Volunteer force

“ The Volunteer Force, excepting when embodied and directly under the command of a general officer, can never be held together by the rules and regulations of the Army. The position of the non-commissioned officers, often large traders, shop-keepers, men of business, &c., and of the rank and file, fathers of families, small farmers, shop assistants, school-masters, attorneys' clerks and small tradesmen, preclude their being all governed by one hard and fast rule and managed accordingly. ”

“ A volunteer force, if it is to be merely a parade force, a make-believe force, is a "sham," a humbug, and a gross absurdity. If it is to be a "National Guard," playing the part of armed politicians, it is a dangerous nuisance, and ought never to be formed. ”

“ If the Volunteer Force, more especially that part of it, whether artillery, cavalry or infantry, where the majority of the men are country folk, are to be kept up in numbers and to be an inexpensive but useful addition to the army generally, then the officers, especially the field officers of battalions, must be selected men—men of fair wealth and good county position. ”

“ The volunteer force, however, continued to grow stronger and stronger long after the alarm had died away; and even though recently the progress of improvement seems to have been somewhat checked, and the volunteer body to have become lax in its organization, it appears to me that in its intelligence, its earnestness, and its physical capacity there exists the material out of which might be moulded a very valuable arm of the military service. ”

“ In the Army of the United States, in addition to the regular forces and the militia forces which may be summoned to the defense of the Nation by the President, there is also the volunteer force, which made up a very large part of the army in the Civil War, and which in any war of long continuance would become its most important constituent. There is an act which dates from the Civil War, known as the Volunteer Act, which makes provision for the enlistment of volunteers in the Army of the United States in time of war. ”

“ Government was too preoccupied to do anything, and we must show initiative for ourselves. After I had propounded my scheme, I signed the roll myself, and 120 men did the same. Those were the first men in the Volunteer Force. Next evening we assembled at the drill-hall, found out who could drill us, chose our non-commissioned officers and set to work to form ourselves into an efficient company. Gillette, my American actor friend, had got stranded in England, and he was an interested spectator on this occasion. ”

“ A large force of volunteer officers must be kept up in a time of peace,—which is contrary to the jurisprudence of all highly civilized nations,—or the volunteer officers must be mustered out, and thus leave an important arm of the war department without the necessary administrative government. ”

“ A similar force has always been ready for defence whenever the “cloud, as big as a man’s hand,” has loomed across the sea.
A recollection of the last misgiving and dread which called forth England’s Volunteers has been forcibly recalled to the minds of the aged by the Volunteer movement of the present; and we were amused to hear, from the lips of an old lady of very warlike ancestry, an account of what Volunteers were in her youth. ”

“ A. It is probable that it has been created by the consideration that a Volunteer officer is chaffed by his friends, sneered at by his enemies, and mulcted of much money by his comrades.
Q. Then a Volunteer officer or private usually joins the force from the most patriotic of motives? ”

“ A little later in his career the Young Guardsman will find himself temporarily on the staff of a General appointed to command a force of Volunteers during some Easter manœuvres. He will wear a white belt, the frock-coat of his undress uniform and a cocked hat, and will believe himself to be a Staff officer. He will perform his duties not without efficiency, but will scarcely take enough trouble to remove from the minds of the Volunteers to whom he issues orders, that idea of patronage which is to a rightly constituted Volunteer what a red rag is said to be to a bull. ”

“ Looking at the patriotic movement in the cold light of reason, one can see that its real use was a much humbler one than those enthusiastic and gallant fellows intended. Young artisans and ploughmen who had once joined the volunteers, falling in love with the liveliness and display of the military career, and becoming unsettled in mind for the dull routine of their daily work, drifted readily into the paid militia. Thus the volunteer system was indirectly a splendid means of recruiting for the army. ”

“ Such corps as the dockyard volunteers, at all those great establishments, public and private, should be replaced on an improved system;—a system which should avoid expense and encroachment on a valuable part of their time, which were the failings of their original organization, and occasioned their being broken up.
The noble spirit which originated the volunteer movement is one of which the nation may justly feel proud; it exhibits and fosters a patriotic and military spirit in the country, which will render us more fit than any other people to cope with a powerful enemy. ”

“ Volunteers can make a difference in many ways—by mentoring a child, caring for the ailing and elderly, building a playground, or caring for the environment. I created the USA Freedom Corps to help Americans find opportunities to volunteer. As I travel around our country, I am honored to meet citizens of all ages who volunteer through programs such as the Citizen Corps, AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and the Peace Corps, as well as many other organizations. ”

“ I myself became a volunteer because I was convinced that it was a citizen's duty to train himself to bear arms in his country's cause. I have been for many years an ardent advocate of the volunteer system, because I believed, as I still believe, that a national army must be an army of citizen soldiers, and from the beginning I have looked for the efficiency of such an army mainly to the tactical skill and the educating power of its officers. ”

“ Upon the call for volunteers for this dangerous enterprise, officers and men presented themselves by hundreds, anxious to undertake the trip. The names of those whose services were accepted will be given in a separate report.
It is a striking feature, so far as my observation goes, of the present volunteer army of the United States, that there is nothing which men are called upon to do, mechanical or professional, that accomplished adepts cannot be found for the duty required in almost every regiment. ”

“ It is not going too far to say that thousands of men best fitted, physically and morally, to serve as officers or in the ranks, hold aloof from the Volunteers, because they are keenly alive to inefficiency of the average Volunteer. ”

“ The volunteer system, however, tends, in some degree, to remedy this disadvantage, and will become more and more valuable in proportion as it shall conform itself gradually to such arrangements as will make our volunteers efficient for acting with our regular forces. ”

“ The volunteer service of the present time means, to those who find themselves enrolled in it, something more than a mere pastime; and if those who hold it in small esteem could but know of the faithful, conscientious, and untiring work that, from year's end to year's end, is being done in armory and camp, they would leave unsaid, it seems [Pg vii] to me, the half-contemptuous words that too often come to the ears of the hard-working, long-suffering, and unrewarded citizen-soldier.
It has been said that the best is none too good for the service of the Commonwealth. ”

“ The Volunteer Corps is a service in which the country must trust entirely to the honour of the individuals composing it; and certainly, those who shall stand the test will be peculiarly entitled to the gratitude of the nation.
But while deprecating the employment in the field of any volunteers who are not hardy and trained soldiers, or who have households to protect and business to attend to, we must not be supposed to recommend the withdrawal from the ranks of all who are not available for actual service with regular troops: far from it. ”

“ Citizen service can take many shapes-it can mean joining AmeriCorps as a high school student, volunteering nights or on weekends in a religious group or neighborhood association, or devoting years of one's life to service in the Peace Corps or in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. ”

“ Then the compulsory service of their employés in the Volunteers, insisted upon by all the West End Tradesmen and employers of labour throughout the land, had the best effects. Why some of the finest troops in the world came from Schoolbred's, Whiteley's, the Army and Navy Stores, and Smith and Sons."
"And the Inns of Court, the Universities, and the Medical Colleges also insisted upon continued efficient service in the Volunteer ranks to secure the advantage of audience in the Courts and Registration as Doctors, didn't they?" ”

“ Volunteering has now become all the fashion; every high-spirited boy looks forward with hope to the time when he is big enough and old enough to join his companions in some town or provincial volunteer corps, and shoulder the rifle. ”

“ The American Volunteer is no mere machine. Rigorous discipline will give him soldierly characteristics—teach him that unity of action with his comrades and implicit obedience of orders are essential to success. But his independence of thought remains; he never forgets that he is a citizen soldier; he reads and reflects for himself. ”

“ I have seen enough on this march to convince me that Volunteers and Volunteer Generals wont do. I have repeatedly seen a Second Lieutenant of the regular army exercise more authority over the Volunteers—officers and privates—than a Mustang General. ”

“ The great volunteer movement having sprung into existence during the previous year, there was a vast amount of military ardour floating about among young men of all classes, and recruits offered themselves faster than funds were subscribed for their equipment. ”

“ We have had our final conference, in a little amphitheatre at one side of the camp. As the dusk fell the General talked to us for the last time. He took up the subject of preparedness where he left it yesterday—what are we to do to face an emergency, all our present methods failing, the emergency, if it comes, sure to be so frightful? The old volunteer system has broken down in each of our wars—the Revolutionary, the war of 1812, the Mexican, the Civil. We have seen it, before our eyes, break down in England now. The volunteer system is unfair—why should one man fight for another equally fit? ”

“ Volunteering even made them moral, and religious—teste the Times, September 3, 1803: “Since the formation of Volunteer Corps, the very manners of many have taken a more moral turn: public-houses are deserted for the drill, our churches are better frequented, profane swearing is banished, every man looks to his character, respects the Corps in which he is enrolled, and is cautious in all he says or does, lest he should disgrace the name of a British Volunteer.” ”

“ The original formation of these volunteers is in companies, and they know nothing of battalions or regiments. The tendency in volunteer outbursts is sometimes to gratify the greatest vanity of the greatest number. These companies do not muster more than fifty or sixty strong. ”

“ While, however, all these inducements and attractions are withheld, a higher standard of efficiency in the officers and the men is properly insisted on. In presence of the difficulties which arise from the altered conditions of the service, some earnest friends of the Volunteer movement have been oppressed with doubts, as to the possibility of stimulating the patriotism of the country to such a pitch, that Volunteers shall still be forthcoming in a time of profound peace. ”

“ Heroes serve only in the volunteers."
This is a well-known joke in the Army. In war time local pride in the volunteer regiments is always strong. Local newspapers always devote most of their war space to the "heroic" doings of the local volunteer regiment. The regulars do the bulk of the fighting, and the most dangerous, but their deeds of daring are rarely chronicled in the newspapers. All the praise goes to the volunteer regiments. Hence, in war time, a stock Army question is, "Are you a hero or a regular?"
"I guess you've made a mistake," remonstrated Hal, still good-naturedly. ”

“ In actual service, the volunteers will be valuable behind works; thus releasing a corresponding number of the regular troops from garrison service: but it cannot be too strongly impressed upon them, that unless they will submit to the necessary training as soldiers, and are complete in organization as infantry, no general in the world will have any confidence in them as a field force. The occasional embodiment of our volunteers at some of the great camps, as before recommended, would appear the most available means of training them for general service. ”

“ I think, however, that the volunteers were always better men, man for man, than the average of those recruited for the regular army. The rigidity of discipline did not differ so much between good volunteer regiments and regulars, as the mode of enforcing it. There were plenty of volunteer regiments that could not be excelled in drill, in the performance of camp duty, or in the finish and exactness of all the forms of parades and of routine. ”

“ Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out to attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of ’em on condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their county. ”

“ COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, Adjutant-General's Office, Richmond, Va., April 23, 1898. General Orders No. 9.
The commanding officers of such companies as will volunteer for service in the volunteer army of the United States will at once proceed to recruit their respective companies to at least eighty-four enlisted men. Any company volunteering as a body, for such service, will be mustered in with its own officers. ”