The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863

Meanwhile old Brazos and the Swiss major sit grimly silent, one nursing his lame shin, where the Mexican bullet struck him, the other drawing hard on his pipe and puffing out wreaths of smoke that hang like Linden's 'sulphurous canopy' over the combatants. I have no doubt a great deal of excellent tactics was displayed in these discussions; still less, if possible, that the zeal of the disputants was all the more creditable to them for their peaceful antecedents during their whole lives; but the ludicrous side of the scene was brought out all the more strongly by the silence of these old soldiers, who alone out of the whole party had ever seen what men actually could and did do on the battle field.

Sometimes these conversations took a high range, and dwelt upon the causes and the policy of the contest in which we were engaged. I do not think, however, that these were half so much talked or thought of among the officers as in the barracks of the men; and it is only justice to add, that among a large class of the privates I have heard them discussed with a clearness, a freedom from all prejudices and present interests, that surpassed the average deliberations of the shoulder straps. There never probably was so large an army assembled in the world where so great a proportion of the intelligence could be found in the ranks. Marked individual instances were constantly met with. There was at least one corporal in the –th, who occupied his leisure hours with the Greek Testament, that the time spent in fighting for his country might not be all lost to his education for the ministry. I hope the noble fellow will preach none the less acceptably without the arm that he left at Donelson. Another of our non-commissioned officers was a member of the Iowa Legislature. Could there be a happier illustration of the fine compliment paid by President Lincoln in his message of last summer to the rank and file of our army? Pity it must be added that no representations could procure him a furlough to allow him to take his seat during the session. Had he been a colonel, with $3,000 a year, the path would have been wide and smooth that led from his duties in the camp to his seat in Congress, or any other good place he was lucky enough to fill.

This, by the way, is only one instance of the greatest defect in our volunteer system: the broad and almost impassable gulf of demarcation between commissioned officers and enlisted men. The character of the army requires that this should be eradicated as soon as possible. Enthusiastic patriotism might make men willing to bear with it for a time, or while the war seemed a temporary affair. But since the conviction has settled down upon the popular mind that we are in for a long and tedious struggle, and that a great army of American citizens must be kept on foot during the whole of it, overshadowing all peaceful pursuits, and remoulding the whole character of our people, there begins to be felt also the need of organizing that army as far as possible in conformity with the genius of our people and Government. The greenest recruit expects to find in the army a sharp distinction of rank, and a strict obedience to authority, to which he has been a stranger in peaceful times. But he is disappointed and discouraged when he finds a needless barrier erected to divide men into two classes, of which the smallest retains to itself all the profits and privileges of the service. He comprehends very well that a captain needs higher pay and more liberty than a private, and a general than a captain; but he fails to see the reason why a second lieutenant should have four or five times the pay of an orderly sergeant, and be officially recognized all through the army regulations as a gentleman, while he who holds the much more arduous and responsible office is simply an 'enlisted man,' It will be much easier for him to discover why this is so than to find any good reason why it should remain so. We are managing an army of half a million by the routine intended for one of ten thousand, and we are organizing citizen volunteers under regulations first created for the most dissimilar army to be found in the civilized world. We adopted our army system from England, where there are widely and perpetually distinct classes of society in peace as well as war; the nobility and gentry furnishing all the officers, while the ranks are filled up with the vast crowd, poor and ignorant enough to fight for sixpence a day. To our little standing army of bygone days the system was well enough adapted, for in that we too had really two distinct classes of men. West Point furnished even more officers than we needed, with thorough education, and the refined and expensive habits that education brings with it. The ranks were filled with foreigners and broken-down men, who had neither the ambition nor the ability to rise to anything higher. But we have changed all that. The healthiest and best blood of our country is flowing in that country's cause. Our army is composed of more than half a million citizens, young, eager, ambitious, and trained from infancy each to believe himself the equal of any man on earth. With the privates under their command the officers have for the most part been playmates, schoolmates, associates in business, all through life. A trifle more of experience or of energy, or the merest accident sometimes has made one captain, while the other has gone into the ranks; but unless those men were created over again, you could not make between them the difference that the army regulations contemplate. Once off duty, there is nothing left to found it on.

'I say, Jack,' said an officer at Pittsburg Landing to an old crony who was serving as private in another company, 'where did you get that turkey?'

'Well, cap, I want to know first whether you ask that question as an officer or as a friend.'

'As a friend, of course, Jack.'

'Then it's none of your d– business, Tom!'

The difference in pay is not only too great, but is made up in a way that shows its want of reason. Both have lived on the same fare all their lives, and the captain knows that it is an absurdity for him to be drawing the price of four rations a day on the supposition that he has been luxuriously trained, while in reality he satisfies his appetite with the same plain dishes served out to his brother in the ranks. He knows that it is an absurdity for him to receive a large pay in order to support his family according to their supposed rank, while the private's wife and children are to be made comfortable out of thirteen dollars a month; the fact being that Mrs. Captain and Mrs. Private probably live next door to each other at home, and exchange calls and groceries, and wear dresses from the same piece, and talk scandal about each other, all in as neighborly a manner as they have been accustomed to do all their lives. Indeed, whatever aristocracy of wealth and elegance was growing up among us has been set back at least a generation by this war, which has brought out into such prominent notice and elevated so high in our hearts the rougher merits of the strong arm and the dextrous hand. Every month sees a larger proportion of officers coming from among those whose habits have been the reverse of luxury. It is hard to say which would be more mischievous and absurd: for these to spend their extra pay and rations in an effort to copy the traditional style of an English Guardsman, or to keep on in their old way of life, and pocket large savings that are supposed to be thus spent.

We need therefore to root out entirely this division of the army into two classes. Let the scale of rank and pay rise by regular steps from corporal to general, so that the former may be as much or as little a 'commissioned officer' as his superiors. Abolish all invidious distinctions by a regular system of promotions from the ranks, and only from the ranks, except so far as West Point and kindred schools furnish men educated to commence active service at a higher round of the ladder. Then we shall have an army into which the best class of our youth can go as privates without feeling that they have more to dread in their own camps than on the battle field.

No doubt there would be an outcry against such a change from those who have been accustomed to the old system and enjoyed its benefits. This of itself would be no great obstacle, unless supported by a vague impression among the people at large that there must be some good reason for the present state of things, and that civilians had better not meddle with it. I see them sinking down covered with confusion when some red-faced old 'regular' bursts out upon them with 'Stuff, sir! What do you know about military matters?' The best answer to this is, that other nations, like the French, have set us the example, though by no means so well provided with intelligent material to draw from in the ranks; and that in fact England and the United States are about the only countries in which the evil is allowed to exist. In both of these it has remained from the fact that the body of the citizens have never been interested in the rank and file of the army. In this country we have now an entirely new state of things to provide for; and Yankee ingenuity must hide its head for shame if a very few years do not give us a republican army better organized and more efficient than any the world has yet seen.

TAMMANY

And at their meeting all with one accord
Cried: 'Down with Lincoln and Fort Lafayette!'
But while jails stand and some men fear the Lord,
How can ye tell what ye may chance to get?

IN MEMORIAM

In the dim and misty shade of the hazel thicket,
Three soldiers, brave Harry, and Tom with the dauntless eyes,
And light-hearted Charlie, are standing together on picket,
Keeping a faithful watch 'neath the starry skies.

Silent they stand there, while in the moonlight pale
Their rifle barrels and polished bayonets gleam;
Nought is heard but the owl's low, plaintive wail,
And the soft musical voice of the purling stream;

Save when in whispering tones they speak to each other
Of the dear ones at home in the Northland far away,
Each leaving with each a message for sister and mother,
If he shall fall in the fight that will come with the day.

Slowly and silently pass the hours of the night,
The east blushes red, and the stars fade one by one;
The sun has risen, and far away on the right
The booming artillery tells that the fight is begun.

'Steady, boys, steady; now, forward! charge bayonet!'
Onward they sweep with a torrent's resistless might;
With the rebels' life-blood their glittering blades are wet,
And many a patriot falls in the desperate fight.

The battle is ended—the victory won—but where
Are Harry and Charlie, and Tom with the dauntless eyes,
Who went forth in the morn, so eager to do and to dare?—
Alas! pale and pulseless they lie 'neath the starry skies.

Together they stood 'mid the storm of leaden rain,
Together advanced and charged on the traitor knaves,
Together they fell on the battle's bloody plain,
To-morrow together they'll sleep in their lowly graves.

A father's voice fails as he reads the list of the dead,
And a mother's heart is crushed by the terrible blow;
Yet there's something of pride that gleams through the tears they shed,
Pride, e'en in their grief, that their boys fell facing the foe.

And though the trumpet of fame shall ne'er tell their story,
Nor towering monument mark the spot where they lie,
Yet round their memory lingers an undying glory:
They gave all they could to their country—they only could die.

A MERCHANT'S STORY

'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'

CHAPTER XXII

I found Selma plunged in the deepest grief. The telegram which informed her of Preston's death was dated three days before (it had been sent to Goldsboro for transmission, the telegraph lines not then running to Newbern), and she could not possibly reach the plantation until after her father's burial; but she insisted on going at once. She would have his body exhumed; she must take a last look at that face which had never beamed on her but in love!

Frank proposed to escort her, but she knew he could not well be spared from business at that season; and, with a bravery and self-reliance not common to her years and her sex, she determined to go alone.

Shortly after my arrival at the house, she retired to her room with Kate, to make the final arrangements for the journey; and I seated myself with David, Cragin, and Frank, in the little back parlor, which the gray-haired old Quaker and his son-in-law had converted into a smoking room.

As Cragin was lighting his cigar, I said to him:

'Have you heard the news?'

'What news?'

'The dissolution of Russell, Rollins & Co.'

'No; there's nothing so good stirring. But you'll hear it some two years hence.'

'Read that;' and I handed him the paper which Hallet had signed.

'What is it, father?' asked Frank, his face alive with interest.