Recruiter

“ Now, men, you'll likely find it a bit dull here for a day or two. Recruits generally do. Then that will all wear off, and you'll be glad you're in the Army. If there's anything you need to know, ask Corporal Shrimp"—Hal winced inwardly—"or me. The mess call will soon go for dinner. When it does, follow me outside, but take your places in the rear of A Company, which is the recruit company that you now belong to. I'll [68] show you where to stand. New recruits don't march with the battalion—not until they've been drilled enough to know how to march."
"Is there a battalion here, Sergeant?" ”

“ The dignity with which the recruiting is done is very pleasing, for these officers, uncommissioned though they be, wear their uniforms with the grace of a major-general. When they approach a man, they do so with an air of authority, in a straightforward manner, and although they depict the attractions of the service beguilingly, they seldom attempt to42 gain a recruit against his will. Most of those who loiter about the boards come with their minds made up to enlist, and do not need any great amount of persuasion. ”

“ RECRUITING.—One of the most important duties of medical officers is the examination of recruits, for without their certificate of efficiency no sepoy is enrolled in a regular regiment; and his firmness will often be put to the test by the men of his regiment trying to pass inefficient youths, their relations, into the service. Every recruit should therefore be stripped and carefully examined from head to foot, in private, of course. The natives of the upper provinces from which recruits are chiefly drawn, are not liable to many constitutional disorders unfitting them for arms. ”

“ The officer who commands the respect of his men does not get nicknamed, and the recruit very soon learns to call his superiors by their proper names when he has occasion to mention superior officers in course of conversation with his comrades.
As a rule, the recruit is subjected to one or more practical jokes by his comrades in his early days as a soldier. In cavalry regiments, a favourite form of joke is to get the recruit to go to the farrier-major for his “shoeing-money,” a mythical33 allowance which, it is alleged, every recruit receives at the beginning of his service. ”

“ For every recruit after the 1st day of August and before the 2d day of September fifty dollars. For every recruit after the 1st day of September and before the 2d day of October forty dollars. But that no allowance be made for any recruit whose period of enlistment shall be less than three years or during the war.
That every recruit shall be considered as joined, as soon as he shall march for the place to which he is ordered on service, from the place of general rendezvous within the State, to be appointed by the Commander in Chief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Recruiting officers consist generally of captains and lieutenants of the line, who must not permit any man to be deceived or inveigled into the service by false representations. If the recruit is a minor, his parents or guardians must, if possible, be informed of the minor’s wish to enlist, and their written consent obtained therefor. Any male person above the age of eighteen, and under thirty-five years, being effective, able-bodied, sober, free from disease, of good character and habits, with a competent knowledge of the English language, may be enlisted. ”

“ I have been told that recruiting officers have brought pressure to bear upon recruits to prevent them from going into Irish regiments, and I should like to get hold of an authentic case. When these rumours first came to me, I went to the War Office, and I was assured that a recruiting officer who did anything of that kind was guilty of a gross abuse of duty. Any man who went into a recruiting office to enlist was entitled to choose for himself what regiment he would enter, and whether that regiment was stationed in Fermoy or Tipperary the Government would send him free of charge. ”

“ Another Method.—Take your recruit, and place him at headquarters. Let him mix freely with all the bad characters that have been carefully kept in the regiment, until his nature has become assimilated to theirs. For three years pay him rather less than a ploughboy's wages, and make [Pg 78] him work harder than a costermonger's donkey. Your soldier having now reached perfection, you will turn him out of the service with economical dressing. ”

“ In the Boer War, during the first three months I think the increase in the number of recruits was 10,000 or 15,000, and during the whole of the war, from the beginning to the end, the increase in the number of recruits amounted to 20,000 or 30,000 a year to the Regular Army. You have never had anything like this, and, therefore, the ordinary machinery for the moment must be a little choked and paralysed. The recruiting sergeant is in the habit of getting his men with difficulty. ”

“ In Great Britain the whole recruiting has been placed under the immediate direction of the adjutant-general since 1802. For this purpose, the country has been divided into recruiting districts, at the head of which is placed an inspecting field-officer with the duty of superintending all recruiting parties in his district, and of approving the recruits brought. Staff-officers and sergeants of the Pensioner Force are also occasionally intrusted with the obtaining of recruits. The United States recruiting service is conducted by the adjutant-general, under the direction of the Secretary of War. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lucky indeed is the company commander who can bring a full company every year to camp, for many who come one year come not again, and such are the conditions that no man sayeth him nay lest recruiting be stopped altogether in that district. One sighs for the press gang of Merrie England and subscribes for such incendiary journals as those of the various National Service Leagues, for one has a limited area to secure the recruits from, and must recruit at least 60 per cent. each year at a season when farm labour is at a premium. ”

“ Now for a little about soldiers.”
“If I were giving you my own history, I might be tempted to dwell on my own exploits, but as that is not the case I shall try to keep close to my subject,—Soldiers and Sailors. When a recruit is enlisted and sworn in before a magistrate he is put into the awkward squad for a time, and then he enters the ranks. He has much to learn before he becomes a thorough soldier, from standing at ease to the charge; from the single file to the battle array.” ”

“ RECRUITING—APPLICANTS, REJECTIONS, ENLISTMENTS—ENLISTMENTS BY STATES.
The recruiting service of the corps was enlarged greatly during the war and it was so well organized and its method of procedure was so efficient that it was able to stand the enormous increase of the corps. The real test of any organization comes when a very great increase is suddenly made and the recruiting service of the Marine Corps passed that test in a commendable manner. ”

“ THE WAY OF THE RECRUIT The way of the recruit, though still a hard one, is not so hard as it used to be, for, especially in the cavalry and artillery, various modifications have been introduced by which the youngster is broken in gradually to his work. ”

“ The under-officer who is escorting a recruit must wear sword and pistol. He must make the recruit walk in front of him, never let him come too near, and warn him that a single false step may cost him his life. He must avoid large towns, and places where the recruit has previously served, as much as possible. It is also desirable to avoid the place where the recruit was born. They must spend the night at inns where the landlord is known to be well-disposed to recruiting officers, and sure to side with them, and not with their victim. ”

“ I was getting low in the pocket -- barmaids haven't much use for anyone who cannot buy drinks -- so I looked around for recruiting material. You know a man on recruiting service gets a "bob" or shilling for every recruit he entices into joining the army, the recruit is supposed to get this, but he would not be a recruit if he were wise to this fact, would he? ”

“ Each company to consist of any number between 73 and 109; the officers of each company will be a captain, first lieutenant and second lieutenant, who will be elected by the privates, and subject to your approval; and the captains then to appoint the non-commissioned officers, also subject to your approval. The companies, upon being thus organized, will be mustered by you into the service of the United States, and from that day will commence to receive the pay, rations and other allowances given to the other infantry volunteers, each according to his rank. ”

“ Vacancies in the grade of second lieutenant remaining, after the graduates of the Military Academy and qualified enlisted men have been appointed, are filled from civil life. To be eligible for appointment a candidate must be a citizen of the United States, unmarried, between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-seven years, and must be approved by an examining board of five officers as to habits, moral character, physical ability, education and general fitness for the service. ”

“ These same readers also know how the two young soldiers put in several weeks of steady drilling at a recruit rendezvous near New York, where they learned the first steps in the soldier's strenuous calling. Our readers are also familiar with all the many things that happened during that period of recruit instruction, and how Hal and Noll, while traveling through the Rockies on their way to join their regiment, aided in resisting an attempt by robbers to hold up the United States mail train. ”

“ A recruiting officer bearing a flag and attended by a band of martial music paraded the streets, to excite a thirst for glory and a spirit of military ambition. The recruiting officer possessed the qualifications requisite to make the service alluring, especially to the young. ”

“ Without committing myself to that project, I wrote to the Adjutant-General, R. Jones, at Washington, D. C., asking him to consider me as an applicant for any active service, and saying that I would willingly forego the recruiting detail, which I well knew plenty of others would jump at. Impatient to approach the scene of active operations, without authority (and I suppose wrongfully) , I left my corporal in charge of the rendezvous, and took all the recruits I had made, about twenty-five, in a steamboat to Cincinnati, and turned them over to Major N. C. McCrea, commanding at Newport Barracks. ”

“ The commanding officers of each company is charged with the instruction of his recruits; and as that is a service that requires not only experience, but a patience and temper not met with in every officer, he is to make choice of an officer, sergeant, and one or two corporals of his company, who, being approved of by the colonel, are to attend particularly to that business: but in case of the arrival of a great number of recruits, every officer without distinction is to be employed on that service. ”

“ RECRUITING, a term prefixed to certain corps and districts, which are specifically established for the recruiting service. Hence recruiting districts.
All recruits made for the regular army of the U. States, are inlisted for five years. In almost every service in Europe men are enlisted for a certain number of years, except the British, who inlist for life. Experience has convinced the powers upon the continent of Europe, that the system of binding a man during the whole course of his life to military subjection, is contrary to every sound principle of œconomy, and effective service. ”

“ Persons not over forty years of age who shall have at any time served as volunteers subsequent to April twenty-first, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, may be ordered before boards of officers for such examination as may be prescribed by the Secretary of War, and those who establish their fitness before these examining boards may be appointed to the grades of first or second lieutenant in the Regular Army, taking rank in the respective grades according to seniority as determined by length of prior commissioned service ”

“ Recruiting.—For recruiting purposes, India is divided into districts, each in charge of an officer, who recruits only for some particular race. All recruiting parties detached from regiments work under his orders, and all candidates for enlistment are brought to him for approval after undergoing medical examination. The number of applicants for service, especially for the Silladar Cavalry, is often in excess of the number of vacancies available. Recruits must be from sixteen to twenty-five years of age. ”

“ When a young man joins the army or the navy he virtually agrees to pocket his pride and submit to a series of insults from his “superior” officers for a term of years. The recruiting officer is to some degree, at least temporarily, a man of pleasant manners, and the callow patriot taking the bait in the recruiting office is treated alluringly. But when the youth signs his name in the books and becomes a soldier patriot, matters take a change. ”