Citizen army

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They describe “this horde of battalion companies—unofficered, clad in all kinds of different uniform, diversely equipped, perfectly ignorant of the principles of military obedience and concerted action,”—for so I hear it described by United States officers themselves—as being “the greatest army the world ever saw; perfect in officers and discipline; unsurpassed in devotion and courage; furnished with every requisite; and destined on its first march to sweep into Richmond, and to obliterate from the Potomac to New Orleans every trace of rebellion.” ”

“ It was easy for any one instructed in military matters to see that if the Federal authorities would only be content to defer active operations until the patriotic levies of the North should have learned 'the trade of the soldier,'—should have acquired familiarity with the use of arms, habits of obedience, trust in their officers and superiors, discipline,—the Federal general would enter on the next campaign with all those chances of success which attend largely superior numbers, better arms and equipment, and a sound and thorough organization of his army. ”

“ Above all, the grand and only reliable security in the last resort against the despotism of the government is in that case wanting—the sympathy of the army with the people. The military are the part of every community in whom, from the nature of the case, the distinction between their fellow-countrymen and foreigners is the deepest and strongest. To the rest of the people foreigners are merely strangers; to the soldier, they are men against whom he may be called, at a week's notice, to fight for life or death. ”

“ No one who has followed with attention the efforts of the National Service League has any right to imagine that we desire a strong army solely in order to invade the territory of European or more distant States; or that we wish to root out the Territorial Force in order to establish in its place an army system modelled on the army system of Germany; or, again, that we have the ambition of resuscitating once more medieval blood-lust, anarchic plunder, and delight in war! ”

“ Companies may be expanded to double their strength in time of war, at the discretion of the President.
2. That the permanent Line of the Militia of the United States (in the several States) shall consist of one regiment for each district represented in the lower House of Congress, and one regiment for each Senator in the upper House, a company of the Regular Army, when requested of the President by the Governor of the State, to be one of the companies of the Militia regiment, the captain its lieutenant colonel, the second lieutenant its adjutant, and the first sergeant its sergeant major ”

“ Never before in time of peace has our country maintained so large and effective a military force as it now has. The Army, Navy, Marine Corps, National Guard, and Organized Reserves represent a strength of about 558,400 men. ”

“ But is not a corps of one hundred thousand dependents upon government, actuated by one spirit, obeying one will, and aiming at one end, more dangerous and formidable than a standing army? The standing army is separated from the mass of society, stationed in barracks or military quarters, and operates by physical force. The official corps is distributed and ramified throughout the whole country, dwelling in every city, village, and hamlet, having daily intercourse with society, and operates on public opinion. ”

“ Today, the men and women of America's Army—Active, National Guard, and Reserve—continue to advance our Nation's interests around the world. Across the globe, in the face of aggression, tyranny, and despair, our soldiers have responded as allies, liberators, and humanitarians. All Americans rightly take pride in this truly American institution and its enduring strength and vitality. ”

“ The Commanding General desires to detail for temporary or permanent duty the best officers of the army, for the organization, instruction and discipline of this corps. With their aid, he is confident that the corps will render important service to the Government. It is not established upon any dogma of equality or other theory, but as a practical and sensible matter of business. The Government makes use of mules, horses, uneducated and educated white men, in the defense of its institutions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To-day, generals commanding armies rather search for honour in the field of duty—duty accomplished, orders obeyed. These simple formulæ have always been the watchwords of the soldier-unit, whether that unit be a man, a platoon, a company or a regiment. Now, with the limitless increase in the size of armaments, a unit may well be an Army Corps, or even a combination of Army Corps, and the highest aim of the general officer commanding such a unit must be—as of old—fulfilment of duty, obedience to orders. ”

“ The report of the Secretary of War will bring you acquainted with the condition of that important branch of the public service. The Army may be regarded, in consequence of the small number of the rank and file in each company and regiment, as little more than a nucleus around which to rally the military force of the country in case of war, and yet its services in preserving the peace of the frontiers are of a most important nature. ”

“ The custom in this country is to put habitual drunkards, criminals, or loafers into the army for a term of years. So that nearly all the infantry regiments are composed of at least one-third of this class, the balance being volunteers. Within the last few months the Congress passed a new law regarding the army, to the effect that the soldiers should be drawn by lot, one man out of every hundred of the inhabitants. ”

“ Now the native regiments which are organized are scattered about the country and placed on outpost duty, or colonial service elsewhere, but only as infantry; they will not again be intrusted with artillery. They are looked upon as performing the police duty of the army rather than as constituting a regular portion of its active force. ”

“ If they agree with me that neither they themselves, nor the men they command, are sufficiently trained to take the field against first-class soldiers; if they agree with me that neither in discipline nor in numbers, neither in equipment nor in vital energy, can the Territorial Force be reckoned as a modern army; if they agree with me that no great improvement either in efficiency or numbers can ever be reached under the conditions necessarily imposed upon all citizens who enter a voluntary force ”

“ It is curious to see, therefore, how the first voluntary national army, long embodied, produced an antagonism, among the mass of the people, to standing armies altogether, a feeling which lasts even until now in theory, if not in fact. ”

“ On the other hand, the National Guard would soon learn to appreciate the excellence of Regular Army methods—which in the main are valuable—so that should another occasion occur for the nation again to organize a vast Army, Regulars and Volunteers would soon harmoniously unite. ”

“ An old European officer, one who has followed the profession of arms from his very boyhood, said to me to-day: 'In one essential respect, sir, I believe that in a short time these colored soldiers will surpass any we have in our army—I mean in subordination—without which no army can be effective. We are in the habit of carrying our citizenship with us into the field, and that begets an amount of undue familiarity between officers and men that is often destructive of obedience. ”

“ It is composed of the army and the navy, of the troops especially intended for internal service, and subsidiary of the active citizens and their children, in condition to bear arms, registered upon the roll of the national guard.
3. The national guards form neither a military body nor an institution within the state; they are the citizens themselves summoned to service in the public force.
4. The citizens shall never take the form nor act as national guards, except in virtue of a requisition or of a legal authorisation. ”

“ The army must be the rallying point; the army must furnish example, must furnish instruction, must give us the principles on which that national system [Pg 267] of defence must be formed; and by which the voluntary forces of this country, though in a military view inferior to a regular army, would, fighting on their own soil, for everything dear to individuals and important to a State, be invincible.'
These quotations will, I think, give a general idea of the views which were uppermost in the mind of the Minister for War when he gave vitality to the principle of localisation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What a noble mission, then, an army may follow in time of peace! To show that men with skill and power, and with a consciousness of these qualities, can yet subordinate themselves for the good of the commonwealth, instead of the individual, is surely a grand object for an army’s purpose. ”

“ Whilst the necessities existing during the present year for the service of militia and volunteers have furnished new proofs of the patriotism of our fellow citizens, they have also strongly illustrated the importance of an increase in the rank and file of the Regular Army. ”

“ We, reposing especial trust and confidence in your patriotism, conduct, and fidelity, do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be general and commander-in-chief of the army of the United Colonies, and of all the forces raised or to be raised by them, and of all others who shall voluntarily offer their service, and join the said army for the defence of the American liberty, and for repelling every hostile invasion thereof ”

“ Desertions, recruiting stations, guard-houses and courts martial will virtually disappear. The very best and most intelligent single men in the country will qualify and each captain will have a long waiting list of men who will need little training or discipline. We shall have a democratic army from which intelligent and efficient officers can be raised. ”

“ With an army in the field, certain persons, not soldiers, are also subject to the provisions of "Military Law," such as civilians serving with the force in an official capacity; persons accompanying the troops with special leave, such as newspaper correspondents and contractors; persons employed with the troops, such as transport drivers; other persons known as followers who accompany the troops either as sutlers or on business or pleasure with the permission of the commander. ”

“ That democratic spirit has therefore always demanded that the armed force should be composed principally of the militia, the citizen soldiery, or, in extraordinary emergencies, of volunteers called out from the ranks of the people, to serve as soldiers for certain well-defined and stated purposes, and then, those stated purposes being accomplished, to return to their civic pursuits. ”

“ The second army, to be officered as our present militia, and to be embodied upon the same system, and managed and disciplined as the first, and styled either Militia, or the Army of Reserve, could be called out to serve in Great Britain or Ireland only, when the country, either from being at war, or in case of commotions, might require its services ”

“ To the soldiers, your officers who remain at the head of the army are bound by their oath and their honour to the Revolution. The safety of the state depends on the discipline of the army. I confide my post to the minister of foreign affairs, and such is my confidence, such should be the confidence of the nation in his patriotism, that I take on myself the responsibility of all the orders that he may give in my name. ”

“ It could not but have been most useful to our officers to have been enabled to take fair measure of the system and capability of an American army, North or South; to have formed an estimate of their generals and of the value of their [129] several arms—cavalry, artillery, and infantry, each of which presented conspicuous examples of what to avoid, more especially the first, whilst the second had peculiar features worthy of study, and the third was a very wonderful illustration of the volunteer principle. ”

“ The system we chose to copy approached our own, in that the Sovereign was the direct and immediate Chief of the army, and from a purely military standpoint it is easy to 324perceive that such an arrangement—adopted moreover, by every great Power that has a Sovereign, and that aims at real military strength—is the best adapted to produce the most efficient results. ”