Enlistment

“ Numbers who have purchased their discharge, having a good home and livelihood in civil life, enlist again, and remain soldiers for the full period of their service.
I may here state, that whatever time a soldier has served prior to purchasing his discharge, that time does not count in his favour on second enlistment: he has still twenty-four years to serve in the cavalry and twenty-one years in the infantry, from the date of his second or any subsequent enlistment. ”

“ Just remember that regulars and militiamen are both enlisted from the people at large. Put any militia regiment in the country through a regulation three-years' enlistment in the Army and under regular officers, and that militia regiment would then be the equal of any regular regiment in the line. Noll, the whole difference lies in officers, opportunity and training. Don't ever look down on national guardsmen unless you want to prove yourself less of a soldier than [Pg 217] I think you are. ”

“ This unexpected and brilliant achievement created an immediate reaction. Several regiments, whose term of enlistment was about expiring, agreed to serve six weeks longer, and militia from the adjoining provinces marched in. Nor was the effect on the British less striking. ”

“ In practice the normal terms are seven years' colour service and five years' reserve service for the infantry, with certain modifications in the case of other arms. Enlistment may be made for general service or for a particular corps, and in the latter case the recruit will be posted to that corps only, and will ordinarily spend his whole service in it. A man desiring to enlist should present himself at a recruiting office, where he will be given a notice setting forth the terms of service. ”

“ The force will be organised in companies of 115 rank and file, five officers being allotted to each company, viz., one captain and four subalterns, preference being given to Yeomanry officers. 4. The term of enlistment for officers and men will be for one year, or for not less than the period of the war. 5. The officers and men will bring their own horses, clothing, saddlery, and accoutrements. Arms and ammunition, camp equipment, and regimental transport will be provided by Government. ”

“ Enlistments are of four years for men. A boy's enlistment runs to his majority. A man may work up to be a C. P. O. (chief petty officer) in his first enlistment. The navy is full of men who have done that. ”

“ The personnel must be maintained by voluntary enlistment for terms of twelve consecutive years, the number of discharges before the expiration of that term not in any year to exceed 5 per cent of the total effectives. ”

“ These are the families from which our native regiments are recruited; and hardly a young recruit offers himself for enlistment, on whose body marks will not be found of wounds received in these contests, between landlords themselves, and between them and the officers and troops of the sovereign. ”

“ In 1862, men who had seen a year’s active service were selected to receive a part of the commissions issued to new organizations, and should in justice have received all within the bestowal of governors. But the recruiting of troops soon resolved itself into individual enlistments or this programme;—twenty, thirty, fifty or more men would go in a body to some recruiting station, and signify their readiness to enlist in a certain regiment provided a certain specified member of their number should be commissioned captain. ”

“ I must sincerely hope that the old and constitutional mode of calling out the good and true men of the nation to serve in the militia regiments will never be abandoned, and I yet trust to seeing it extended, as I have proposed, to the Guards and regular army. Surely I have shewn plainly enough the evils of our present recruiting system to dissipate the notion of extending it to the militia. I [Pg 101] have long entertained a dislike to the plan of enlistment, unless every possible inquiry were made into the characters of the men who offered themselves as recruits ”

“ Our enlistments are at a stand; the fears I ever entertained are realized; that is, the discontented officers (for I do not know how else to account for it) have thrown such difficulties or stumbling-blocks in the way of recruiting, that I no longer entertain a hope of completing the army by voluntary enlistments, and I see no move or likelihood to do it by other means. In the last two weeks we have enlisted but about a thousand men; whereas I was confidently led to believe, by all the officers I conversed with, that we should by this time have had the regiments nearly completed. ”

“ During this period, the officers used all their influence to induce re-enlistments as veterans, and, as a result, some three hundred or more of the best men in the regiment signified their willingness to sacrifice anew their comfort and safety, their prospects in life, and life itself, if necessary, in the service of their country, if perchance, by such a sacrifice the blessings which they and their fathers had enjoyed, and by which the world had so largely benefited, might be transmitted to future generations. ”

“ So on the 3rd of May President Lincoln issued a call for United States volunteers to serve three years, unless sooner discharged. At once thousands of loyal men sprang to arms—so large a number, in fact, that many regiments raised were refused until later.
The methods by which these regiments were raised were various. In 1861 a common way was for some one who had been in the regular army, or perhaps who had been prominent in the militia, to take the initiative and circulate an enlistment paper for signatures. ”

“ He went to a young fellow, a wool-sorter in the mills, who was a corporal in the militia, to obtain the necessary information to make his application. The corporal promised to take the matter up for him with the captain of the local company, and in due time brought him an application blank to be filled out stating his qualifications for membership. It was necessary that the paper should be signed by his mother as evidence of her consent to his enlistment since he was not yet twenty-one years of age. ”

“ Since war began the corps has grown from a total of 13,266 enlisted men and 426 officers to a present strength of 38,629 enlisted men and 1,389 officers. The increase in enlisted men has been through voluntary enlistment; in one instance a college battalion enlisted as a whole. The personnel represents all classes of the community ”

“ To carry this resolve into effect, the Brigadier Generals through the State were directed immediately on receipt of the resolve, to issue orders for calling the companies together, and raising the men required from each town, by voluntary enlistments, or by drafting them, on failure of a full number being otherwise raised. ”

“ The regular army, almost disbanded at the beginning of the war, was gradually filling up upon the basis of a new organization and long enlistments, but it was idle, it seemed to me, to expect that the young men of the country would enlist in the regular service. ”

“ To be raised at once from a position so subordinate and anomalous, so unrecognised and so fraught with useless peril as that of a gentleman volunteer, from the ranks as it were of that army whose dreadful sufferings he shared and whose many dangers he risked—to be raised to the rank of an officer in a regiment so distinguished as the Royal Fusiliers, and to be at once, temporarily though it were, placed on the general's staff, and beyond the reach of Cosmo's coldness, pique, and hauteur, was indeed to be independent, and to taste of happiness supreme! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then the General from the War Office called up the rest of the Regiment.
"Now, Non-commissioned Officers and Men," said he, "you have no one to command you, and no one to pay for your marches out, prizes, and the rest of it. But don't let that bother you. You may still call yourselves Soldiers—not that I call you so myself. ”

“ But being anxious at this important crisis to organize an armed force with a view of meeting future exigencies, and to demonstrate by practical experience the degree of facility with which the militia may be trained for service, I have to request you to adopt immediate measures for forming and completing, from among such men as voluntarily offer to serve, two companies, not to exceed one captain, two subalterns, two sergeants, one drummer, and thirty-five rank and file each, in the regiment under your command. ”

“ The companies I allude to are of that glorious and gallant regiment to which our worthy guests with the blue facings belong: they, as well as a troop of yeomanry, which I expect will muster six or eight-and-thirty strong, will be tacked to The Borough Buffs and receive my orders.'—'Compose, with our corps, the division under my command,' muttered the adjutant But the lieutenant-colonel either did not hear, or would not heed him, and went on with his speech. ”

“ Now, after signing a contract to serve the United States government as a soldier for the required period, our young civilian has become a recruit. Before, however, he is finally admitted, he must undergo a careful physical examination, made by a surgeon. The accepted recruit has his choice of entering the artillery, the cavalry, or the infantry. ”

“ We want, first of all, men, and we shall endeavour to secure that men desiring to serve together shall, wherever possible, be allotted to the same regiment or corps. [Cheers.] The raising of battalions by counties and municipalities with this object will be in every way encouraged. But we want not less urgently a larger supply of ex-non-commissioned officers, and the pick of the men with whom in past days they have served, and therefore whom in most cases we shall be asking to give up regular employment and to return to the work of the State which they alone are competent to do. ”

“ Under these circumstances, may I be permitted to hope that you will do me the favour to lay at His Majesty’s feet my humble petition that the Eighty-seventh regiment may be appointed a light infantry corps, which, as being a mark of His Majesty’s approbation, would be most gratifying to those brave men, who have so freely bled, and would lay down their lives, to manifest their devoted attachment to their gracious and beloved Sovereign. ”

“ It is His Royal Highness’s pleasure that you shall select from the regiment under your command 2 sergeants, 2 corporals, and 30 private men for this duty, all of them being such men as appear most capable of receiving the above instructions, and most competent to the performance of the duty of Riflemen. These non-commissioned officers and privates are not to be considered as being drafted from their regiments, but merely as detached for the purpose above recited; they will continue to be borne on the strength of their regiments, and will be clothed by their respective colonels. ”

“ On such occasions, orders are sent to the commanding officers of those corps remaining at home to supply a certain number of good men. These orders are read out to the soldiers when they assemble for roll-call at evening stable hour. The regiment, with the locality to which it is proceeding, and the nature of the service in which it is expected to be engaged, together with the number of men required, is distinctly specified; after which, it is stated that “those men willing to serve will step forward.” ”

“ When a regiment is once organized in a State, and mustered into the service of the United States, the officers and men become subject to the same laws of discipline and government as the regular troops. ”

“ The men had been previously informed that out of the eight hundred men composing the command, a picked corps of sharpshooters would be selected, numbering forty men, and made up of the forty best marksmen in the regiment. As an incentive to induce every enlisted man, whether non-commissioned officer or private, to strive for appointment in the sharpshooters, it was given out from headquarters that the men so chosen would be regarded, as they really would deserve to be, as the elite of the command ”

“ I, therefore issue this, my proclamation, calling for a battalion of five companies of mounted volunteers to recruit said regiment; each company to consist of one captain, one first lieutenant, one second lieutenant, four sergeants, four corporals, and sixty privates. Each company to elect its own officers, and each volunteer to furnish his own arms, horse, and equipments. ”

“ Seventy-first Regiment!
“Officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers, it affords me the greatest satisfaction, at the request of your commanding officer, Colonel Reynell, to have the honor of presenting these colours to you.
“There are many who could perform the office with a better grace, but there is no one, believe me, who is more sensible of the merit of the corps, or who is more anxious for its honor and welfare. ”

“ As I think it more than probable that I shall [171] be under a Necessity of employing the Levies from your Regiment, in the Quarter to which they are now directed, I expect it will be an Inducement to the Officers to exert themselves in raising them and that the Men may more easily be obtained. I have only to add that I expect also a speedy and effectual Compliance with these Orders and that you will make me immediate Report of what shall be done in consequence of them. ”