Paramilitary

“ I have learned to strike down an enemy; to be vigilant at my post; to fear nothing but dishonor; to bear cold and heat with equal endurance; to sleep on the ground; and to sustain at the same time hunger and fatigue. And with such rules of conduct I shall stimulate my soldiers, not treating them with rigor and myself with indulgence, nor making their toils my glory. Such a mode of commanding is at once useful to the State, and becoming to a citizen. For to coerce your troops with severity, while you yourself live at ease, is to be a tyrant, not a general. ”

“ Men knew little of military exercises, except such ideas as had been derived from the old militia system, that in many states was treated by the people rather with derision than respect, and in most of them was, in the impending emergency, a rather poor reliance for the national defense. ”

“ I hope we shall ever have virtue enough to guard against their introduction.—But may we not hazard the safety of our Republic should we ever constitute, under the name of a select militia, a small body to be disciplined in a camp with all the pomp & splendor of a regular army? ”

“ In small bodies the soldier has time to think; he is torn away from the brutal, sanguinary intoxication of large masses of troops, armed to the teeth. He is no more in contagious contact with the school of murder, he hears no more the exciting war music and war songs of brutalised soldiers. All around him he will hear the songs of revolt against the oppressors and exploiters, which will remind him that he belongs to the people, from whom he was torn by force, and not to the side of tyranny. ”

“ The chief reason, my lords, of the danger arising from a standing army, may be ascribed to the circumstances by which men, subject to military laws, are distinguished from other members of the same community; they are, by the nature of martial government, exposed to punishment which other men never incur, and tried by forms of a different and more rigorous kind than those which are practised by the civil power. ”

“ In order to provide for our defence, and exclude the dangers of a standing army, the general defence is left to those who are the objects of defence. It is left to the militia who will suffer if they become the instruments of tyranny. ”

“ A large army may, indeed, be a sign of a national—that is, military—weakness. Warfare in these days is a business like other activities, and no courage, no heroism, no "glorious past," no "immortal traditions," will atone for deficient rations and fraudulent administration. Good civilian qualities are the ones that will in the end win a nation's battles. ”

“ To make laws for the organization of the army and navy. (19) To grant or refuse to foreign forces passage through the territory of the country to carry on military operations. (20) To mobilize and make use of the national guard or local militia in the cases designated by the Constitution. (21) To declare a state of siege at one or more points in the national territory, in the emergency of an attack by foreign forces, or internal disturbance, and to approve or suspend the state of siege proclaimed by the executive power or its responsible agents in the absence of the Congress. ”

“ Advancing into a hostile country, among a people whom they knew to be reckless in courage and of a proud spirit, the generals and high officers were obsessed with the thought of peasant warfare, rifle-shots from windows, murders of soldiers billeted in farms, spies everywhere, and the peril of franc-tireurs, goading their troops on the march. ”

“ They offend my sight. Our militia were merry fellows; they took liberties, stood their legs astride, their hats over their ears, they lived and let live; these fellows are like machines with a devil inside them. ”

“ Such a force, since it would meet with no military opposition, would not need to be large, and would not be in the state of mingled fear and ferocity which characterizes an invading army among a hostile population. ”

“ The true strength and safety of every commonwealth or limited monarchy, is the bravery of its freeholders, its militia. By brave militias they rise to grandeur, and they come to ruin by a mercenary army. ”

“ After this season, when this ignorant army has passed off, I shall never again say to a man, "Stay your rifle-ball," when our enemies assail us; but shall say, "Slay them where you find them." But the army that are now upon our borders are in ignorance, and know not what they are doing, nor the spirit that prompts them, or they would ere now have been visited with swift destruction. ”

“ It is not to be supposed, sir, that the soldiers entertain the same ideas of their profession, or that they do not conceive themselves injured by such representations: they undoubtedly consider themselves as the bulwark of their country, as men selected for the defence of the rest of the community, as those who have engaged, at the hazard of their lives, to repel invasion, and repress rebellion, and who contribute more than their part to the general felicity, by securing property, and preventing danger. ”

“ If we intend to avoid a standing army, (that bane of a republic, and engine of oppression in the hands of despots,) our militia must be patronized and improved, and military information must be disseminated amongst the great mass of the people ”

“ Over fallen steeds and writhing men—through flashing sabre strokes and whistling rifle shots—through smoke and dust—through blood and fire—the guerrillas dashed, striking here and there—striking everywhere where the blue coat of a Union soldier could be seen in the chaos. ”

“ Protected from hostile violence and invasion by a moral defence, more powerful than armies and navies, we might indeed beat our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks. The millions now expended in our military establishments could be applied to objects directly ministering to human convenience and happiness. ”

“ We were between the lines of two hostile armies, in a debatable country, where every possible form of danger might lurk, where bands of irresponsible guerillas, deserters, and fleeing conscripts, roamed unchecked by any authority, where no woman alone in the night could be considered safe for an instant. ”

“ All enemies in regular war are divided into two general classes—that is to say, into combatants and noncombatants, or unarmed citizens of the hostile government.
The military commander of the legitimate government, in a war of rebellion, distinguishes between the loyal citizen in the revolted portion of the country and the disloyal citizen. ”

“ When the military appear in the street, do not gather about it, being sure that it is doing its duty in obedience to orders from superior authority. Your homes and your places of business you have a right to defend, and it is your duty to defend them, at all hazards. ”

“ They have, but a little while ago, created scenes in which mob-law ruled the hour, riot held its sanguinary sway, and the earth of our streets tasted the blood of our citizens. When such scenes as these occur, we cannot wait for aid from the crews of vessels in the offing, we cannot look for succor to the army garrisons of distant forts; but in our great cities—those plague spots in the body politic—we want trained militia who can rally as rapidly as the long roll can be beaten. ”

“ Those, who, during the Revolutionary storm, had confidential acquaintance with the conduct of affairs, knew well that to rely on militia was to lean on a broken reed. We knew, also, that to coop up in a camp those habituated to the freedom and comforts of social life, without subjecting them to the strict observation and severe control of officers regularly bred, would expose them to such fell disease, that pestilence would make more havoc than the sword. ”

“ It is true that we are no longer face to face with the foe, but we—or rather, the authorities—make believe that we are. We wage mimic warfare in full marching order; we fire rifles and machine-guns upon improvised ranges; we perform hazardous feats with bombs and a dummy trench. ”

“ Without such particularity of procedure, an army going into an enemy's country would soon become a rabble or mob—war would soon become rapine—officers would soon lose all control of their men, and from thenceforth plundering, spoliation, and pillage would become the order of the day. ”

“ Open, active participants in hostilities, as soldiers who wear the uniform, move under the flag, and hold the appropriate commission from their government, openly assuming to discharge the duties and meet the responsibilities and dangers of soldiers, they are entitled to all belligerent rights, and should receive all the courtesies due to soldiers. The true soldier is proud to acknowledge and respect those rights, and ever cheerfully extends87 these courtesies. 2. Secret, but active participants, as spies, brigands, bushwhackers, jayhawkers, war-rebels, and assassins. ”

“ Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? ”

“ An ill disciplined army has ever been a more costly and a more licentious militia, impotent against a foreign enemy, and formidable only to the country which it is paid to defend. A strong line of demarcation must therefore be drawn between the soldiers and the rest of the community. ”

“ At the same time, our militia organization furnishes the basis of a military system adapted to the genius of our institutions, fully adequate to our national defence, and one that will save us from the expense and dangers of a standing army large enough for the need of the country in a time of war. ”

“ The exercising and reviewing the militia form an innocent and agreeable spectacle to the women and children, contribute to the health and amusement of the troops themselves, and inspire the inhabitants in general with the pleasing ideas of security and of their own importance. ”

“ Our standing army is but a bad and ill-organized militia, and our militia not better than a mob. Nor have the defects in these been supplied by Lycées, Prytanées, and Polytechnic schools. The morbid patriotism of some, and the false economy of others, have nearly obliterated every thing like military knowledge among us. ”

“ It even happened that not a few young fellows who had never even served in the militia, and who knew nothing whatever of duty or discipline of any kind, had secured through family or political influence, which the administration was glad to cultivate, commissions denied to better men, and these young fellows were now wearing their first swords, sashes, and shoulder-straps in the onerous duty of running down the merry-makers from surrounding camps, who, dodging the guards, had managed to make a way to town. ”

“ All soldiers, of whatever species of arms; all men who belong to the rising en masse of the hostile country; all those who are attached to the army for its efficiency and promote directly the object of the war, except religious persons, officers of medical staff, hospital nurses and servants, all disabled men or officers on the field, or elsewhere, if captured, all enemies who have thrown away their arms and asked for quarters, are prisoners of war, and as such exposed to the inconveniences as well as entitled to the privileges of a prisoner of war. ”

“ My friends, you have nothing to oppose to this force, but a militia unused to service, impatient of command, and destitute of resources. Can your officers depend upon the privates, or the privates upon the officers? Your war can be but little more than mere tumultuary rage: and besides, there is an awful disparity between troops that fight the battles of their sovereign, and those that follow the standard of rebellion. These reflections may arrest you in an hour that you think not of, and come too late to serve you. Nothing short of a miracle could gain you one battle ”

“ Gentlemen,—The barbarous Murders on our innocent Brethren on Wednesday the 19th Instant, has made it absolutely necessary that we immediately raise an army to defend our Wives and our Children from the butchering Hands of an inhuman Soldiery, who, incensed at the Obstacles they meet with in their bloody progress, and enraged at being repulsed from the Field of Slaughter, will, without the least doubt, take the first Opportunity in their Power to ravage this devoted Country with Fire and Sword. ”

“ Nothing can underestimate the consideration which the townspeople, under conditions adverse to their interests, and for which the military authorities are entirely responsible, have shown for the vigours of martial law and the present military domination. ”

“ That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty ”

“ And even in the field—for they will have recourse to arms in their own defence—and what nation would not?-ye are still bound by the usages of war, by every principle of honor and humanity, to spare their lives when they surrender and call for mercy. In short, whether ye reckon them enemies or British subjects, ye have no right to hunt them down and kill them, as if they were so many wild beasts. ”

“ The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenceless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our country.... It will be remembered that we make war only upon armed men. ”

“ Not a man could overcome his constitutional scruples about crossing the confines of his own country; and for more than two hours the troops and volunteers upon the heights were allowed to behold an advancing enemy, in numbers sufficient to overwhelm them, while by looking over their right shoulders they could see an army of American militia, abundantly sufficient to defeat the approaching column, and maintain the victories of the morning. ”