps set out; the men of active service first, young men of twenty marching with firm and rapid steps without a cry, without a gesture, like the youths of old calmly going to sacrifice. ”

“ In all the streets where the procession is to pass there are drawn up the volunteer battalions, the regiments of infantry, squadrons of cuirassiers, the civil foot-guard, the artillery, and cadets; everywhere bugles and drums are sounding and bands are playing; one sees in the distance, over the heads of the crowd, a continual passing of the hats of generals, the tossing plumes of adjutants, banners, and swords ”

“ Call our wretched force an Army! Why, to quote a writer, whose letters have been published in our leading journal, "Nobody could tell the Secretary of State for War how a force of forty thousand men, if it had to be supplemented for defensive purposes by Volunteers, could be supplied with ammunition for six weeks." Call our force an Army! ”

“ For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security. ”

“ The preparation for a complicated operation against the formidable defenses in front of us included the assembling of divisions and of corps of army artillery, transport, aircraft, tanks, ambulances, the location of hospitals, and the molding together of all of the elements of a great modern army with its own railheads, supplied directly by our own Service of Supply. The concentration for this operation, which was to be a surprise, involved the movement, mostly at night, of approximately 600,000 troops, and required for its success the most careful attention to every detail. ”

“ Rank by rank, company by company, regiment by regiment, the sun glinting on their field equipment, the sun burning the frames already wearied by the march from garrisons in Germany, the sun waiting to turn the slain bodies of those marching men to sights of which a soldier even fears to dream, years after the war is over. ”

“ How shall he arrange his corps? ought the troops to be massed in the centre, or shall he concentrate them on the wings? shall he feel of the enemy with a division or two, or rush upon [Pg 35] him like an avalanche? Can the enemy outflank him, or get upon his rear? What if the Rebels should pounce upon his ammunition and supply-trains? What is the position of the enemy? How large is his force? How many batteries has he? How much cavalry? What do the scouts report? Are the scouts to be believed? One says the enemy is retreating, another that he is advancing. ”

“ The soldier who knew only his division, his regiment, battalion, company, and platoon, as he lay in chill rain in fox-holes, without a blanket, under gas, [viii] shells, and machine-gun fire, or charged across the open or up slippery ascents for a few hundred yards more of gains, may learn, as accurately as my information warrants, in a freshened sense of comradeship, how and where other divisions fought. He may think that his division has not received a fair share of attention for its exploits. ”

“ There were also peacetime volunteers- quite distinct from those raised for a war- at hand in the militia. In the large seaboard cities there were independent or chartered companies of citizen soldiers apart from the common or standing militia. They were composed of men who liked military exercise well enough to buy their own uniforms, drill regularly, and hold together in peace as well as war. These units usually received charters from the states, and they very soon constituted an elite corps. ”

“ Standing armies (miles perpetuus) excite the States to outrival each other in the number of their armed men which has no limits. ”

“ As soon as the subsistence of the troops can be assured, and their positions are well established, I shall, by an organized movement, cause each brigade of regulars and volunteers to send detachments, with supports, to clear its front, including sub-bourgs, of the enemy's parties, so as to oblige them to confine themselves within the walls of the city. ”

“ That the objective of all offensive operations must be to envelop the enemy—i.e., hold him in front and attack him in flank.
2. That the fullest use must at all times be made of mechanical weapons—i.e., guns, machine-guns, trench-mortars, &c. The minimum use of infantry; to rely for success on the weight of infantry, either in attack or defence, was to ensure unnecessary casualties.
3. That troops must always be in depth; they must neither attack nor defend in one or two dense lines of men, but in a succession of well-extended lines. ”

“ In times of peace the Army consists of the regular army, but in case of an invasion or threatened invasion of the territory of the United States or of rebellion or threatened war against the constituted government of the nation, this force may be augmented by calling the organized militia into service and further augmented if necessary by the employment of volunteers or drafted men, with the authorization of the Congress. ”

“ In estimating our strength every enlisted man and every commissioned officer present is included, no matter how employed; in bands, sick in field hospitals, hospital attendants, company cooks and all. Operating in an enemy's country, and being supplied always from a distant base, large detachments had at all times to be sent from the front, not only to guard the base of supplies and the roads to it, but all the roads leading to our flanks and rear. ”

“ How much more likely will be the difference in a great battle covering a vast space of broken ground, when each division, brigade, regiment, and even company, naturally and honestly believes that it was the focus of the whole affair! ”

“ The standing army of the United States in time of peace did not exceed twenty-five thousand men, but the State militia afforded drafts of soldiers who were soon converted into good fighting material in the various camps of instruction. ”

“ Owing to the small peace strength of most of these regiments and the large number of recruits they must take in on the outbreak of war, their value will depend on the time they will require to be fit for the field at war strength. ”

“ In warfare in civilised and highly developed countries, when the enemy's object is rather to defeat the fighting force than to harry the convoy, and when troops can march on broad frontages, the protection given by bodies of cavalry with horse artillery, flung far to front and flanks, and supported, if necessary, by infantry, is usually adequate. ”

“ At going over the top, attacking enemy positions, resisting raids and assaults, holding under heavy shell fire, enduring gas of all kinds, at patrolling no-man’s land, at drill, on hard marches, in discipline and military courtesy, at conducting itself properly in camp or in French villages, and in general all around snappiness, it excelled in all. ”

“ By forming cadres without any strength, or with a very small strength, we are able, thanks to our large population, our numerous reserves and militia, to mobilize an immense number of troops of sorts—regulars, reservists, reserve units, and militia. ”

“ At the beginning we planned that a small body of volunteers should constitute our regular army; the balance, held as a reserve force or militia, remaining under control of the states. Militiamen and officers alike are generally untrained, the officers being popular fellows elected by their comrades and commissioned by the Government. ”

“ The general plan for an army of the United States at peace should be that of a skeleton organization with an excess of trained officers and thus capable of rapid enlargement by enlistments, to be supplemented in emergency by the national militia and a volunteer force. ”

“ And the manifold needs of a host undreamed of by the wildest, wickedest ‘militarists,’ demanded the existence of that other army chiefly congregated at the Base: doctors, nurses, chaplains, ambulance folk, owners of private cars, and those sorrowful birds of passage—relations of dying or dangerously wounded men. ”

“ We met officers in every branch of the service,—infantry, cavalry, artillery, flying corps, ordnance, army service, medical, engineers, construction, water transport, etc., and thereby obtained a splendid idea of what was going on, and how the various branches of the service worked together and viewed any given problem.
Some of these views were quite at variance with one another. For instance the artillery man looked upon the infantryman as the man who protected his guns and kept off the enemy while he killed them. ”