* j. 
|.1rizc lEssay. 
THE ENLISTED SOLDI HU/ 
BREVET LIEUT.-COLONEL A. A. WOODIIULL, 
Surgeon, U. S. Army. 
OTHER conditions being equal, the best material will make 
the best soldiery; and in view of the size to which the 
regular army will always be limited by our political institu- 
tions, it is important, first, to determine what is the best material, 
and how it is to be obtained. 
High pay and rigid discipline will convert a thousand illiterate 
roughs into a very efficient regiment. They will follow where 
they are led, will obey orders from fear of penalties, and will fight, 
if not from the love of fighting, at least with brutal recklessness. 
A thousand collegians, influenced by high motives, will quickly 
learn their technical duties, will adapt themselves to discipline, 
and will fight with spirit to the last. But the roughs will lack 
intelligence and principle, and the collegians will, probably, be 
unable to endure the physical strain and will grow discontented 
under prolonged restraint. 
QUALITIES OF A RECRUIT. 
The most efficient regular soldier will be intelligent, moder- 
ately well-informed, of sound health, vigorous physique and good 
habits. The physical qualifications are the most important, for 
the private soldier is a fighting machine, partly automatic and 
partly controlled by his officers. It is not enough for a recruit to 
be free from sickness and of good constitution. That is necessary, 
but more is required. The man who may pass a long life in a THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
sedentary occupation, or in one requiring skill rather than vigor, 
might speedily break down under exposure to hardship or to the 
tests of severe manual labor. He must be strong and likely to 
remain strong, as well as free from disease. The age of 18 years 
at which enlistments are now permitted is too young. Such a 
recruit is yet a growing lad, liable and almost certain to break 
down under the strain of an active campaign, if not of ordinary 
duty. It is true that some youths of 18 have the strength and 
appearance of men of 22, but they are exceptional. The orders 
require such recruits to possess all the physical attributes of vig- 
orous men, but the temptation to add a clean-limbed boy to his 
squad often is too great for the average recruiting officer to 
resist, even when he is qualified to judge of the effect of strain 
upon the immature frame. No man should carry a rifle before 
he is 21, nor then unless he is well knit and at his full height. 
The old maxim that the strength of a command is measured by 
the bayonets in the ranks, and not by the names upon the muster- 
roll, is always true. Twenty-one should therefore be the mini- 
mum age, with a preference for twenty-three. The maximum 
age in peace should be thirty for a first enlistment. An older 
man who voluntarily enlists for the first time is apt to have some 
physical or moral defect, probably carefully concealed, that has 
led to his failure in civil life. He is certainly not so trustworthy 
in mind or body; the one has become stubborn or unstable, the 
other stiffened or infirm. These remarks, of course, do not apply 
to subsequent enlistments, where there should be no limit on 
account of age alone. The present minimum height, five feet 
four inches, is a good one; and the ordinary minimum weight 
should be 128 pounds, with the privilege of accepting a man 
at 125 pounds, if in all other respects of the first order. The 
physiological rule of two pounds weight for every inch in 
height, to include five feet seven inches, and seven pounds for 
every additional inch, is an excellent one to follow in the selec- 
tion of recruits. The present limit of 190 pounds for infantry 
and 165 for mounted troops is very good, and the height should 
be controlled by the proportion already established. This general 
height and weight admit of exceptions within narrow limits after 
the minima are passed. 
The details for the physical examination of recruits are pro- 
vided for in special manuals not proper to be rehearsed here; but 
recruiting officers should always remember that good feet and THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
20 
legs, to transport the fighting machine, are essential; that the 
chest containing the heart and lungs should be ample; and that 
the arms should be strong. Mere height at the expense of lateral 
or proportionate development is worthless. The most efficient 
all-around soldiers are men between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 9 
inches—probably 5 feet 7 inches is the best height. There is no 
reason why every recruit who enters our small regular army in 
peace should not be of the highest physical development. For 
these troops are not only often hewers of wood and drawers of 
water for themselves and their fellows, but are compelled for long 
consecutive periods to build roads, bridges and barracks, to carry 
on almost all outdoor work and, besides, to be always ready for 
true military service. Each garrison is so small that there can be 
no idlers, no reserve, and every man must do a full man’s work. 
Civilians who merely see the little scarlet fringe of artillery 
along our sea-coast, are apt to look upon the whole army as an 
ornamental body, organized chiefly to participate in parades, 
funeral and complimentary; to act, in a general way, as a fetich 
with which to awe possible rioters; and to afford a few counters 
for officers in the study of theoretical games of war. I have heard 
travellers denounce cavalry, seen from a trans-continental car- 
window, as lazy vagabonds. But the army knows that the ar- 
tillery has worn, as it may again wear, crimson facings dyed in 
everglades and lava-beds; that the dust of perpetual marches and 
weary trails, as well as that of its cloud of countless skirmishes, 
has destroyed all contrast for the cavalry’s yellow; and that the 
infantry, faithful always, fainting never, has traced with its patient 
columns and dotted with a thousand graves the plains and the 
defiles of the farther West. In the Division of the Missouri 
alone, General Sheridan reported more than one thousand officers 
and men killed and wounded in the four hundred and odd armed 
collisions that occurred between 1867 and 1882. The scattered 
army is itself liable to forget how much fighting is constantly 
being done, and what vastly greater marching and exposure to 
torrid sun and arctic frost such statistics imply. These points are 
revived to show that, independently of their severe labors as work- 
men, the soldiers as soldiers require to be of the finest physique, 
of the soundest material. There is no corps cTelite to receive the 
picked men. Every recruit should be without a physical flaw 
and should be fully mature. His bones and his muscles should 
require only daily repair, not building up anew. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
21 
For the field musicians I would draw no such limit of age. 
The law now permits their enlistment at sixteen years, but the 
rulings of the recruiting service make it exceedingly difficult for 
them to enlist under eighteen at all, or as musicians without 
liability of assignment as privates. This is a mistake. The 
duties of the two classes are essentially distinct, and music boys 
can endure what they may be called upon when as privates they 
would break down. The earlier they are taught the more readily 
they learn, and, while it is out of the question to make a drum- 
mer after twenty years, the best age for such instruction to begin 
is twelve. I believe the limits between which first enlistments 
of field musicians can be made should be from fourteen to 
eighteen, without the power of transfer as privates before the 
age of twenty-one. I would forbid all enlistments except of 
band musicians between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. 
And to complete the subject of field music, I would have 
these boys retained two years at depot; they should be quartered 
by themselves; while there they should be carefully instructed 
in music at least two hours daily; they should be compelled 
to spend three hours a day in school, and be brought under the 
discipline of the rods if necessary; they should be for general 
fatigue, and be exempt from special fatigue and kitchen police 
while at depot, and should be carefully instructed by precept as well 
as by example in the general principles of a soldier’s duty. After 
two years they should be eligible for assignment, and when as- 
signed should be instructed in target practice, but as already 
observed, should not be transferable as privates. The field music 
should be drilled in marching, but always in their first enlist- 
ment in light marching order only. In severe marches as boys 
they should be carried. The object of this is to create a small 
corps of carefully instructed musicians who, at the same time, 
will afford a nursery for the cultivation of efficient soldiers. 
The foregoing remarks apply to the army in peace. For war 
the conditions, except as to the minimum age, should be relaxed. 
Many a man who could not be depended upon for the hard work 
that might fall upon him during nominal peace, could perfectly 
discharge duties that a large army creates in war. It is econom- 
ical in the best sense to create battalions like those of the 
Veteran Reserve Corps for selected duties. These should be of 
men with minor blemishes and should receive a lower grade of 
pay, except when wounds on duty cause the defect. But all such 22 
\ 
deviations from the normal, with their origin, should be carefully 
inscribed on the muster-in rolls and the descriptive lists. Thou- 
sands of men were enrolled as volunteers during the rebellion who 
were physically infirm. Doubtless many of those are now pen- 
sioners, for memory plays sad havoc with facts where glory and 
gold together call. 
Besides the physical qualifications noted, white recruits in 
peace should be able to read fairly, to speak and understand 
English easily, and to write their names. Should, as some- 
times happens, a man sign his name mechanically and with 
no appreciation of detail, he should be required to learn to read 
and write at depot, and if he fail should be discharged. An 
enforcement of this rule with the colored regiments wrould pos- 
sibly lead to their disbandment. Nevertheless the rule is a good 
one for peace. Illiterate men are less easily managed and are 
much less useful. 
METHODS OF ENLISTMENT. 
Following a long and unworthy tradition, recruiting rendezvous 
are frequently, fortunately not always, fixed in those parts of the 
great cities where not only the floating population is the greatest, 
but where the lower haunts of dissipation abound. The chances 
are in favor of thus acquiring an undue proportion of vicious and 
reckless men. By establishing the rendezvous in respectable 
parts of the town, confining them, however, to the sections in- 
habited by the working classes, and directing attention to them 
by posted advertisements in all parts of the city, not only a better 
class of recruits would be acquired, but when enlisted they would 
be removed from the demoralizing surroundings to which they 
now are exposed. Doubtless fewer applicants would present 
themselves, and rent and advertising would be somewhat greater; 
but the ultimate expense would be less from the character of the 
recruits and in the service they would render. 
Besides the' fixed rendezvous in the larger cities, it would 
probably be advantageous to establish temporary ones in the 
rural districts. An intelligent and wrell-behaved recruiting party 
with a discreet officer in charge, by making a tour through the 
interior, stopping long enough to become well known and calling 
attention to .their anticipated presence by preliminary advertise- 
ments, would do much to dispel the prejudice against the army, 
would be able to select from a large field, would have excellent 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
23 
opportunities to investigate the character of applicants, and 
should easily keep the army full with a good class of native 
youth. As an old soldier lately remarked to me, “Country boys 
may not be as smart as those in cities, but neither have they the 
same education in vice.” I know that it will be said that country 
enlistments are failures, and there will be pointed out as an 
instance the case of a special rendezvous opened in the interior, 
from which all the men were sent to one of the larger and more 
attractive permanent garrisons, and where in turn they all, or 
nearly all, were promptly discharged. The evil there, as it will 
be everywhere with inexperienced officers, or those who look 
upon recruiting as nominal duty and have more regard for num- 
bers than for quality, was that the men were not critically ex- 
amined. It is useless to accept men as soldiers who are not 
physically fit. But fit men can be found, and the country con- 
tains more of a better class than the cities. There are, however, 
certain large sections where it is useless to recruit in time of 
peace. For instance, experience has shown that general recruit- 
ing on the Pacific coast will not secure enough men to keep full 
the regiments stationed there. The most of those men need only 
a blanket and a rifle to be self-supporting, and as the Govern- 
ment supplies these they decamp as soon as inclination impels. 
I suspect the same is true of the Rocky Mountain region, but I 
am not in a position to speak positively. * 
Peripatetic recruiting parties will probably be refused by the 
War Department on account of the expense of transportation. 
But adequate appropriations could doubtless be secured if the con- 
gressional committees were made to understand that what was 
expended in getting these men from all parts of the country 
would be saved by the infrequency of their desertion. It would 
be quite possible to try the experiment on a small scale with the 
funds now at the disposal of the recruiting service. But for its 
initial success the recruiting party must be selected and be in- 
structed in its work, and rigid inspection is at all times an 
essential. 
The plan of raising certain regular regiments within fixed 
geographical limits, as occasionally proposed, is not good. Upon 
such an apportionment, very wide areas—whole States in some 
cases—would be required to complete the quota, which would 
defeat the main object of having an intelligent and interested 
constituency behind them ; in other cases entire regiments would 24 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
be formed from the city drift; as already seen, there are extensive 
sections that could not be depended upon at all; and under the 
most favorable circumstances the demand and supply would be 
difficult to equalize. But distinctly and fatally the objection 
would be in their becoming practically local troops; troops who 
unconsciously would regard themselves as from such and such 
districts, rather than United States soldiers whose allegiance 
would be first and always to the whole country, jealousies 
would be engendered, congressmen would b'e applying political 
methods to secure officers and stations for “their” regiments, and 
these organizations would ultimately merge their federal in their 
local character. Such inference is foreshadowed in the following 
curious explanation made by one of the adjutants-general in the 
spring of 1861, why a certain large city on the Atlantic coast 
contained no rendezvous: “The reason why no rendezvous was 
opened in was, that Hon. applied for the dis- 
charge-of so many of his constituents, that Hon. John B. Floyd, 
rather than refuse him at the rate of six per week, ordered the 
rendezvous to be closed. Rent was paid for two buildings, after 
they ceased to be occupied, for nearly a year.” 
Where regiments are raised for a limited time and a specific 
purpose, as in the active prosecution of a war, it is an element of 
strength to have ties of civil association, provided the officers are 
carefully selected. But’ even during the Rebellion, after a few 
notable early exceptions, the authorities discouraged as much as 
the brigading together of troops from the same State, for fear of 
fostering local, at the expense of national, feeling. But the econ- 
omy of the regular and of the volunteer service are distinct, and 
the latter is not now under discussion. 
NATURE OF THE ENLISTMENT. 
In consideration of the ignorance of the average recruit as to 
the engagement he is about to enter, and in view of the doubt as 
to his own character on the part of the officers, it would be to the 
public advantage for first enlistments in the general service, dur- 
ing peace, to be conditional for a limited period. (General service 
in this paper includes mounted service, unless the contrary is 
manifest, in distinction from regimental recruits and recruiting.) 
This innovation, because it is an innovation, will not meet with 
favor from many conservative minds. It offends the traditions: so 
did percussion caps; so did breech-loaders; so did the existing THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
25 
tactics. Others will object that a man should know his own 
mind, and should not be permitted to temporize with, and retract 
from a serious pursuit once undertaken. Many early desertions 
occur because men do know their own minds and find that the 
engagements they have assumed are not what they expected. 
They are disappointed, and five years is so long a period for a 
young man to anticipate that many, regardless of their oath, solve 
the problem by desertion. 
I advise first enlistments in peace to be modified substan- 
tially as follows: The preliminary or conditional enlistment to 
be for four months; the recruit to receive weekly pay on 
special rolls at the rate of three-fourths of the regular pay 
of a private, one-half in cash and one-half retained ; his 
civilian clothing to be carefully stored for him ; no uniform 
clothing to be issued in excess of his actual current needs. 
Should he not desire to renew the engagement, or should the 
Government decline to retain him, he should be discharged with- 
out travel-pay or allowances, but should receive his four months’ 
retained half-pay. He should turn in to the Quartermaster his 
uniform clothing, underclothing and blanket excepted, and he 
should receive back his civilian’s clothes. There should be no 
other settlement of the clothing account during this period, and 
no system of trader’s credit. The subsistence department should 
be required to keep for sale to the recruit the articles now speci- 
fied by law, and a few others, including wash-basins. To the 
recruit on arrival at depot should be sold, on credit if desired, one 
basin, one comb, one towel, and one piece of castile soap. If 
sold on credit, the government should re-imburse itself out of the 
payments made him in the second month. This conditional en- 
listment should in no respect lessen the careful physical exami- 
nation now required at depot, nor in any way interfere with the 
government’s right to discharge the recruit at any time, at its own 
pleasure. On the other hand should he desire to remain and the 
government be willing to retain him, his permanent enlistment 
should occur, in reckoning which the four months already served 
should be counted. His clothing-account should be settled at 
the first regular period; he should receive in cash the half-pay 
retained, and the difference between the regular pay and the pay 
already received should be placed to his credit for payment 
when honorably discharged. Such a system, or one on the same 
general plan, which would require the authority of law, would 26 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
not be complicated, notwithstanding certain clerical objections 
that will always be urged against departure from old methods, 
would not be nearly as costly to the Government as the present 
system of unconditional enlistment and frequent desertion, and 
would very largely do away with the causes of current discontent. 
It is probable that Congress would authorize the enlistment of a 
certain number of such conditional recruits in addition to the 
regular force, at least to test the experiment, if so advised by 
those in authority. While it is probably better that all men 
in their first enlistment should pass through the probationary 
period at a depot, it is quite possible to apply the same system 
to regimental enlistments. 
This conditional enlistment should be such only as above 
specified; in all matters of duty and of discipline the recruit 
should stand on the same footing as an ordinary soldier. In war 
there should be no conditional enlistments. 
Whatever the length of the permanent enlistment, provision 
should be made for a soldier to purchase his discharge at any 
period of it, at the option of the Government. No man should 
look forward to it as a right, but to any worthy man it should 
be conceded as a favor. The conditions upon which a dis- 
charge could be purchased are of very simple calculation, and 
such an opportunity for a man to relieve himself independently 
of political favor, often so hard to secure by the most deserving, 
would be another incentive to good behavior. 
There is a growing feeling that the enlistment should be 
shortened and the interval for re-enlistment increased. Three 
years is barely long enough in which to make a good soldier, and 
the whole of it is required to form a cavalryman worthy the name. 
But in view of the many opportunities that occur in civil life in 
the course of five years for an intelligent man to improve his 
condition, and of the fact that first enlistments generally take 
place at an age when men are most hopeful and are least disposed 
to bind themselves, if it can be avoided, to a condition that the 
ordinary civilian regards as odious, 1 am inclined to believe a 
three-year first enlistment would swell the number of recruits and 
would improve their quality. Subsequent enlistments, when the 
man thoroughly understands what to expect, should be for five 
years, as at present, and should include all the advantages of 
increased pay now offered. But the period during which techni- 
cal re-enlistment may occur might profitably be extended to THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
27 
three months. Such delay is practically offering a moderate 
bounty for trained soldiers, and is an encouragement for men to 
return to the colors if so disposed, after a short relaxation or trial 
of civil life. The value to the Government of an instructed 
soldier over an uninstructed recruit is such that, on the lowest 
basis of profit and loss, it pays to bid for trained men. Besides 
which it would give the discharged man the feeling that the army 
is a home in which he would be welcome, and it would increase 
his attachment to it. To give a re-enlisted man a bonus of three 
months’ pay proper would be a cheap outlay for a good purpose ; 
and he should be distinctly promised assignment to the regiment 
of his choice if there are vacancies, but men should not be enlisted 
in the general service for special regiments. 
The suggestion made in high quarters that all enlistments 
should be for one year, seems to me to be the practical disinte- 
gration of the army in the guise of reform. Its only possible 
advantage is that it will probably decrease desertion in name. 
He would be a very unstable and worthless man who would not 
endure his position, with the prospect of certain release in a few 
months after he had discovered his grievance. On the other hand, 
the enlistment and discharge of the entire military force once a 
year would still further burden our paper-ridden army with just 
five times the clerical work it now transacts on the same subject, 
and it would turn any particular command into a perfect kaleido- 
scope of material. PAen a minimum company would lose, on an 
average, one man every ten days by expiration of service alone, 
and the larger companies proportionally. Many, of course, 
would re-enlist, but they could not be depended upon to do so in 
the same company nor in continuous service, and a captain would 
be constantly learning new characters if not actually training raw 
recruits. The spirit of unrest, the hope of improvement, would 
almost destroy the homogeneousness of a company, and it might 
even be that a captain would find himself obliged to cater to the 
whims of his men, and not to follow alone his own judgment, in 
order to keep his ranks filled. 
But the graver evil of one-year enlistments would be to the 
men themselves and to the army as a whole. One of the essen- 
tial qualities of a regular force is the sense of stability, of firm- 
ness, that it inspires in others, that it feels in itself. An army 
of one year’s men would be like a gang of laborers hired for a 
job. They would possess nearly all the bad qualities of volun- 28 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
teers without their saving grace of fighting for principle; for 
volunteers are held to their work more by subjective than by 
objective considerations. A regiment marched into a disagree- 
able station or on an unpleasant duty would be practically dis- 
banded. A company with an unpopular commander, whether 
deservedly so or not, would indeed be a skeleton, without vital 
force or muscular power. Such commands would serve as mere 
schools for recruits received from depot, who would not tarry 
beyond the year. Discipline in both its good and its bad sense 
would be abrogated, and neither officers nor men would know on 
whom they could depend. The year’s enlistment, avowedly pro- 
posed as a remedy for desertion, by its stimulus to dispersion 
under the encouragement of law would leave the army in effect 
very little better off, besides immensely increasing the travel-pay 
and clothing-account bills. 
It is perfectly conceivable that with this concession to the 
volatile habits of organized workers, a wave of discontent might 
in any one year leave the Nation practically disarmed by the 
operation of its own law. It would only be necessary for its 
trained soldiers to abstain for a very short period from enlisting, 
for all the substantial effects of mutiny to be attained. 
CHARACTER OF RECRUITS AND THEIR TREATMENT ON 
ENLISTMENT. 
In peace very few men enlist for the first time for any love 
for, or knowledge of, the profession of arms. The army is re- 
cruited chiefly, but not exclusively, from the ranks of unskilled 
labor, and the impelling motive is usually want of employment. 
Mechanics and clerks occasionally enlist from the same cause. A 
certain percentage enlist under assumed names, usually to escape 
moral trouble of various degrees. Some in order to avoid, as they 
suppose, work of any sort. A very few in the expectation of 
a life of adventure, and a certain small number in the hope of 
obtaining a commission. Not one man in a thousand, excluding 
those who have served in foreign armies, enlists for the first time 
in the United States Army with any knowledge, or true appreci- 
ation, of a military life. 
In relation to foreign soldiers, who are chiefly German and 
British, it may be said, once for all, that the Germans usually 
enlist only in default of civil employment, but that they make very 
patient, subordinate and trustworthy men. Although occasionally THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
29 
wrong-headed they never are mutinous and rarely disorderly. On 
the contrary an ex-British soldier, especially an Englishman, is sel- 
dom worth his rations. Generally well set up and “smart ” they know 
their duty but they are constant grumblers, stirring up discontent; 
they usually are drunkards, are unaccustomed and averse to the 
fatigue work our service requires, and, as a rule, do not serve out 
their enlistments. Many are deserters before enlisting, and, after 
being paid a few times, desert from us. An experienced officer 
can usually detect at once a British soldier, and, in my opinion, 
every such applicant who cannot produce a good discharge should 
be rejected. 
Th£ War Department rules that desertion from a foreign, ser- 
vice, even during peace, is not evidence of that bad character that 
should reject a recruit ; but, practically speaking, such men are 
worthless themselves and a source of corruption to others. When, 
unfortunately, enlisted they should be governed with inflexible 
rigor; accustomed to severity, they best appreciate severe rule. 
There are a few honorable exceptions, increasing now that short 
term enlistments are more common abroad. These men with 
good discharges should be warned as to the different conditions 
of our service, and then be held strictly accountable for their con- 
formity to the milder discipline to which they are about to bow. 
But judicious management of the raw recruit is a complex 
problem. The alien who enlists is accustomed to authority and 
will accept without a murmur any treatment that is accompanied 
by food and clothing. The native of a higher grade, and, con- 
trary to popular opinion, the majority of the rank and file are 
native born, who has by the operation of a simple formula trans- 
ferred himself absolutely into the power of others, by no means 
promptly realizes his new condition, and when he does he is fairly 
stunned. To find himself, literally, writh no free will as to what 
he shall eat, or whither he shall go, or wherewithal he shall be 
clothed ; to be denied the privilege of response and to have un- 
questioned obedience exacted as to the minutest matters, involv- 
ing position and gesture as well as speech, is a trial that to many 
men is painful to the last degree. Some men do not care, but it 
is those who do care that are usually the best material and for 
whom the road to soldiership should be most carefully graded. 
Generally speaking it may be said that on enlistment the recruit is 
perfectly willing to do all that is required of him when he can 
comprehend it, but the application of cast-iron rules to men of 
all intelligence induces much, and often unnecessary, friction. 30 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
There is reason to suppose that many general service recruits 
feel much aggrieved at the very outset by the compulsory sale of 
their civilian’s clothing under circumstances that rarely allow them 
to realize its full value. This may be a small thing financially, but 
it is very important to a destitute man to get the full value of 
clothing that he may have bought with difficulty, and that, in 
view of a possible rejection at depot, becomes of much contin- 
gent interest to him. Under the system of conditional enlist- 
ments, proposed, this forced sale would be avoided. 
The recruit’s fare at rendezvous will compare favorably with 
that of an ordinary laborer, but is often such as he has neither 
been accustomed to nor can digest, and he suffers accordingly. 
To many, however, it is more ample and nutritious than they 
have lately had. Detention at rendezvous, varying from a few 
days to several weeks, is always tiresome and usually very disa- 
greeable. Notwithstanding the extra expense of frequently trans- 
porting the soldier in charge, the prompt transfer of men to 
depot should be insisted upon, and they should be given the 
choice of retaining their civilian clothes for the journey. The 
essential motive for uniforming recruits immediately upon enlist- 
ment is for their easier identification,—there certainly can be no 
question of esprit in the awkward and bewildered men clothed 
with ill-fitting and unaccustomed garments, ft does mark them, 
but not in such a way as to reflect credit on the army or to add 
to their own self-respect. The men who will desert by the way 
are rarely worth, for their own sakes, a second thought; they 
certainly are not worth the clothes in which they are incased. 
The average civilian draws no distinction between the soldier of 
one week’s or of ten years’ service: he brands them all with the same 
mental stamp and will best remember the most forlorn specimen. 
As a matter of popular education, the gross and untidy novice 
should be veiled as such from the public eye. Once enlisted, send 
the recruit immediately away to his newer field, and send him 
comfortably and with adequate food by the way, even should a 
special allowance be necessary. This is not always done, and al- 
though no material mischief is known to have followed, very great 
personal discomfort in cold and hunger does sometimes occur. 
First impressions are lasting, and the man who is neglected and 
ill-treated, or who may consider himself thus, however he becomes 
accustomed to his fate, will not regard his novitate with satis- 
faction. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
There is much difference of opinion as to whether recruits 
should be retained at depot for a moderate period or be trans- 
ferred at once to regiments. In theory, if a recruit is carefully 
selected at enlistment, it is better that he should be sent with the 
least practicable delay to the special command that he must ulti- 
mately join. There by daily contact with trained men, by uncon- 
scious moulding in the routine of company life, it is held that he 
will more quickly acquire the knowledge and polish that make an 
instructed out of an uninstructed soldier. Just as a foreign lan- 
guage and foreign manners may be most quickly acquired by 
compulsory residence among foreigners in their own homes, so 
recruits at once introduced into the company ranks are soon as- 
similated beyond the notice of a casual observer. It is without 
question the proper way to keep up the files in war. 
But during peace the various regiments are so exceedingly 
widespread that there are few to which it is possible to send the 
men as recruited ; and, moreover, in practice it is found that the 
selection at the rendezvous is not final. About an average of two 
hundred men a year are discharged at depots for conditions not 
patent or not discovered at rendezvous. It is to the interest of 
both the Government and the men that the unfit should be elimi- 
nated before they are transferred further. 
Men in their first enlistment are now required to remain at 
depot four months for instruction and observation. More than 
any other of the same length is this period important in the en- 
listed man’s career, and, in the writer’s opinion, it should be 
strictly probationary. But for that there is no present provision. 
The Government closes its hand with great firmness upon every 
man once upon its muster-roll and the able-bodied recruit has no 
escape except through fraud. Theoretically, men of bad charac- 
ter may be discharged there, but General Sherman’s common de- 
cision was, “ this is a case for discipline.” I am confident that to 
permit either the man or the Government to terminate the con- 
tract, substantially as before suggested, would conduce to con- 
tentment and efficiency. 
Until comparatively recently the doctrine, “anything is good 
enough for recruits,” has prevailed in fact if not in word, and the 
very class most in need of them has been the most deprived of 
the material comforts of a soldier’s life. A few years ago one of 
the depots was thus described : “ One company room has bunks 
for the accommodation of 120 men, giving 190 cubic feet air space THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
32 
per man [600 feet is the minimum sanitarians demand]. It now 
contains one hundred men who are seemingly comfortable. It is 
only when more than 200 men are packed into this room, as some- 
times necessity demands, covering the floor like red herring in a 
box, that discontent becomes irrepressible and desertion results. 
* * * When the strength of the command exceeds the capacity 
of the garrison it is not only that the soldier suffers discomfort on 
account of the crowded condition of the dormitories, but the 
absolutely necessary accommodations of the hospital, mess-room 
privies, etc., add greatly to his sufferings, morally and physically. 
He is required to wait patiently his turn to each and every place 
his poor, frail humanity drives him. It is sad to contemplate the 
feelings of a young raw recruit * * * when he is ordered to re- 
port to the sergeant * * * and is assigned to little else than 
standing room in a dormitory and a place in line to wait his turn 
for a seat in the mess-room, to a pine table, tin cup, and ever- 
lastingly boiled meat.” * 
Matters are better now, but with overcrowding similar mis- 
chief is liable to follow. At another depot new comers were 
quartered in structures that twenty years before were temporary, 
with not even so much as a wash-basin furnished by the public, 
and where there was no provision whatever for a bath of the 
person. Fortunately that is improved out of existence, but there 
are hundreds of soldiers now in the army who know these places 
by their own experience, and scores of men abandoned the musket 
without leave because of just such trials. Worse than these, one 
depot has for years been a distributing reservoir of typhoid fever, 
spreading that disease with almost every draft, peopling its own 
graveyard and sending victims into others all over the West. 
These grosser evils are gradually disappearing but there may be 
further improvement. 
Some conditions peculiar to the recruit require further atten- 
tion. One is 
FOOD. 
The general question of subsistence is deferred to a later page. 
It is enough to say here that there should be a bread and meat 
allowance in kind, not by substitution, of a ration and a half of 
the present size for every recruit of less than four months’ service. 
Should, occasionally, it not be needed it should not be drawn, 
* “ Report on the Hygiene U. S. Army, 1875,” p. 26. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
33 
but constant experience shows that recruits will eat about that 
much of these articles, day by day, if they can get them. It is a 
by-word that recruits are always hungry. The hunger is real and 
should be respected. To a certain class the diet and the cookery 
are too coarse, and their stomachs reject everything but the staples 
just named, which they crave in excess. Others find themselves 
stimulated by the open air life; while a third group.underfed and 
exposed to want, need more food to bring them up to a normal 
standard. Messing for recruits, and for recruits only, should be 
by garrison and not by company. This involves special arrange- 
ments, but it will insure economy of time, of labor, of materials, 
and of temper, with an increase of comfort. 
INSTRUCTION. 
At depots, recruits should be grouped into provisional com- 
panies for instruction in the school of the soldier and for general 
discipline. The musicians should not be carried, as at present, 
either on paper or in fact, with these companies; for they, too, are 
under instruction of their own, have their quite independent 
duties and should not be subject to a mixed allegiance or divided 
authority. 
The companies can only be nominal and only exist for pur- 
poses of instruction. Their maximum should be ioo privates, 
while 75 would be a better limit. If larger, some men will cer- 
tainly be neglected. They should be companies of instruction 
pure and simple, with everything subordinated to the single idea 
of military training. To this end the entire public attention of 
all above the grade of private should be given to the men, and 
that of the men to their personal military duties. From these 
duties no man should be diverted until fairly instructed, and then 
only for necessary and specific purposes*. To aid in this, only very 
limited paper work, such as rosters for guard and fatigue, morn- 
ing reports and the most necessary current writing, should be 
transacted in the company. Everything beyond that, like de- 
scriptive lists, clothing-accounts, muster-rolls and discharge papers 
should be relegated to a central office. 
INSTRUCTORS. 
To supply efficient and judicious instructors is a very difficult 
matter. Each recruit company should have for duty with it two 
commissioned officers, which is not now the case, and sergeants THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
34 
selected with especial reference to the interest they will take in 
the monotonous duty of instruction. The obsolete but unrepeal- 
ed order for the detail of regimental sergeants is ineffective. They 
were sent either because undesirable in their companies, or as a 
reward for faithful duty, with the expectation of relaxation. They 
have no relaxation and they very soon weary of the treadmill work 
and lose interest. The sergeants should be well-instructed, intelli- 
gent and patient men, with pride in their profession and doing 
their work with firmness, tact and kindness. Practically the de- 
pots depend upon their own resources for the warrant officers and 
these often are insufficient. Sergeants for depots should have 
served at least one enlistment and be discharged with an excellent 
character, and certain special inducements should be held out to 
them for the performance of duty which, while it involves no 
hardships in the physical sense, lacks very many of the attractions 
that ordinary service yields. Among these, in the opinion of an 
experienced and intelligent non-commissioned officer consulted by 
the writer, would be separate messing and a distinct club room or 
place of resort for non-commissioned officers. The promiscuous 
mingling at a trader's store in the familiarity that so soon breeds 
contempt, and similar association in the common mess, detract 
from the respect that they should receive for the sake of disci- 
pline. Such arrangements would increase their deserved personal 
comfort and would heighten their self-respect. 1 concur in these 
views, and would add that the First Sergeants should have the act- 
ual rank and pay of that grade, not merely, as at present, the 
“acting” status, and that there be one duty sergeant, warrant or 
lance, to every sixteen privates. 
ARTISANS, ETC. 
In all commands unde# the self-supporting system of the army, 
certain artificers and other extra and daily duty men must be em- 
ployed, and they must be selected at the depots for assignment 
where necessary. The selection can only be made by carefully 
testing them, and this in turn requires overseers or foremen of the 
respective trades, whose stay at depot should be longer than the 
ordinary limit. The temptation is to put a recruit carpenter at 
work as a carpenter too soonjfor his military advantage, and if he 
is a good carpenter, to excuse him from the ranks too long; to 
select a handy man for some special work before he is well-drilled, 
and to develop his specialty, be it clerical or manual, at the ex- THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
35 
pense of his martial duty. Such men are always at a disadvan- 
tage. When they join their commands they are under arms only 
in emergencies, and thus when most is required have the least 
to depend on. The remedy is obvious; every officer knows 
what should be done with such recruits, and the caution is intro- 
duced merely because the completeness of the paper demands it. 
Nevertheless there is a constant temptation to sacrifice the public 
and common future good to some local and immediate advan- 
tage. 
CLERICAL DUTY. 
There is a point in connection with the administration of depots 
that does not bear distinctly upon the individual recruit, but is im- 
portant enough to warrant introduction. This is the central clerical 
bureau-the adjutant’s office in a wider sense than that of an ordinary' 
regimental headquarters. There is an enormous amount of clerical 
work required at the various depots to properly account for the 
two thousand men who yearly drift into and out of each of them. 
Many of the papers are voluminous, some are peculiar, some re- 
quire promptness and all accuracy. The work is tiresome, often 
irregular, and always requires special instruction; for much of it 
differs from the ordinary regimental and company records, and all 
of it is dissimilar to that of civil life. The recruit so employed 
soon tires and feels his time as a soldier is wasted, while at the 
same time he develops a distaste for company and fatigue duty. 
It would be in the interest of efficiency to allow no recruits in the 
central office and to have a small but effective corps of general 
service clerks, who would be liable to transfer to the ranks for 
misconduct. 
CONTROL. 
To return to the ordinary recruits: fit must always be remem- 
bered that the majority of these men will do precisely as they are de- 
sired if they can understand it, but that there will always be found a 
proportion of the sullen and vicious, who may act as a very demoral- 
izing ferment. It is in the development and control of the two va- 
rieties that officers display their judgment. The subject of punish- 
ment at large will be discussed under the general head of discipline. 
But recruits at depot must be treated with unswerving firmness, 
which at first should not be marred by severity ; and, above all, 
decision and promptness are vital qualities in the infliction of 
any penalty. At no place is it so important to distinguish garri- 
son from general prisoners, for nowhere is a raw boy confined, it THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
may be for a technical and inadvertent offense, so likely to be 
contaminated, if not spoiled, by some chronic deserter waiting 
trial, or by a vicious rough, upon whom forbearance is wasted. 
Depots should not become places of confinement for military pris- 
oners from other commands, nor should their own offenders of a 
bad type be kept longer than necessary for trial. Recruits, like 
other children, must be made to understand that obedience is the 
first moral law in their new life ; but they should be corrected be- 
fore they are chastised. Nevertheless a penalty to be recognized 
should follow every lapse. It need not be severe, but it should be 
felt. 
AMUSEMENTS. 
It is much more important to keep men contented than to punish 
them for offenses often bred by discontent. This is especially 
true at depots where, while the work is not severe, the confine- 
ment without constant occupation is very irksome, and very try- 
ing to men fresh from the freedom if not, indeed, the leisure of 
civil life. Good libraries do exist, but soldiers cannot be expected 
to be students, and their bodies, quite as much as their minds, re* 
quire exercise. An amusement hall, rationally constructed and 
adequately equipped, should be a part of every depot, as well as 
of the larger and more isolated posts. 
So much space has been devoted to recruits, because from 
them the army is made and their early impressions are apt to last 
the longest. 
EQUIPMENT. 
As the equipment of a soldier, will be discussed the personal 
arms and appliances that, in addition to his clothing and rations, 
are necessary for the discharge of his duties in garrison, and his 
complete independence agd efficient service in the field. Techni- 
cally, arms and accoutrements are not equipment. 
ARMS. 
The question of arms in detail scarcely comes within the scope 
of this essay, as I understand its conditions; but the following 
general considerations may be noted : The infantry soldier should 
be armed with a breech-loading rifle and bayonet of the most ap- 
proved pattern. What that pattern, which will change from time to 
time, may be, is to be determined on occasion. At present it is the 
Springfield rifle with triangular bayonet; in the near future it will 
be a magazine rifle, at least for the steadier troops. In addition 
to, not in place of, the bayonet, he should carry in the field an THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
37 
intrenching tool, that will serve to cut the brush as well as to 
turn the soil, and that will not fit upon his rifle. The capabilities 
of the bayonet as a weapon should be mastered. The field mu- 
sic and the non-commissioned staff should carry the intrenching 
tool and be adepts in its use, and the non-commissioned staff 
should be armed with revolvers and carry straight swords for cere- 
monial purposes. Swords are a useless incumbrance to musicians. 
There should always be spare pieces in garrison for the care- 
ful instruction in rifle practice of all men not habitually armed. 
When an emergency arises for their employment in battle, the 
weapons would soon be at hand. Cavalry should carry the sabre 
attached to the saddle as a rule; and wooden scabbards would ob- 
viate much of the rattle that is sometimes supposed to herald an oth- 
erwise silent march on the plains. As United States cavalry is essen- 
tially mounted infantry, short rifles should be issued, to be carried 
or not, according to circumstances. The carbine has neither suffic- 
ient range nor accuracy, and the infantry rifle will interfere with the 
close formation. But an arm somewhat longer than the carbine 
might be used. There should be tactical provision for carrying 
the rifle across the pommel when mounted, as is habitually done 
on the route. Slung over the neck with the muzzle in the socket in- 
volves great danger to the rider with a horse that falls, especially 
at speed. Some device to free the muzzle promptly would lessen 
that risk. As mounted troops the cavalry need the revolver, al- 
though it weakens the value of the sabre. Nevertheless they 
should appreciate cold steel, and to be swordsmen they must be 
taught its use and the weapon be worn, and not packed away in 
arm-chests. In practice this, like many other details of service, 
depends upon the company commander. There are some troops 
where the men are masters of the weapon* but there are more where 
they know nothing of its capabilities. The same is true of the 
infantry with the bayonet. The insufficient training of the horses 
is one of our great difficulties in the use of fire-arms as cavalry. 
Their education is receiving more attention, but as a rule the 
horse requires too much of the rider’s care, under fire. Heavy 
artillery is armed as infantry; light and horse artillery to carry 
pistols, and the chiefs of pieces, sabres. 
OTHER PERSONAL APPOINTMENTS. 
The most difficult part of the problem of equipment is the dis- 
tribution of the burdens that the individual soldier must bear. It THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
may be assumed at once that the modern soldier will never, and 
should never, carry his full dress uniform, except when clothed in 
it; and that when it is worn, his pack will be limited to the merest 
and most temporary necessaries of arms and food. In changing 
station his full dress and extra clothing is to be transported by the 
quartermaster. But in campaign, under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances, the soldier must carry heavy weights. In addition to 
undress uniform that he wears, which weighs ten pounds; his arms 
and accoutrements (as infantry) weigh 12 lbs. 8 ounces; fifty cart- 
ridges weigh 5 lbs. 5 ounces; the haversack, canteen, etc., empty, 
4 lbs. 2 1-2 ounces; one day’s water and rations, 3 i-2 lbs. So 
that his minimum burden as a mere belligerent, exclusive of his 
clothing, is 25 lbs. 8 ounces. But his clothing is dead weight, re- 
quiring the expenditure of force. He carries, therefore, 35 1-2 
lbs. at the least. But in practice he must carry a blanket, 5 lbs.; 
extra underclothing, 4 1-2 lbs.; and is liable to require more am- 
munition and rations in the above proportion. He must therefore 
carry 35 lbs.,/>/us the clothes he wears. One piece of shelter tent 
weighs two pounds and the blanket bag about the same. When 
the spare clothing and the various small items are reckoned, the 
soldier in the field, will be found burdened with 50 lbs., dead 
weight, without accounting for extra ammunition or rations. It is 
very easy for careless men, or inconsiderate officers, to start a column 
more heavily oppressed. The immemorial knapsack modern troops 
find insufferable. This is not from their greater debility, but prob- 
ably because of the more severe exertion required of them. More 
attention is also paid to disabilities arising from such causes, that 
formerly were supposed to be spontaneous. It is insisted by mil- 
itary surgeons that the compression of the chest and the constric- 
tion under the arm-pits by the necessary straps, produce serious 
disease of the heart, the blood-vessels and the lungs, known as 
hypertrophy, aneurism and emphysema. “ Soldier’s heart ” is un- 
derstood to be an irritable state, growing from overwork required 
when the chest is unduly compressed; and men who have 
worn the knapsack know how the arms will tingle and will sometimes 
refuse their functions when the nerves and vessels in the arm-pits 
have been inordinately compressed. The ordnance department has 
attempted to remedy this by the device of a blanket bag. But 
the blanket bag is really the old “ monkey on the back,” and is the 
footman’s form of the knight’s “black care.” To discuss the dif- 
ferent forms of apparatus would leave space for nothing else. THE ENLISTED SOLD [EE. 
39 
The essentials are minimum chest pressure and freedom of 
motion. Left to himself the soldier discards the knapsack 
and wraps his shelter tent and blanket in a long roll with the nec- 
essary clothing inside. This is slung from the.shoulder diagonally 
across the chest, and the ends are tied together. It can readily be 
thrown off or shifted, and although not comfortable is not oppres- 
sive, as is the backward strain of a heavy burden laced by leather 
straps across the breast. 
Dr. W. T. Parker, who has seen some service with troops, has 
recently published a suggestion that improves upon this custom. 
He would use a long and light waterproof case, divided trans- 
versely into three compartments, to contain clothing and small ar- 
ticles. Roll and fasten it longitudinally and sling it as above. It 
affords a reasonably dry and compact receptacle when in camp or 
bivouac, independently of the blanket itself, and has all the ad- 
vantages of the blanket roll. Probably something of this sort, in 
connection with.the constant tendency to mobilize infantry more 
and more, will be the practical outcome of these efforts at personal 
transportation. It is impossible to make beasts of burden from light 
infantry and have either corps efficient.* Belonging to this sub- 
ject is the question of supplying infantry with reserve ammuni- 
tion, that is increasingly needed in these breech-loading days. 
Men should not habitually carry more than 50 rounds of metallic 
cartridges, and yet raw trbops, especially, will soon consume that 
quantity. Instead of overburdening the men, pack animals, or 
high wheeled carts with the weight hung low, should be attached 
to each command and be loaded with convenient packages of re- 
serve ammunition. These should be in charge of trained soldiers, 
not hired teamsters, and the vehicles and packages should be so 
constructed as to be easily taken by hand as near as necessary 
to the line oT battle. Anciently, the small-arm ammunition was 
carried by the light artillery. Since the batteries have become 
divorced from the infantry, the ordnance department has not, 
* Note.—From the importance of the subject, and with the consent of the Publication Com- 
mittee, [ wish to say here that I now believe that the equipment invented by Col. H. C. Merriam, 7th 
Infantry, practically solves the question of transportation of personal weights. Rations, underclothing, 
extra ammunition and blanket can be conveniently carried with one piece of equipage, with no con- 
striction of the chest and with no pressure against the arms. The weight is borne upon the hips, with 
some assistance from the collar bones, and there is practically no pressure against the back and abso- 
lutely none upon the chest. 
I made no reference to this pack in the essay because I had had no opportunity to examine the ap- 
paratus. Since that was written I have carefully studied this arrangement and believe it due to the 
soldier of the future to express this opinion in this place. A. A. W. 
Fort Leavenworth, February 1, 1887. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
40 
as it might have done, entered actively the zone of fire—at least 
with this object in view. 
It is unnecessary to explain why soldiers should be uniformly 
clad. All military men concede that it is desirable and that the 
uniform should be tasteful and distinctive in appearance. It is 
worth while, however, to say that regimental facings, which oc- 
casionally are suggested in the interest of regimental feeling, are 
objectionable in that under almost any of the conditions of our 
domestic service, to say nothing of war, the supply of special uni- 
forms would be costly and irregular. The present condition of 
military clothing is not satisfactory. The primary object of all 
clothing is the comfort of the wearer and the increase of his 
physical efficiency. Incidentally it becomes an agent of beauty, 
but there are many perversions of these principles and conspicu- 
ously so in military bodies. 
Coat.—Without tracing out how it came about, we find to- 
day the typical military coat to be closely cut and tightly 
fastened, as though to hold the soldier in shape. Indeed until 
comparatively lately soldiers were incapable of severe and 
continuous labor while officially clothed, except at a ruinous 
expenditure of energy and of health. But soldiers are trained 
for war, and nothing should interfere* with their warlike effi- 
ciency. Least of all should they be crippled in the house 
of their friends. The conventional soldier of the parade is stiff, 
like one in buckram or the mailed knight, his prototype. The 
soldier in battle should be exempt from all trammels. When 
Shaw, the famous guardsman, was asked by a committee on 
British uniform in what dress he would prefer to fight, had he his 
Waterloo experience to repeat, he promptly replied, “ in my shirt 
sleeves.” It is only prejudice, but prejudice of the most persis- 
tent type, that insists upon clothing soldiers in the inherited style; 
and this, notwithstanding conspicuous exceptions and examples 
of a better way. Garibaldi’s red-shirts freed Italy; the French 
zouaves have immortalized the Arab, not the Gallic, dress; 
under our own eyes the loose-jacketed Fifth New York took 
equal rank with the best of the Army of the Potomac ; history 
has nothing but fame for Morgan’s riflemen in hunting shirts; 
sailors, whether at sea or on land, are as free as the wind and as 
dashing. There is no military necessity for tight coats—there are 
CLOTHING. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
41 
many reasons to oppose them. The modified hunting-shirt is the 
natural garment of every man a-field, and the soldier in campaign 
is the typical hunter. The true military coat, whether afoot or in 
the saddle, is the Norfolk jacket. As the Burnside blouse, every 
man, who dared, wore one in the Rebellion. It should be made 
to fit—not like a meal sack—and it may be trimmed to the taste 
of the military tailors. But “to fit” does not mean to be tight. 
It should be loose ; first for comfort, admitting free muscular play, 
and secondly to allow additional undershirts when required. The 
latest issue of blue flannel shirts is a long step in the right direc- 
tion. These now may be worn on fatigue without blouses; they 
should be arranged to be worn on all duty, not merely a form of 
display. Moderately increase the fulness ; insert a belt with two 
sets of fastenings ; let the skirts come outside the trousers, and the 
transformation is complete. /T5uP the martinets, the gentlemen 
who sit in judgment with eye-glasses and to whom is not the toil 
and labor of the road, will cry out that the Service is ruined. v__ 
Reduced to its final principle, the objection to a loose uniform 
is the fear that the soldier will become slouchy. No one likes a 
smart, square-shouldered soldier better than the writer; but what- 
ever corsets may do for the weaker vessels, no man is to be 
held in shape by his clothes. Slouchiness is destroyed by drill 
and by instruction—not by the tailor. Possibly a growing 
youth whose mind and body are constantly taxed, as the 
cadet, may be the better for an occasional reminder across the 
shoulders; but the teachers of intelligent gymnastics know that 
it is the absence, not the presence, of clothing that straightens 
and strengthens the lad. The material should be woolen. The 
closer its texture the less dust will it entangle. In color, for sen- 
timental reasons, blue should be retained; practically, gray is 
cooler in the sun without wasting the heat of the body, and it is 
neutral and inconspicuous under fire. 
Shirts.—Should be of several thicknesses for varying climates 
and each man should draw them in different sizes to be worn, if 
necessary, one over the other. The contained air makes two- 
shirts warmer than a single one twice as thick as either. Military 
shirts should be two parts woolen, and one cotton to avoid shrink- 
age and stiffening in washing. 
Hat or Cap.—The same general argument applies to the hat 
as to the coat. The hunter’s canvas hat, with a peak in front and 
rear, is the outcome of the sportsman’s needs. On that general 42 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
model can be constructed a military hat better adapted to a 
soldier’s needs than any yet issued, and it can be made to repre- 
sent the Service. The permission, tacit or avowed, by which a 
column on the plains wears head-gear of every description but the 
regulation, is authority that the official issue is not satisfactory. 
There is no good reason why a soldier should not always be ready 
for soldier’s work. It requires some moral courage to equip a 
regiment with sportsmen’s hats, but not more than to carry trowel 
bayonets. The hats are a daily, the trowels an occasional, pro- 
tection. 
Shoes and Boots.—The latest issues of shoes will be very good 
when the material and workmanship are equal to the standard. 
The Quartermaster General is in error in supposing only the latter 
has been at fault. Soldiers should be confined to the regulation 
issue. Feet are too important to be trifled with by men who 
walk, notwithstanding General Sherman’s permission for them to 
wear what they choose. . Cavalry should carry a spare pair of 
shoes, not boots,' to wear when dismounted. Twenty per cent of 
a cavalry command is sometimes on foot, and men cannot march 
in boots without crippling their ankles by chafes. This is import- 
ant. Practical defects in shoes that have been issued are excess 
of leather in the uppers, leading to wrinkles and consequently to 
chafing; insufficient height in the instep, requiring many shoes to 
be cut at the tongue for wearing in comfort; and frequently rough- 
ness in the side seams, causing sore ankles. The same is true of 
boots. Foot gear is so important for the efficiency of troops, 
that company and other officers can scarcely pay too much atten- 
tion to it. 
Stockings.—As a rule cotton stockings are better than woolen, 
all the year round. 
Drawers.—Should always be of at least two grades, and for 
the cavalry should be reinforced in the seat. 
The other articles of clothing as now issued are excellent and 
appropriate, but they should be in more distinct grades as to 
thickness. It is just as possible to clothe soldiers as civilians in 
accordance with the season. The bottoms of trousers for plains’ 
use should be faced with light leather or, better with canvas, 
before issue to protect against being cut out by the grass. A 
certain proportion of cavalry trousers should be reinforced in 
buckskin or canvas. It is a question whether light leather—buck- 
skin—overalls might not be issued as company property to the THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
cavalry in certain localities, and the canvas overalls be exception- 
ally allowed the infantry in rough marching. The clothing allow- 
ance is adequate. A more positive control should be exercised 
by commanding officers over the charges of company tailors, 
which frequently are exorbitant. 
QUARTERS, ETC. 
In theory soldiers are fairly quartered. Practically they are 
much better off than, less than twenty years ago, when three-tiered 
bunks, holding six men,, crowded some dormitories. A compe- 
tent discussion of quarters would, by itself, overrun the limits of 
this essay, and it must suffice to say little more than that each 
man should have his separate bed ; that each bed should have at 
least 8o sqifare, and 450 cubic, feet of space (the inevitable 
absences will carry up the allowance); that light should be abun- 
dant, warmth sufficient, and ventilation ample. But to carry out 
these almost self-evident propositions is not always easy. To 
quarter seventy men in barracks intended for fifty is a serious 
temptation, often yielded to when it seems necessary to house 
such excess. The bad effects of this course do not show them- 
selves the first day nor the first week, and the evil is so insidious 
that it is not distinctly recognized. Writers on hygiene insist 
that the emanations from the skin and lungs of men in health, to 
say nothing of those diseased, are poisonous to others, and that 
these animal miasmata must be diluted by abundant fresh air. 
This dilution implies frequent renewal. It is not sufficient to shut 
men up, as I have seen within the past three years, in long air-tight 
boxes of rooms, even though the air space be sufficient for the 
first half-hour, with windows and doors the sole openings. Means 
for the renewal, the diffusion and the escape of air must be ar- 
ranged beyond the control of the inmates. And pains must be 
taken to completely carry off the products of combustion. In de- 
fault of all this, colds, sore throats, languor, the lighter fevers, pneu- 
monias, consumptions will be bred, but so gradually as to excite 
small suspicion of the real cause. In addition to special arrange- 
ments for ventilation, it is particularly necessary that the windows 
should be raised and kept open for a considerable period each day, 
on both sides of the room in fair weather and on one side regardless 
of storms, and this irrespective of temperature. The whole bar- 
rack must have a daily air-bath ; blankets and mattresses a daily 
sun-bath also, and dust and debris be carefully removed. The 44 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
importance of these injunctions will be clearly illustrated by com- 
paring the sick reports at the end of a month from two barracks, 
side by side, where one has been kept closed, as careless officers 
sometimes allow, and the other has been systematically opened. 
As every one knows, soldiers have a superstition that to flood a 
barrack floor with bucketsful of water and to splash this about 
with brooms is washing, and that this traditional method meets 
all the requirements. This abuse should be stopped. The rooms 
are made damp, the wood absorbs the moisture, and the filth and 
refuse that should be removed entirely is generally only changed 
in place. Dry scrubbing, holy-stoning when necessary, and the 
careful scrubbing, with small quantities of lye or sand and water, 
of spots that are particularly foul are sufficient. The walls should 
be frequently lime-washed or, if painted, be well Washed down 
with dampened cloths or sponged off. Vermin should be sedu- 
lously exterminated. There is no reason why the distressing and 
disgusting plague of bugs should infest men’s barracks more than 
private houses; but eternal vigilance is the price of immunity in 
most regions. In this connection it may be insisted. that the 
weekly inspection should embrace not merely the packing of the 
kits and an external view of the uniform, but a careful investiga- 
tion of the underclothing as worn and of the persons of the men. 
After the inspection of arms and barracks, while the men yet 
stand at their beds, the command, “ Remove both shoes and one 
stocking: open coats and shirts!” would give the inspector an 
opportunity, that now is rarely sought, to discover the actual con- 
dition of the men under the artificial superficies, and to follow up 
any particular case. To resume the subject of barracks: No 
building should be erected, no permanent camp be pitched, until 
the ground is thoroughly drained, and, if necessary, prepared as 
laid down in the special treatises. Cisterns should always be pre- 
pared to receive the roof-water, partly to preserve it and partly to 
lessen soil-dampness. Cellars in cold and piers in warm climates 
should be put under barracks. Casemates should be condemned 
as permanent quarters, but casemates with artificial heat and suffi- 
cient air-space are preferable to overcrowded dormitories, be they 
never so attractive in appearance. All new barracks should be 
built far in excess of the needs of the present skeleton companies, 
which if raised to a proper size would otherwise overcrowd them. 
Corporals should sleep with the squads ; sergeants should have 
separate rooms but within easy communication of the men; first THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
45 
sergeants (always single) should live in the building; higher non- 
commissioned officers should have detached cottages, or comfort- 
able suites. Each man should have a locker—shelved, with front 
doors (glazed if possible)—fixed above his bed, with gun-rack at the 
side. The present boxes which are regarded as furniture, might 
be used to transport individual property in changing permanent 
stations. But men should always be warned against too great 
accumulation of unnecessary articles that would be sacrificed on a 
march. 
Were it not sometimes omitted, it would seem superfluous to 
insist that an adequate company wash-room independently of a 
bath-room, be provided within the barracks. A post bath-house 
should always be provided, and the men be compelled to bathe 
with fixed regularity, while having unlimited privilege besides. 
The character and the care of sinks measure the civilization of 
a population. These should be ample and comfortable, but soil 
contamination must be guarded against. Soldiers cannot be 
trusted with the manipulation of water-closets ; and direct water 
carriage, when possible, is the best, but this can only occur by a 
a great lake or sea. Where there is a fair water supply, the next 
best thing is a cemented pit washed out daily by a fire-engine or 
other vigorous means. Then come a succession of cemented pits 
with soil as a disinfectant. The contents to be removed at a 
stated interval and used as a fertilizer. 
In connection with quarters special pains should be taken for the 
grading and keeping dry of company streets, so that men com. 
pelled to fall in for frequent roll-calls should not, as now often 
happens, leave the ground with wet feet. It is proper to add that 
the very latest barracks, notably those for light batteries in Eastern 
stations, seem to leave very little to be desired in the way of 
comfortable and attractive dwellings. 
FOOD, ETC. 
The ration is a uniform allowance of food established for the 
use of the army regardless of duty or locality. By a system of 
exchange and the commutation into money of special parts not 
consumed, it is increased in variety and in amount in certain ways 
and a company fund for the comfort of the men is established. 
Unlike most other services, the American supplies its soldier, in 
theory, with all his necessary food. The allowance is liberal but 
not altogether judicious. The salt meat is in excess; the fresh 46 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
meat as issued (dry and tough) is often inadequate, and the starchy 
food .(bread and potatoes) is not, generally speaking, sufficient. 
Jn practice these (the starches) are procured by the sale of the 
surplus salt meat. For recruits, or for companies receiving many re- 
cruits, the bread ration (18 ounces) is not enough. It would be 
in the interest of efficiency that the standard be 20 ounces with 
the power of increase to 22 or 24 ounces at the discretion of the 
department commander. Insufficient food is sometimes alleged 
as a cause for desertion. It is probable that bad cookery causes 
more dissatisfaction than want of food, and that neither is a press- 
ing evil. The detention of companies for very long periods, where 
company gardens cannot be cultivated, may occasionally exert 
such influence. With an increase of the bread ration as indicated 
and an increase of the fresh meat where it is cut from frozen car- 
casses as at the end of a Dakota winter, or from Texas steers 
on the more arid plains, the ration itself with its permutations and 
possibilities is sufficient. But more care should be observed in the 
preparation of the food. There are few things more distasteful to 
an officer than the supervision of the cook house, and yet few are 
more important, looking to the well-being of the company. One of 
the most important differences between the regular and volunteer 
troops is the individual independence of the former in the field, 
in which his ability to do his own cooking is an important factor. 
To make that more complete, and at the same time to improve 
the cooking in garrison, I would place the cook’s detail on an 
extra duty status and would continue it during good behavior, 
livery private without exception should take his regular tour, 
first as kitchen police for ten days at a time and afterward as 
assistant cook for fifteen days, ordinarily relieving both from duty 
under arms when so engaged. When a man has demonstrated 
his ability to cook the ration well, he should be put on a separate 
roster, for kitchen detail only in emergency. Such particulars can 
easily be arranged. Soldiers should be made to understand that 
cooking is a part of their education and that they will be given 
credit for it in the estimate of efficiency. The proposition that 
just now is attracting much attention, looking to the establish- 
ment of garrison messes, does not seem to be in the ultimate 
public interest. Wholesome food, well cooked, with sufficient 
variety to be attractive is all that is necessary. We do not want 
an army of epicures any more than an army of scholars. A serious 
consequence of its adoption would be the severance of the com- THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
47 
pany officers from the care of their men as to their food, and a 
gradual loss of their sense of responsibility in this important par- 
ticular. Powerless to correct errors, to make improvements, even 
to inspect the tables except in the most indirect and occasional 
manner, either the captain would wash his hands of the whole 
business or there would be a constant friction from his effort to 
interfere. The company fund would be made, and in great part 
expended, by another, and whether well or ill-fed in garrison his 
men would go into the field blind led by the blind, the hungry fed 
by the ignorant. Nothing so quickly cripples a faculty as disuse. 
Responsibility is lost by want of exercise. The exception to this 
ruling is in the recruiting depots where the men are completely 
taken up with the school of the soldier and should not be burdened 
by other work. There is a very good reason why a common mess 
should be established there, for the cookery at the depots is 
merely to feed the men, not to teach them. How far this may 
apply to the schools of application, I am not prepared to say. 
But if the companies there are frequently changed, if they are not 
permanent collections of dummies, standing platoons of lay figures 
for manipulation by the officers in the kindergartens and the high 
schools, it would seem a waste of good material for them to keep 
up the rehearsal or the attempts to learn what properly belongs 
to ordinary garrison duty. But whatever may be done in the 
exceptional stations, all the real soldiers cannot be too scrupulously 
protected from reliance, upon a system that must break down 
under the touch of war. 
FUNDS. 
The company fund represents the money value of the ration 
not consumed, added to by the sale of vegetables from its garden, 
should the company fortunately have such. The post fund is the 
savings of the post bakery with the addition of a monthly tax on 
the trader of a few cents for each member of the garrison. In 
both cases the fund is practically made off the men’s stomachs—the 
organ least adapted to practice economy upon. Half of the net 
post fund goes to make up the regimental fund, and can be ex- 
pended only for use of the band. The other funds are expended 
in various directions for the comfort of the men, the improvement 
of their diet being the first consideration. Inasmuch as in one 
shape or another nearly all of this money comes originally from 
appropriations by the Government for the diet of the men, it is a 48 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
question whether all expenditures by it should not be confined to 
that end. From every theoretical point at least, bands, attractive 
and useful as they are, should not be kept up by stinting the 
table. It would be much more equitable to make a small deduc- 
tion from the pay of ofificers and men for such support than to 
divert food-money for this purpose. There is a temptation to 
positive abuse by such diversion, as, for example, on one occa- 
sion, when a regimental band needed instruments, the bread ration 
at the post where the regiment was stationed was cut down to 14 
ounces in order, by the increased sales at the bakery, to raise the 
necessary funds. Unless very carefully regulated for the direct 
general benefit of the rank and file in subsistence, the whole profits 
of the bakery, under the present system, might better be divided 
among the companies than be expended for food by indirection. 
It is not that the expenditures are injudicious, but that the 
devious route is exceptionable. Attention is invited to the crea- 
tion of a fund from forfeitures by courts-martial under the title 
“ Punishments.” 
TREATMENT OF THE SOLDIER. 
The recruiting, clothing, feeding and sheltering of men, however 
important, are not, after all, what make soldiers. Soldiers are made 
by treatment, and under that term the writer groups all that 
pertains to enlisted men in addition to the foregoing. The ideal 
army is one physically perfect, intelligent, absolutely and unmur- 
muringly obedient, filled with fortitude, with courage and with 
soldierly pride. The ideal soldier is a unit having the same char- 
acteristics. The cynic may smile at the impossible picture, but 
he is a poor soldier who is not an optimist, and the optimist is 
always faithful, always hopeful. It is, then, the province of the 
officer to impart such qualities as can be engrafted and to culti- 
vate all to the utmost. But at all times, between the officer and 
the enlisted man, there is a gulf that can never be crossed without 
peril to one or the other. The cultivation of constant and instant 
obedience and respect toward officers, in the minutest particulars 
as well as in the gravest matters, is a cardinal point to be pressed, 
without unnecessary harshness, from the very first. It is a hard 
lesson to learn, but it is essential, and the officer is unkind who fails, 
unremittingly, to enforce it. From the beginning the soldier 
must extend all the outward signs of respect, and reason, as well 
as experience, approves of it. Silence, the uncovered head or the THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
49 
salute, the position of attention, are merely means to an end, as 
the wise soldier soon learns. By the cultivation of the subordi- 
nate frame of mind the habit of obedience is the sooner learned, 
and obedience is the keystone binding the whole military arch. 
The respectful mental attitude is not servility, it is deference. 
The ceaseless drill of the body is another agent toward the same 
end. The trained soldier performs his evolutions automatically 
and he obeys an officer in like manner. Speculative philosohpers 
will deplore such surrender of the will; but no speculative phi- 
losopher can save a nation in physical peril without such a machine. 
Speaking generally, the rank and file are not sufficiently cultivated 
to understand the motive; but officers understand it, and he is a 
very weak officer who fails for a moment to comprehend that the 
respect is paid to the office not to the man ; to the rank, not to 
the individual. So as a matter of duty, not of pride, every punc- 
tilio should be exacted and should be received not with arrogance 
but with simplicity. Well-meaning officers occasionally seek to 
unbend from the formality of position, and weak ones sometimes 
insist upon excessive and ridiculous display. Both are in error. 
The medium line of careful observance of set forms is the only safe 
one. But such duties are reciprocal. Courtesy must be shown by 
the officer and the official politeness of the soldier be properly 
acknowledged. Without being infirm the officer should be con- 
siderate, the more as the soldier may be humiliated by accident 
but without redress. In many ways the men stand in the position 
of children to be carefully provided for and to whom examples 
must be set. And like children they are quick to learn from ex- 
ample. A polite captain will have a polite company; a rough 
captain will have a coarse and disobliging company, of which, 
were it expedient, examples might be cited. But after all it is 
less the cultivation of politeness than the subjection of the whole 
to the will of one that is to be sought. The essential difference 
between the trained and the untrained soldier under fire and 
equally brave is, that the one steadily obeys orders, never ques- 
tioning that his comrades are doing as they are told, and that a 
superior intelligence is in charge. The other, thinking of his 
neighbors, as the fire increases doubts whether they may not 
manoeuvre independently, and is quite apt himself to look out for 
his flank as well as to exercise his private judgment in other ways. 
Obedience must be encouraged, then, first by intelligent in- 
struction ; then by insistence upon it in every particular; by care- 50 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
ful explanation when the lapse seems from ignorance; and by 
graded punishment when the culprit knows better. Our soldiers 
require not only the moral training of effective discipline, but the 
physical culture of careful and constant drill. Setting up is too 
often neglected and the recruit lounges his way half through his 
first enlistment before acquiring a proper bearing. Primarily this 
is an exercise, but presently it becomes an honorable distinction ; 
for military carriage should always be valued and is at no time and 
under no conditions to be disregarded. Company drill should be 
unremitting until the companies arc drilled, and then should be con- 
tinued to hold what has been learned. The companies, often skele- 
ton at best and further reduced by details, are frequently so small 
that officers lose heart and to the men the movements, which 
amount to little more than facings, become ridiculous. But there 
are few posts where, by consolidation, at least one respectable 
company for drill may not be formed, which the officers may take 
out in rotation. A company of sixty men for drill purposes is 
much more valuable than five of a dozen each. To accustom men 
to strange comrades, to different tones of command, to even the 
different temperament of captains is instructive. For battalion 
drill small companies are better than none, and five of ten files 
are better for practice than two of twenty-five. Battalion drill 
is for officers; company drill is especially for the men. 
A very serious evil, growing into a pernicious custom, is the 
habitual absence of the daily and extra-duty men from the drills, 
until on the arrival of an inspector they are made up into unusual 
fours and spoil the ranks, or under the pressure of marching 
orders they fall in with their rifles, and fall out by the way. 
Officers and men forget what extra-duty pay is given for. It is 
not a money commutation in lieu of guard duty, nor a premium 
paid to give a man every night in bed. Extra-duty pay is for the 
peformance of extra duty, and extra duty means duty in addition 
to, or beyond, the ordinary military requirements. Now there is 
rarely any reason why the clerks, the gardeners and the nurses, 
the assistant cooks, the teamsters and the artificers may not attend 
stated drills. Not every day perhaps, but once a week, or twice 
a week, all the men should be in the ranks, partly for their own 
sakes and partly to make up the command. These extra and 
daily duty men should form no aristocracy of wealth and leisure 
to stand at one side and see the soldiers “ soldier.” Such recurrence 
to older ways will excite great opposition; short-sighted staff THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
51 
officers will protest that they are crippled; school-teachers and 
clerks will shrink from hardening their hands; the cooks may even 
go so far as to spoil one or two dinners. But it is all possible. 
Occasionally, but rarely, it may be to the temporary injury of the 
Service to withdraw special men from special duty, and serious 
representations to that effect should be respected. But a post 
commander with any title to a soldier’s name should infuse enough 
enthusiasm into all his subordinates to awaken, even in a quarter- 
master, the feeling that the combatant efficiency of the command 
has the first claim upon every one. As matters now go on, in 
many posts there are long lists of men permanently excused from 
even the formality of Sunday inspection. Garrison life should be 
the serious, constant and relentless pursuit of military affairs, of 
preparation for the field. In this connection must be asserted the 
impropriety of separating mounted troops from their horses more 
than can be avoided, and the roster should be so arranged that 
the dismounted troopers should not be detailed longer than fresh 
mounts can be had. And when all are mounted, the best not the 
worst men should be taken, and then for limited periods.' For 
horsemanship under arms requires constant practice to preserve 
its skill. 
The military exercises should not be confined to the parade 
ground. Its capabilities are limited, but war is limitless. Every 
command should have marching drills in campaign order; should 
go into camps of a few days or longer; should bivouac; should 
carefully study the theory and practice of pitching tents, wall and 
shelter; of picket duty; of reconnoitring and bringing back re- 
ports; if near them, of passing streams; all these, as well as of 
musketry, now so carefully taught. And of the arms other than 
infantry, analogous exercises suited to them. Climate, domestic 
duties, the want of a vis a tergo, are all deterring influences. But 
in the hottest and in the coldest places there are some reasonable, 
not to say seasonable, periods ; hay-making and road-building are 
not ever-present evils; and although the next higher commander 
may not supply the motive, it is very certain that judicious zeal 
will reap its proper reward. There are very many practical diffi- 
culties in the way of a theoretical ideal. But the ideal should be 
kept in view, regardless of discouragements. For both officers 
and men, employment is the destroyer of ennui, and ennui is the 
bane of military life. Busy men have no time to quarrel, to 
grumble or for scandal, and busy men are sober men. Soldiers 52 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
rarely complain of too much military duty—nights on guard ex- 
cepted. A marching column is healthy and contented, and so is 
one taken up with the mental and physical professional exercises. 
It is the fatigue work that is distasteful. For much of this there 
is no help within the army. It is imposed by insufficient appro- 
priations, if not by direct enactment, and often is one of the condi- 
tions of existence. But this, necessity as it is, is frequently exag- 
gerated by the dilatory way in which it is done. If done with a 
snap and force, if done in the style that the same men would do 
it in civil life, it would be accomplished in half the time. Soldiers 
dawdle and shirk ; they don’t like the work and they pass it along 
to the next detail. If it is legitimate work, it should be done 
with becoming vigor and be put out of the way. This is a proper 
field for discipline to assert itself. Labor by post prisoners is 
rarely worth the name, and sentries should be held responsible 
for the work done as well as for their safe-keeping. An officer 
of experience has suggested, as at least a partial solution of the 
vexatious military labor problem, that at each post there should 
be allowed a permanent party in proportion to its size who should 
be enlisted for labor under the quartermaster. These should be 
selected, with rare exceptions, from men who have served at least 
one enlistment and have been discharged with excellent characters. 
They should not be armed nor expected to do military duty 
except under great emergencies, but should be subject to ordinary 
discipline and be liable to transfer to the line by a court-martial 
for misconduct in their department. Being free from the petty 
annoyances of the care of accoutrements and of inspections they 
could be wholly occupied in labor which they would do the better. 
While their previously acquired habits of discipline, the assurance 
of constant employment and prompt pay, and the comfort of a 
fixed home that, they would acquire, would render them a conserv- 
ative and valuable body of uniform laborers. He would accord 
to them the privilege of marriage. This officer’s suggestion is 
based upon the operation of the so-called artillery detachment at 
West Point, which is practically a colony of married military 
workers. A plan that is successful there might not work well 
elsewhere. The legalized establishment of families in connection 
with ordinary posts threatens trouble and expense in almost every 
form, and yet it is doubtful whether a celibate colony of day laborers 
can be maintained. But the experiment in the latter form is 
worth trying, if demagogic hatred of soldiers does not include 
those without arms. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
53 
GUARD. 
To recur to guard duty, touched upon a few paragraphs earlier. 
It should always be regarded, as it is, the most important routine 
work, to be carried out with fastidious attention to detail. But 
men should have four nights in bed—at the worst, at least three. 
There are commanding officers who arrange posts so that barely 
two is the rule, and sometimes only one. It is guard duty, es- 
pecially night guard, that gives an old soldier his peculiar physi- 
ognomy ; and it is the factor most persistently concerned in ageing 
men. Reliefs as they go on post at night should be supplied 
with a draught of warm coffee, and at midnight a few mouthsful 
of crackers and cheese with warm coffee should be served to the 
whole guard. 
AMUSEMENTS. 
Relaxation is as necessary as tension, especially with men 
whose internal resources are limited and who have not the oppor- 
tunity of relief by the change of work. The Government places 
its troops in specified stations; it prescribes their duties, often 
insufficient to employ them ; it expects them to be always efficient, 
but it rarely arranges for their pleasure. Vigorous men must be 
occupied, and if pleasantly there will be contentment. Where prac- 
ticableswimming, and everywhere, formal gymnastics should be care- 
fully taught. This as a matter of duty, but it can be arranged as 
a pleasant duty. Athletic exercises, hunting and fishing where 
there is game, reading rooms and libraries, glee clubs, amateur 
theatricals of their own, and lectures and readings to them by the 
officers should be encouraged and provided for the men. What- 
ever is not subversive of discipline should be welcomed as a relief. 
For our troops, unlike those of foreign armies, do not lie in gar- 
risoned towns or on the outskirts of large cities; they are in remote 
and often uncongenial places, wholly dependent upon themselves. 
The Government seems to consider its whole duty done without 
having provided for manly development outside of a very narrow 
technical limit. There are few conditions more forlorn than that 
of a large body of uncultivated men tied down, night after night, 
to barren dormitories imperfectly lighted, and with no relief but 
at the trader’s. For with curious inconsistency the War Depart- 
ment, charged by law with keeping for sale to the men a long 
list of articles, necessary and otherwise, licenses a civilian to sell 
similar sundries to give color to his presence, and also authorizes THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
54 
him to vend alcoholic beverages. These beverages now are beer 
and light wine. Their use in excess intoxicates. Where is the 
line beyond which is excess, each man must find experimentally. 
From the dreary barracks, reeking with fogs by the sea, or filled 
with alkali dust on the plains, generally lacking in comfort, and 
often positive with discomfort, the grade to the lighted bar room 
is easy. It is fair, however, to repeat what has already been said, 
that the later barracks are comfortable,, ventilated, warm, well- 
lighted houses with what may be called company parlors. But 
the most of the army has not such comforts. At all large posts, 
certainly on the frontier, there should be a special amusement hall 
for the men, to be cared for by the quartermaster as are other 
public buildings. At the smaller posts there should be some 
central common liberty-room. In permanent camps especial pains 
to organize amusements is necessary; and everywhere the canteen 
system, managed distinctly in the interest of the men, should be 
fostered. 
VICES. 
Theft.—Is distinctively not a military vice. But when, as 
sometimes happens, a thief is enlisted, no pains should be spared 
to ferret him out and relentlessly dismiss him on conviction. This 
is necessary for the protection of the men, for in no other civilized 
community must every man leave his personal effects so com- 
pletely at the mercy of his associates ; and haply, also, in no other 
community is absolute honesty so common. 
Gambling.—Gaming is a widespread evil that should always be 
discouraged, and when practised by non-commissioned officers be 
severely punished. It awakens avarice and envy and is almost 
certain to beget lying, fraud and violence. Non-commissioned 
officers lose their authority, especially over those with whom they 
play, and to all concerned it is essentially subversive of discipline. 
Drinking.—Intoxication in the army is far less common than 
is popularly supposed, but drinking there, as in civil life, is the 
fruitful mother of many woes and is the admitted source of nearly 
every serious infraction of discipline. There is an honest differ- 
ence of opinion whether the prohibition of the sale of alcohol in 
every form on a military post is either practicable or judicious. I 
believe it is practicable and would be beneficial, and that, in the 
long run, the Service would be improved by the elimination of 
those men who will get liquor at any price. Whatever their grade, THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
55 
men who drink are apt to fail on account of drink at the critical 
moment. But if it is tolerated, it should be discouraged and care 
be taken that the spirit, as well as the letter, of the orders regu- 
lating it, be not evaded. It is hardly necessary to waste words in 
exposing the exploded theory that alcohol adds to either the 
moral or the physical efficiency of any man. There can be no 
doubt but that at a recruiting depot, where military habits are to 
be formed, its conspicuous sale and constructive encouragement is 
pernicious. 
DISCIPLINE. 
Discipline, literally teaching, in its better sense is the atmos- 
phere pervading military places; and although sometimes miscon- 
strued as a synonym of punishment, it should really concern itself 
equally with reward. Soldiers, like other men, are more readily 
led than driven, and after they clearly appreciate the distinctions 
of rank are keenly alive to official praise. This is as true of com- 
missioned, as of enlisted, soldiers. Punishment, as such, will be 
discussed later. 
Prompt obedience and fidelity to duty independently of eye- 
service are the essentials; zeal and pride should be the character- 
istic incidentals of military life. To develop these are very high 
functions of officers, whose obligations in such respects increase 
with their rank. It is a cardinal point that an order that cannot 
be enforced should never be issued ; but an order once issued 
must be carried out. Laxity and capriciousness in command are 
equal evils to those under authority. Men never respect “ easy ” 
officers, who usually seem to them inspired by fear or by indo- 
lence. Caprice is still more dreaded. Within the limits of the 
regulations, strictness is rarely complained of, if it is uniform. 
Even distinct severity, if it is consistent toward all grades, and is 
accompanied by positive martial qualities, is no bar to respect and 
regard. Rudeness toward men is never required, but their repri- 
mands must be made with force and directness and not euphemis- 
tically. With decent men approbation and reward are always 
more potent than blame and chastisement. It is not in condoning 
faults, it is in commending performance that officers encourage 
their men. A good soldier needs no unauthorized favor, but 
legitimate indulgences make good soldiers better. Indiscriminate 
praise is worthless; judicious praise is grateful. There should, 
however, be a graded system of official rewards for military con- 56 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
duct as well as of penalties for misbehavior. These should gen- 
erally take the form of exemption from certain unpleasant duties, 
such as kitchen police, general fatigue, target practice after a 
certain proficiency has been attained, but not from duties of 
dignity, as guard, nor from occasions ;of ceremony; in the grant- 
ing of hunting or similar passes; and in marking by badges and 
by mention in orders of the winners in official competitions. 
Really distinguished service in the field should be specifically re- 
warded within the ranks. A certain class of good-conduct men 
should receive a pecuniary bonus as well as a certificate on dis- 
charge, which should be commemorated by a special chevron on 
re-enlistment. Reproof should be equally marked. But to insure 
any further attention than force compels, the disciplinarian must 
be without blemish in the same respect. His tongue is tied, but 
the soldier cannot respect the unkempt, unshaven officer who 
reproves the man’s untidiness. An arrogant officer may storm at 
a defenseless man whose cap is awry or his kit not packed by a 
peculiar system, while in his own person he may exhibit grotesque 
and offensive errors of equipment. The soldier falling under the 
displeasure of an officer who is not a consistent example, absolves 
himself in his own mind and often curses him in his heart. The 
personal bearing of officers does much to make or mar the finer 
points of the higher discipline. Under the wear and tear of petty 
annoyances both men and officers are apt to overlook and lose 
many of what may be called the sentimental features of the Serv- 
ice ; but noblesse oblige expresses the essence of the military 
spirit, and should be a living principle. I have seen a faltering 
regiment in battle at once borne forward into a successful charge 
by the colors being carried to the front, from the wavering and 
halted line, so that the command must join them or lose them. 
It was an appeal to sentiment, and such sentiment is worth 
cultivation. 
It is said (perhaps apocryphally, I do not know), that the 
sailor salutes the quarter-deck as the seat of authority. Why 
should not the soldier salute the colors as the emblem of the 
national authority that he is supporting, not merely when under 
arms, but always when passing them displayed? To take the 
question of the flag alone. How often is it raised day by day, 
rent and defaced for want of decent repair, and at night tossed in 
a careless heap in the guard-room, to serve perhaps as a pillow 
for some drowsy soldier. Will a man respect bunting like that, THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
57 
or grow to venerate the authority of which it is the symbol ? A 
kindred theme is the music that too frequently masquerades as 
military. “Sweet and Low,” “The Lost Chord,” “ Embarrass- 
ment,” are very beautiful for an orchestra, but they are not fit for 
the parade. No soldier can wish to meet his colors to “ Pop 
goes the Weasel,” nor to accept as a martial march the strains 
of comic operas. Still it is custom. I am no advocate for the 
mint, anise and cummin of martinetism, but I do believe in the 
lively exercise of the emotional faculties as military agents. 
An army, however, cannot be held together by appeals to the 
higher feelings and moral suasion alone. Military pride should 
be cultivated, but the power and the disposition to enforce com- 
plete and prompt obedience should always be recognized as at 
hand. Much of the special machinery to this end is in the hands 
of the non-commissioned officers. That “ the captain and the 
first-sergeant make the company ” is a true proverb. All non- 
commissioned officers should be sober, vigorous and zealous ; not 
perpetually nagging, but untiring and impartial. A sergeant 
often proves his excellence by what he does not do as well as by 
what he does do. Sergeants and corporals should have their own 
messes ; should have a garrison club-room for themselves ; should 
be given certain privileges as to lights and hours, and should be 
held to a rigorous compliance with the spirit as well as the letter 
of the regulations. First-sergeants and all enlisted men of higher 
rank should have at least fifty per cent, greater pay than is now 
allowed, in view of their responsibilities and of the character they 
should possess. 
PUNISHMENTS. 
A military offence may be technical or moral, or both, and the 
essence of military punishments is certainty and promptness. 
Every violation, regardless of the grade of offence, must be 
atoned at once, and the soldier feel that nothing is left to chance 
or favor. In view of the cumbrous machinery now in vogue for 
the determination of minor offences, it is greatly to be hoped that 
authority for a Summary Court in peace (like the Field Officer’s 
Court) will soon be legal. But the soldier should have the right 
of appeal from it to a Garrison Court ; and, further, every appro- 
priate offence not so tried within 48 hours of confinement, serious 
exigencies of the Service alone delaying, should be condoned. 
Still further, graded punishments to be reported in writing to the 58 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
commanding officer, and noted in the company records, should be 
within the power of the men’s immediate commander. A man 
standing on a barrel, or carrying a log, or undergoing in public 
any of the common domestic methods formerly in vogue has a 
very stimulating effect upon those who wish to be good but who 
are apt to be backsliders. A sober man should be allowed appeal 
to the Summary Court. Incarceration in the guard-house before 
sentence is often very corrupting, and should be limited to the 
briefest period. Garrison and general prisoners, whether tried or 
not, should never be associated. 
The constant trend of the Judge Advocate’s Department 
seems to be in the direction of elaborate complexity. Courts-mar- 
tial are essentially courts of equity, and officers sitting thereon are 
jurors and lay judges combined to determine the facts and ad- 
minister justice. The practice of general courts should be 
simplified, and technical obstructions be removed, and when a 
soldier desires it, an officer should be assigned for his defense. 
The Judge Advocate should not undertake both prosecution and 
defense, except with the full consent of the prisoner. Nor should 
he remain in the court when it is cleared for deliberation. The 
prompt and economical administration of justice might be greatly 
facilitated by an intermediate court, to be appointed by either the 
post commander or the next higher authority, for the trial of the 
lighter offenses of enlisted men now brought before a general 
court. It should be composed of from five to seven members 
and a judge advocate. Only so much of the testimony should 
be taken down verbatim as the court may direct. A summary of 
each witness’s testimony, approved by him, should be a part of 
the proceedings, and the action of the court should be subject to 
the approval of the convening authority, and the prisoner should 
have the right of appeal to a general court. The present absurd 
restriction as to the hours of session should be removed. 
When the defendant is acquitted or when the sentence does 
not involve confinement, power should be vested in the president 
of the court to order the release of the enlisted man from the 
charge of the guard. One half of the fines of courts-martial 
might well be forfeited to the ordinary post fund, or to a special 
local fund, so that the deserving men on whom the additional 
duty of the culprits falls, might reap from their misdeeds some 
present compensation as well as have the prospective benefit of 
the Home. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
59 
When men are found guilty of scandalous offences, and par- 
ticularly of desertion, there should be a form of public degra- 
dation in the presence of the command. The men themselves 
will not be injured, in the sense that a civilian would be in the 
presence of his neighbors, for a part of the sentence of the dis- 
graced soldier would be his permanent exclusion from the Service, 
and his enforced absence from the garrison, while the deterrent 
effect upon the men, and the stigma that it would fix upon the 
crime would be educational. Desertion will be treated later. 
There should be two grades of prisoners in the military prisons. 
Those who are to rejoin their colors and those who have been 
dismissed or convicts. The treatment of the former should be 
punitive but not degrading. Their work should all lie in the 
direction of their future military efficiency. The convicts should 
be kept apart, and besides severe punishment they should be 
educated toward civil self-support. The prisons themselves 
should not be conducted so as to be more attractive physically 
than duty in the ranks. It has happened that spiritless men have 
deliberately sought such confinement to avoid the hardships of 
military life, and perhaps to secure an earlier release from their 
engagements. 
THE RANKS AS A SCHOOL FOR OFFICERS. 
The French soldier may carry a marshal’s baton in his knap- 
sack, and from the chevrons of any American sergeant the stars 
may evolve. But, contrary to popular feeling, I do not look upon 
the ranks as the best or even as a good school from which to 
graduate with a commission. In saying this I wish to distinctly 
assert that I have had the honor of personal acquaintance with a 
number of officers, and a knowledge by reputation of several 
more, all raised from the ranks before the Rebellion. Without 
exception they deserved and attained high rank and they were, 
and are, in my judgment among the very best officers in the 
Service. Before being raised they were carefully observed, not 
simply as to courage, but as to natural intelligence, principle and 
native courtesy. They were then carefully selected by officers 
who appreciated the delicacy and responsibility of their duty and 
the result, certainly so far as those who survived the outbreak of 
the Civil War goes, justified their action. With similar care equal 
men can doubtless be found to-day, but at any one time they are 
very few in comparison with the size of the army. But during 60 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
and since the war many admirable sergeants were spoiled by trans- 
mutation into very poor officers. Here, also, I wish especially to 
note as exceptions a number, some of whom are personal friends 
held in the highest respect. But beyond the exceptions there 
were made from the ranks so many ignorant, unrefined, and oc- 
casionally corrupt officers who bestowed no honor upon the Serv- 
ice and whom the honor of the service could not effectually 
envelope, as to establish the probabilities against obtaining in that 
way real leaders of men. Intelligence, moral force and vigor are 
necessary to control the rank and file, and education and social 
culture are required to discharge those higher duties, than merely 
superintending the fire of a company, that must devolve upon an 
officer. Simple courage is the most matter-of-course quality and 
the very last to be considered in such selection. It is no more a 
compliment to a man to say that he is brave than to a woman to 
say that she is chaste. Tactics is a matter of memory and of 
practice. The ranks, especially in peace, afford very little oppor- 
tunity for the development or the exhibition of higher qualities. 
They may, unhappily, coarsen the youth whose sensibilities are 
delicate and whose principles are not robust. I do not believe 
that, under ordinary conditions, it is judicious to encourage young 
men to enlist in the hope of winning a commission, nor to make 
other than the most careful trial of all aspirants from the ranks. 
The conditions under which volunteers are raised for war are 
wholly different, and volunteer troops afford an excellent field, 
from which to select (not to elect) volunteer officers. During the 
Rebellion a certain number of commissions were awarded men 
who had enlisted merely nominally—whose services were technical, 
in order to conform to arbitrary rulings as to such appointments. 
These afford no precedents and have no value in determining the 
question pro or contra. The practical solution that I would pro- 
pose for this delicate question is this: a young man who would 
enlist for a commission should first be examined by a board of 
officers as to his general education and his physical qualifications; 
if approved he should be enlisted for three years in the special 
arm for which he applies; he should then be sent in ordinary 
course to a regiment without favor or selection, and should serve 
with it two years; for the third year he should be attached to a 
company at the school of his arm and be required to apply him- 
self to a theoretical course of instruction especially arranged for 
applicants, and be exempt from all fatigue except as a non-com- THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
61 
missioned officer. At the close of his enlistment he should be 
carefully examined in connection with his record and if approved 
be commissioned. Such an applicant should be discharged at 
any point of his enlisted career that he may desire, provided his 
conduct has been good; but such discharge, or failure to pass his 
examination to be a perpetual bar to a commission. An ordinary 
soldier who desires to try for a commission should be transferred 
to the three-year class of applicants in like manner, his previous 
service not to count in his novitiate, and misconduct at any time 
working his re-transfer to the ranks. A commission in the United 
States Army deserves very careful and prolonged effort, and the 
man unable or unwilling to serve the probation just suggested 
shows his unfitness ipso facto. No candidate who is married or is 
more than 28 years old should be appointed. 
PAY OF THE ARMY. 
The pay of the army, except for the higher grades of non- 
commissioned officers, is sufficient if not liberal, and the allow- 
ances are adequate. But the mode of payment is atrocious. It 
is convenient for the Government but is ruinous to discipline, to 
habits of economy, and to the temper of the men. Soldiers are 
never paid oftener than once in two, and sometimes but once in 
four months. With rare exceptions they at once spend, and gen- 
erally to their own hurt, the comparatively large sums that then 
fall into their hands. The soldier becomes a mere medium for 
the transfer of his pay from the disbursing officer to the trader. 
It is unnecessary to remind a military reader of the strain that 
pay-day puts upon all the resources of discipline, moral and phys- 
ical. It is contended by the Pay Department, with much show 
of reason, that it is impossible to make more frequent payments 
without waste of money and a great increase of clerical work and 
of the pay force. It is impossible within the limits of this essay 
to elaborate a system of payments at intervals of from five to ten 
days for troops in garrison,—in the field it is otherwise; but it is 
only voicing the opinion of every officer not of the pay staff to say 
that such payments probably can and certainly should be made. 
The essential objections usually urged are that the accounts are 
so complicated as to require skilled accountants and that money 
in large sums should pass through bonded officers. There is no 
necessary reason why soldiers’ wages should be a peculiarly ob- 
scure subject, and, if necessary, the law might be changed. Dis- 62 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
cussions like this are to point out evils for remedy, with hints 
toward, not complete solution of the problems. In the rough 
the following seems practicable: There is a quartermaster charged 
with the care of public property, often much greater in value than 
any paymaster handles at once, and he makes certain disburse- 
ments. Now let the company commander prepare pay-rolls in a 
general way, much as at present but on basis of, say, at the rate of 
ten dollars a month for a private’s pay and the higher grades in 
proportion. Every six days let the captain give each man a non- 
transferrable order on the quartermaster, to be paid by him in 
cash, for one-fifth of this, less (excluding cents) the stoppages 
that may be authorized. This for the regular pay pure and sim- 
ple. Once in two or three months a paymaster should visit the 
post and, while there, review and make up the entire rolls, settling 
the extra-duty accounts, correcting errors, if any, establishing bal- 
ances and paying such differences as may remain to the credit of 
the men. Under such a system the clothing-accounts should be 
settled once in three or four months. Should a soldier on any 
particular pay-day prefer not to take his order, it shoujd be passed 
to his credit as a deposit to draw interest from the time the regu- 
lar paymaster at his next settlement takes it up. Money due 
soldiers in arrest or confinement should not be paid, but should be 
passed to the credit of their retained pay for settlement on final 
statements. In the field, frequent payments may be suspended 
in the discretion of the Commanding General,—but that is a ques- 
tion of detail, not of principle. 
I am satisfied that such a system is feasible and desirable, 
although numerous theoretical objections may be plausibly urged 
by conservative experts to whom the older is always the better 
way. But officers whose lives are spent in garrison can never 
desire the perpetuation of a system that encourages usury, 
gambling, drinking, and, as many believe, desertion. Under the 
present system, checks instead of cash for extra-duty pay by the 
quartermaster are a grievance, especially on the frontier. In this 
connection it may be said that the proposition occasionally made 
to stop the pay of men off duty as the result of immorality is 
unwise. Whatever may be the theoretical reasons that would 
lead to a constructive or actual withdrawal of official favor under 
such circumstances, in practice it is found that it leads men to con- 
ceal complaints until they have reached a stage involving greater 
trouble and longer care than had they been presented promptly THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
63 
for treatment. The Government loses more time by such delays 
and the men are usually in a much more unfortunate state, than 
if encouraged to go on sick report at once. It would be very 
difficult to draw the line between the various classes of disabilities 
not incurred in the line of duty, and as the rain falls alike upon 
the just and the unjust, in the economy of nature, so, as a matter 
of public polity, it is better not to erect as a pecuniary barrier 
between vice and rectitude, the imaginary and tortuous line that 
really separates the lucky from the unlucky. 
DESERTION. 
Desertion imposes an almost Danaidean task upon the military 
authorities, to whom its persistence and extent are a constant 
vexation and mortification. It creates one-third of the annual 
casualties. Each year three thousand men must be recruited to 
replace these unauthorized losses; or, during a single term of 
enlistment, fifteen thousand recruits are required to replace those 
who have been faithless in an army of twenty-five thousand 
men. Desertion, next to mutiny, is the gravest military crime and 
is due primarily to an indefensible public sentiment that looks 
upon the runaway as a persecuted fugitive from oppression, rather 
than a criminal renouncing vital engagements solemnly under- 
taken. The average civilian will shelter the deserter, while he 
would not hesitate to point out any other public, or indeed 
private, servant whose absconding involves fraud, loss, and the 
violation of a solemn contract. It has even been extenuated by 
one of the great dailies, and this a paper of deserved influence, as 
nothing more than the exercise of a striker’s right ; and a general 
officer, whose rank presumably required respect for his opinion, 
went so far as to say, in effect, that the General Government per- 
forms a praiseworthy service in transporting men to the West and 
then allowing them to desert. The popular infatuation—are de- 
serters so numerous as to constitute a possible class at the polls, 
could their disabilities be removed?—the popular infatuation has 
gone so far as to authorize the introduction in Congress of a bill 
to relieve any deserter from all his penalties, if he can keep out 
of the way of justice for two years ! Although encouraged by this 
lax civil sentiment, and by the approximate certainty that he will 
only be molested by accident, there must be conditions to favor 
the disturbance of the soldier’s moral equilibrium, already in an un- 
stable state by reason of his recent translation from the civil situ- 64 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
at ion. For most desertions occur in the first year of enlistment. It 
is manifestly better, therefore, to secure recruits of good character. 
Two who will stay are both less costly and better than three, one 
of whom is sure to decamp. It is in this direction that country 
recruits, whose moral sense is stronger, are preferable. It is also 
in this direction that the cultivation of soldierly sentiment should 
be begun early and continued unremittingly. 
The essential causes for early desertion are disappointment 
and overpersuasion. Men find that a soldier’s path is not alto- 
gether easy and lies between somewhat narrow lines, and they 
repair their mistake as best they know how. The influence of 
sweethearts and wives, abandoned in a pet, also re-asserts itself, 
and men with these entanglements break away in desperation. 
The plan of conditional enlistments, while it might not materially 
reduce the number who would retire, would relieve both them and 
the Service of the crime and its odium. One form of disappoint- 
ment, or more properly of discouragement, is the semi-annual 
settlement of the clothing-account by the calendar, regardless of 
the length of the recruit’s service. Men often find themselves 
penniless after several months’ duty, owing to stoppages for 
articles that they are compelled to procure. If the present system 
of payments is continued, the first semi-annual settlement of the 
clothing-account should be passed. A considerable experience 
leads me to believe that the popular notion that men desert to 
escape harsh treatment is totally baseless,—that is, harsh military 
treatment. An excessive amount of general fatigue, of long-con- 
tinued daily duty, generally in connection with the construction 
of new posts ancl not involving extra remuneration, does lead 
to desertion. This is probably the most potent objective cause, 
and it can only be relieved by congressional action in more liberal 
appropriations for civil labor. Civil labor, rigidly inspected, is in 
the end, always more economical than labor by troops, indepen 
dently of the demoralization that the latter creates. Although 
unmerited harshness rarely drives men from the army, insubordi- 
nate men, upon whom the reins of discipline are tightly drawn, 
sometimes prefer the freedom of dishonorable flight to the diffi- 
culty of reform. These are almost invariably drunkards, and apart 
from the fact of the desertion, per sc their departure is a blessing. 
It is probable that the popular official opinion that men enlist 
with the deliberately preformed intention to desert after being 
transported to some particular locality has no foundation what- THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
65 
ever. Restlessness, such as a sailor’s life pre-establishes ; previous 
desertion, with its fear of detection or its tendency to repetition ; 
the hope of high earnings, as after the sudden discovery of mines; 
and general bad character, want of regard for engagements and a 
hatred of orderly routine, are a group of causes that all tend in 
this evil direction. It doubtless sometimes happens that a for- 
eigner, enlisted without- a proper knowledge of the language, 
deserts in despair; that a man is ridiculed, with or without cause, 
till company life becomes unbearable ; that habits or peculiarities 
unknown to his officers lead a man to be excluded by moral press- 
ure, and occasionally by physical force ; and that sometimes a 
persistently poor mess-table or prolonged service of real hardship 
leads to desertion. But these are rare and occasional. That 
there is no inherent essential cause for dissatisfaction, nothing 
that forces good men into desertions, is shown by its comparative 
rarity among the older soldiers and that, notwithstanding the con- 
stant influx of recruits necessary to replace the newer men who 
have deserted, nearly one-third of the whole number of enlisted 
men have served at least one entire enlistment. Where a soldier 
deserts after his first enlistment the cause is invariably with the 
man. He has committed some lapse, usually very grave, and he 
flees to avoid severe punishment, deserved and prescribed. Be- 
sides the various meliorations of military life already suggested, 
and such intelligent education of both the civil and the military 
population as will lead to its greater reprobation, all the moral 
and physical machinery of the army should be brought to bear to 
make desertion infamous. A few deserters sincerely repent and 
surrender. A careful selection among such cases and their resto- 
ration to duty without trial would do much to show the rank and 
file that justice is tempered by intelligent mercy. Two of the 
very best and most faithful*soldiers I ever knew were surrendered 
deserters, and doubtless there are many more who have sincerely 
repented and done works meet therefor. But the surrender of a 
deserter should not be waited for; he should be sought after in 
every reasonable direction and be unremittingly pursued. A 
large reward should be paid, not for his delivery at a military post 
which often is a costly and troublesome procedure to a civilian, 
but for his detention by civil authority until the military can send 
for him; and it should come to be understood that the hand of 
the Government will certainly and promptly arrest the fugitive. 
When convicted, his punishment should be exemplary and his 66 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
degradation be public, and, if possible, his trial should be at the 
station of his company, for the sake of example. There should 
be no trifling with a deserter. It was misplaced sympathy that 
induced a well-known General for years to neutralize the action of 
courts-martial by habitually disapproving their dishonorable dis- 
charge, and retaining upon the muster-roll, and ultimately return- 
ing to their steadfast comrades, these faithless men. Sympathy 
is generally lost upon them, and material remission of sentences 
is interpreted as a partial apology. So also their release from the 
military prisons, on the pl'ea of overcrowding, is hurtful in its 
effect. No soldier should be able to disband himself by violent 
means, either directly or indirectly, before the expiration of his full 
term of enlistment. If the military prisons are overcrowded there 
remain the means of confinement (although much to be depre- 
cated) that were used before they were established, and a very 
little energy will create other and more suitable places. There is. 
after all, a curious fascination that often leads men to return to 
the army, under false pretenses, after dismissal. So far as deserters 
are concerned, this should be guarded against by an indelible 
mark, to be inconspicuous in character and position. A blue 
circle or dotted cross, not to exceed one-fourth inch in diameter, 
on the inner side of the arm (by the armpit) could be tattooed 
without moral or physical injury to the man, and is recommended. 
The sentimental objection to such a procedure is pseudo-human- 
itarian and not in the interest of sincere philanthropy. 
MARRIAGE. 
The hostages that a married man yields to fortune, pledges 
him in civil life to conservatism. A married soldier finds himself 
crippled and hampered at every turn, and the public service is 
positively impeded by wives and children. As a great indulgence, 
marriage may be allowed the non-commissioned staff, but to none 
of lower grade. Exceptions may be made in favor of those 
laundresses whose presence was authorized by the older regula- 
tions and whose husbands remain. But beyond the foregoing, 
camp women should be forbidden. Marriage should be a bar in 
reality, as it is nominally, to re-enlistment and men marrying 
against order should not be allowed to quarter their families 
within the lines. Nevertheless, the fact of marriage, concealed or 
acknowledged, should not authorize a soldier to demand his dis- 
charge. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
67 
AFTER ACTIVE SERVICE. 
There is a type of enlisted man who, from having served one 
or two terms for which he was generously paid, and in which he 
received no harm but of his own making, will establish himself 
near a garrison and become a nuisance to all whom he can reach. 
Five or ten years’ peaceful service give no man a prescriptive 
right to regard the quartermaster’s, or any other department of 
the army, as organized and supported for his personal benefit. A 
soldier whose enlistment has expired, and who prefers the chances 
and trials of civil life is to be encouraged in making his better 
pecuniary way in the world, or to be welcomed again to the ranks 
should he prefer to return thither. But he is not to be coun- 
tenanced as a listless hanger-on without the gates. But with 
years and duty the soldier who has rendered honorable service 
deserves well of the Republic. He has borne his life in his hands, 
an offering for the public good. His comrades have filled un- 
noticed graves from everglade to cafion. Exposure and hardship 
have bronzed his face and stiffened his limbs, and the friends 
of his youth are in other paths with other interests. He has had 
human frailties, but he has also had manly devotion, and the raw- 
boy who, half in ignorance, swore to obey the orders of the officers 
appointed over him, has become the faithful soldier through whom 
and his fellow's alone have those officers been able to discharge 
their own duties, and upon whom, as on a strong arm, the physi- 
cal security of the Nation has rested. The enlisted soldier rarely 
has a pen or a voice given to his public praise ; yet, man for man, 
the regular troops of the United States have no equal in intelli- 
gent and sustained valor and soldierly devotion. In Mexico, a 
nucleus and stimulating centre, instilling courage, and sustaining, 
by disciplined example, invading volunteers victorious over num- 
bers. When Secession tempted, and their officers went astray, 
not a man wavered. Against rebels in arms, too few to turn the 
field by their own weight, the superb steadiness of their infantry 
everywhere imparted confidence, and more than once saved vast 
hosts, while twice by the historic Bull Run, alone, they were pro- 
claimed the saviors of the field. And the valor of the infantry 
fitly supported the brilliancy of the artillery—the dash of the 
troopers. In so-called Peace they have shown the same’ good 
qualities as in War. The nameless privates through cold and heat, 
Against Indian craft and in open fight, have preserved the in- 68 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
herited reputation, fire-gilt and resplendent as it was from the 
fierce beauty of battle. 
When physical infirmity takes these men from the field, there 
should be appropriate provision for them. They are neither saints 
nor demi-gods. They are men ; often rough in body, ignorant of 
books, and sometimes deficient in the minor morals, but strong 
in the sturdy virtues of obedience, truthfulness, fidelity. Pre- 
vented from forming family ties, they are friendless in the social 
world, and with a long training that has eliminated all personal 
responsibility, beyond that of submission to authority, they are 
as guileless and as helpless as children in the sharp competition of 
civil life. With few internal resources, they must be occupied 
from without or they will be miserable ; and with habits of dis- 
cipline, but not of continuous labor, they are not fitted for per- 
sistent work. To many the Home, with its indolent ease, is a 
purgatory. The retired list after thirty years is a well-merited 
boon, but the limit should be lowered to twenty-five years, cer- 
tainly for service below that of the non-commissioned staff. Not 
one man in ten thousand can carry a musket more than twenty- 
five years. And a corps of watchmen in garrison and over the 
public civil buildings might well be opened to the retired enlisted 
soldier. D. Q. 91. THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
69 
APPENDIX TO PRIZE ESSAY. 
Letters from the Board of Award on the Essays Submitted in Comi kti- 
tion for the Gold Medal of the Institution.—Subject, “ The Enlisted 
Soldier.” 
I. 
U. S. Military Academy, 
West Point, N. Y. 
Aug. 24, 1886. 
When I first read the essays I marked “ I). Q. 91,” highest. 
In reading the essays again I concluded “ Romney” had much merit. 
As between “ D. Q.” and “Waechter,” I would vote for “ D. Q. 91,” though I 
consider “ Waechter’s ” paper a very good one. 
My vote will then stand : 
1. “ D. Q. 91.” 
2. “ Romney." 
3. “Waechter.” 
W. Merritt. 
II. 
Fort Wadsworth, N. Y. H. 
July 19, 1886. 
Having examined the eleven fix) essays now in competition for the Annual Prize 
Medal, I classify them in order of merit as follows : 
1. The Essay of'61 pages entitled “The Enlisted Soldier,” and signed 
“ Waechter.” (Marked by me with a blue cross.) 
2. “Romney, 116.” 
3. “Quantum Meruit, 58.” 
4. “ D. Q., 91.” 
5. “Gemini.” 
6. “ Andrea.” 
7. “Asotin, 44.” 
8. “A., 48.” 
9. “Tarleton, 74.’ 
10. “ Star.” 
11. “Cascabel.” 
Henry W. Closson, 
Lt.-Col. Jth Artillery. 
III. 
New York, Aug. i, 1886. 
The essays on the “ Enlisted Soldier,” by “ Romney,” “ Tarleton,” and “ Gem- 
ini ” are good—nearly equal in merit, as regards treatment of the subject and style ; if 
any difference, in my opinion, “ Romney ” leads. I think all three deserve “ honorable 
mention.” 
The Essay by “ Waechter, 51,” is better, but the Essay by “ D. Q., 91,” is best 
of all, in my opinion. 
I give the Medal to “ D. Q. 91”; the second place to “ Waechter, 91,” and 
“ Honorable Mention” to “ Romney,” “Tarleton” and “Gemini.” 
John R. Paxton. 70 
THE ENLISTED SOLDIER. 
Remarks of Major-Generai. J. M. Sciiofielu on the occasion of the presentation 
of the Gold Medal awarded by the Military Service Institution for the Prize Essay— 
1885 : 
The Presiding Officer has been pleased to impose upon me the agreeable duty of 
presenting to the successful competitor the prize awarded by the Institution for an 
essay adjudged to possess the greatest merit. 
The subject of the essays was “ Our Enlisted Soldier.” No more important one 
could have been selected. All other things in the Military Service are preliminary or 
accessory to ti e power of the bodies of enlisted men, as they confront the enemy on 
the field of battle. Hence the selection, education, training and care of the enlisted 
soldier, and in general his complete preparation for the supreme service required of 
him on the day of battle is the paramount duty of all in the Military Service. 
A large number of essays were submitted upon this all-important subject. They 
were prepared by officers representing all branches of the Service, and distinguished 
for ability as thinkers and writers upon military subjects. Under the rules of the 
Institution, all these essays were submitted to a Hoard composed of able members of the 
Institution, and in such manner as to insure absolute impartiality of judgment. The 
award for the best of all the essays submitted has been made to Lieutenant-Colonel 
A. A. Woodhull, Surgeon U. S. Army. 
Colonel Woodhull: It affords me great pleasure to present to you the Gold Medal 
which has been awarded by the Military Service Institution for the superior excellence 
of your essay upon the important subject, “ Our Enlisted Soldier.” And I congratu- 
late the Military Service upon the presence in its ranks of men capable of such intelli- 
gent devotion to its welfare. 
Lieut.-Colonel A. A. Woodhull in accepting the Medal said: “I am deeply 
sensible of my good fortune in securing a prize to which such honor is attached, and 1 
do not' pretend to conceal my satisfaction. But it is not as a personal compliment 
that it has for me its greatest value. I am chiefly gratified in that, through one of its 
inconspicuous members, the Medical Corps has been able thus to exhibit that it has a 
deep interest in, and a reasonable knowledge of, the needs and the duties of the rank 
and file, and to demonstrate in this manner that its close official association with all 
grades of the Line, results in an intelligent and sympathetic appreciation of their re- 
quirements. Medical officers of the Army are not mere professional care-takers of the 
sick and dressers of wounds ; their lives are spent in camp and garrison, sharing equally 
the discomforts and the pleasures of the active forces. Their duties, more than those 
of any other branch of the Staff, are with the troops ; and they are concerned not 
merely in removing immediate and present obstacles to efficiency, but in foreseeing 
and advising against those yet to be encountered. Their honorable loss of more 
officers killed and wounded in battle, during the Rebellion, than was suffered by all the 
other staff corps combined, is a convincing title to their claim to be of the Army, not 
merely attached to it, and I trust, sir, that the literary venture of whose fortunate re- 
gard by the officers this medal is the beautiful token, may commend itself to that 
larger audience in whose distinctive interest it was prepared—the Line of the Army.” THE MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE AND ITS 
APPLICATION TO THE UNITED>(TATES ARMY. 
By CAPTAIN VALERY HAVAKD, 
Asst. Surgeon U. S. Army. 
I T is notorious that, until recently, the care of the wounded, if 
thought of at all, entered as an insignificant factor in the 
plans and dispositions of a General preparing for battle. The 
killed and wounded were regarded as the inevitable tribute of 
blood exacted by the demon of war, and therefore excluded from 
practical sympathy. Happily, a great change has come over the 
spirit military men and of the general public in the last 
quarter of a century; experience has shown that prompt and 
effective aid to the wounded need not hamper field operations, 
and modern philanthropy would no longer permit the spectacle, 
so often exhibited, of thousands of wounded men lying un- 
relieved, wherever they fell, hours and days after the last shot of 
the battle had been fired. It is a great step from the Peninsular 
War, when Wellington declared he would have no vehicles with 
the army but for the conveyance of guns, to the last year of our 
Civil War, when, for the first time, the wounded had the benefit 
of a regularly organized ambulance corps. It is, likewise, a great 
step from our ambulance corps, as established in 1864, to the field 
sanitary service of . the German Army, as defined by the Kriegs- 
Sanitats Ordnung of 1878. The present rational system of giv- 
ing aid to, and removing, the wounded by an organized body of 
trained stretcher-bearers was first adopted in 1869 by Prussia, 
which has since developed and perfected it. It was introduced 
in the English Service in 1879 ar*d ’n the P'rench Army in 1884. 
Since the close of the Civil War our field medical system has 
practically remained unchanged, apparently uninfluenced by the 
great modifications effected in that of European armies. It is 72 
MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
the purpose of this paper to show how far and in what direction 
it is susceptible of improvement. To that end I shall ascertain, 
by means of statistics, the ratio of wounded for which provision 
is to be made, and briefly review the field sanitary system of the 
leading European armies. Having thus the data which statistics 
and the experience of the latest wars can furnish, I shall en- 
deavor to draw the outlines of the modern perfected system of 
relieving the wounded in the field, and to indicate in what way 
it can be applied to our own Service. 
STATISTICS. 
I believe it is generally admitted that the ratio of killed and 
wounded to the total strength present in modern warfare is less 
than before the use of breech-loading, long-range guns. The 
fighting is less general, murderous where charges and assaults are 
made and withstood, slight in other places, while several di- 
visions or corps may remain totally unengaged. The general 
result is a comparatively low ratio of losses for the whole army, 
but very high for the fighting troops. As the corps which bear 
the brunt of the fight cannot generally depend upon outside as- 
sistance and must, at least during the action and immediately 
afterward when prompt relief is most efficacious, take care of 
their own wounded, it follows that the strength of the medical 
department must be based upon the casualties suffered by the 
troops actually under fire, and not on the general ratio of injuries 
for the strength of the whole army in the field. 
It is only after pitched battles that the worth and efficiency 
of the medical department are thoroughly tested ; it is then that 
by prompt and effective help it can save hundreds of valuable 
lives. We must, therefore, in computing statistics only take the 
percentage of casualties of the important battles of a war or 
campaign. If, on the contrary (as some military men are in- 
clined to do with an eye to the reduction of, impedimenta), we 
take account of all the engagements, whether important or trifl- 
ing, as the latter always largely preponderate and decisive bat- 
tles are comparatively few, we shall obtain a very small rate of 
injuries. Any medical establishment based on such rate would 
be most inefficient and break down when most needed. 
It is also necessary to take the returns of both armies, the 
defeated as well as the victorious, not only because the fortune 
of war is fickle and provision should be made for defeat as well MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
73 
as for victory, but also because it will generally happen that the 
victors must take care of more or less of the wounded of the re- 
treating army. 
Bearing well in mind the foregoing considerations, I have 
carefully computed the statistics of the wounded in the princi- 
pal wars of the second half of this century. 
In the Franco-Austrian war of 1859, at the battles of Magenta 
and Solferino, the percentage of wounded in the troops actually 
engaged, taking both sides together, was 7.30. 
In the American Civil War of 1861-65, at the battles of 
Shiloh, Antietam, Murfreesboro’, Gettysburg, Chickamauga and 
the Wilderness, the percentage of wounded on both sides, ac- 
cording to the data furnished Prof. Longmore from the office of 
the Surgeon General, U. S. A., was 16.61. This high rate, I take 
it, can safely stand for that of the actual combatants. 
In the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, the official account pub- 
lished by the German government shows that out of 1,146,355 
Germans who crossed the French frontier, 88,539 were wounded, 
a percentage of 7.7. If, to the above number, of wounded we 
add 10,710 who, although counted among the killed, were not 
really killed in action but “died of wounds,” the percentage will 
be 8.7 ; this is for the whole strength of the army on French 
soil ; that for the actual combatants could not possibly be under 
io, a ratio which we can safely adopt. At Vionville, one of the 
fiercest battles of the war, the Germans admit a loss of wounded 
of 15 per cent. The French losses were probably a$ great as 
those of the Germans but we have no reliable data of them. 
In the Turko-Russian war of 1877 0n the opinion of Prof. 
Pirogoff, the bloodiest of wars since Waterloo), the mean per- 
centage of wounded admitted by the Russians at the three 
pitched battles of Shipka Pass, second and third battles of 
Plevna, was T7.34 of fighting troops. 
In collating the above figures, we find that, in the most recent 
of modern wars, the mean percentage of wounded in troops act- 
ually under fire has been 11.97. 
The mean of Prof. Longmore’s percentages in recent wars, 
from Magenta in 1859 to Sedan in 1870, computed, with one or 
two exceptions, for the total strength present, is 10.07 which 
would be sensibly raised by the percentage of the Turko-Russian 
war of 1877. It would be remarkably close to mine, as obtained 
above, if computed for troops actually under fire. MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
F. Phisterer, in his “ Statistical Record ” concludes that, dur- 
ing the American Civil War, out of the total number of men 
furnished by the States and Territories, one out of every ten was 
wounded in action. 
Lieut. Totten, in his “ Strategos,” finds that the mean percent- 
age of casualties for the seventeen decisive battles fought dur- 
ing the period from the Alma in 1854, to Sedan in 1870, is 13. 
If we estimate the ratio of killed to the wounded for that period 
as one to four, his percentage of wounded, mostly for all troops 
present, will be 10.4. 
From a careful consideration of the above statistics as well 
as from the concurrent opinions of authorities, we may set it 
down that, among troops under fire, a percentage of ten wounded 
is the minimum basis upon which to organize the medical depart- 
ment in time of war. It is the basis practically adopted in the 
English, French and German armies. General Wolseley in his 
“Soldier’s Pocket-book” says: “All our regulations for the pro- 
vision of ambulances are based upon the assumption that ten per 
cent, of the 32,000 men of an army corps that would possibly be 
under fire would be wounded.” 
RATIO OF KILLED TO THE WOUNDED. 
The improvements made in the power and range of fire-arms 
seem to have had the effect of steadily increasing the ratio of 
killed to the wounded. I leave out of consideration the hand-to- 
hand conflicts of the last century, and the battles of the Napole- 
onic era in which the sabre and bayonet played such an important 
part, and limit myself to the wars of the second half of this 
century. 
In the Franco-Austrian war of 1859, the ratio was 1 killed 
to 5.6 wounded. In the American Civil War (if we accept the 
returns of Vol. I of the “ Medical and Surgical History of the 
War ” as sufficiently correct for our purpose), the ratio was 1 to 4.5. 
In the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 (according to the figures of 
Prof. Longmore) it was increased to 3.2. In the Franco-German 
war of 1870, the official account of Germans killed and wounded 
gives the ratio of 3.1. In the Turko-Russian war of 1877, from 
the returns of the second and third battles of Plevna and that of 
Shipka Pass, the ratio was 1.8. In the famous assault of the 
Grivitza Redoubt, at Plevna, the Roumanians had more men 
killed than wounded (1,335 killed against 1,176 wounded). MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
75 
This increasing fatality of wounds in modern warfare points 
to a higher degree of gravity of the wounds inflicted, therefore 
to a greater need of the prompt intervention of the surgical art 
on the battlefield. 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE ORGANIZATION OF THE 
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT IN THE FIELD. 
Regarding the organization of the medical department in the 
field, there are general principles substantially agreed upon as es- 
tablished by experience, which may be now set down for the 
better comprehension of what will follow : 
1. Combatants should not leave the ranks to carry wounded 
comrades to the rear. The great evil of every wound, however 
slight, being made a pretext for the falling out of an indefinite 
number of volunteer bearers must be prevented by providing an 
adequate corps of special stretcher-bearers. 
2. The forces of the medical department should not be too 
much divided but rather kept together in conveniently large 
bodies under the direction of responsible and experienced chiefs. 
In accordance with this principle, regimental and brigade hospi- 
tals are abolished and the division has become the unit of medical 
organization. With this concentration, better results are obtain- 
ed with economy of men, material and time. 
3. The personnel and materiel provided for the battlefield 
should be essentially movable, that is, always able, at short no- 
tice, to follow the troops in their movements forward and back- 
ward. The modern ambulance corps and field hospitals are 
especially organized with a view to their mobility so that effi- 
cient help to the sick and wounded be always at hand. 
4. The medical department in the field should have its outfit 
in such complete and perfect order, and its personnel so thorough- 
ly trained and organized, as to be fully equal to the emergencies 
of war and leave nothing to chance and hasty improvisation. In- 
ventive aptitude in the military surgeon is a valuable quality, but 
the forethought and mental grasp exercised in providing before 
hand against the hour of need are of infinitely more account to 
the wounded. 
Technical training for nurses and stretcher-bearers is essential; 
on such training depends the efficiency of the ambulance corps. 
It is rendered no less imperative by considerations of humanity; 
to let a wounded man be picked up and carried by unskilled MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
76 
bearers, detailed at random from the regiment for the purpose, 
or to intrust him to inexperienced and ignorant nurses, would, in 
our day, be nothing short of cruelty. 
5. The wounded must be picked up quickly and carried away 
with as little disturbance as possible ; that is, once lifted upon 
stretchers they should remain thereon, as a rule, until they reach 
the ambulance depot, or, still better, until they are safely laid 
upon their beds in field hospitals. The liberal amount of trans- 
portation allowed in our service should make this possible. 
STRETCHER-BEARERS. 
The wounded, lying on the battlefield, are first removed by 
means of hand-litters or stretchers. Wheeled-litters of various 
patterns have been proposed but their use in the field was always 
found inconvenient, often impossible, and they are now practically 
abandoned. 
Stretcher-bearers in European armies are of two classes : the 
divisional ambulance bearers, and the regimental bearers. The 
latter carry the wounded from the field to the regimental help- 
stations, and the former, thence to the ambulance picket or the 
depot of the divisional ambulance ; both classes assist each other 
wherever needful. The advantages of having trained bearers in 
the ranks of the regiment, ready to carry off the wounded long 
before it may be possible for the ambulance corps to be at hand, 
are obvious and need no comment. 
The experience acquired during the late European wars has 
demonstrated that a wounded soldier, lying on the ground, can- 
not be promptly and safely lifted, laid on a stretcher, carried to 
the nearest vehicle, together with his arms and accoutrements, 
and placed into it, by two or even three men ; four men, making 
two reliefs, are now told off to each stretcher in all European 
armies, and this number we must necessarily adopt. 
Out of one thousand men more or less engaged in battle, we 
have seen that at least one tenth, that is one hundred, will be 
wounded, while at least twenty-five will be killed. With the 
latter we do not concern ourselves. A majority of the former 
will not be gravely injured; about two-thirds of them, as has 
been shown by Prof. Longmore, will be able to walk or stand 
carriage in the sitting posture. The number of those alone who 
will be able to walk to the nearest help-station and ambulance 
picket cannot be determined with precision. In a report pre- MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
77 
pared in England by a committee on ambulance transport and 
read before the House of Commons in 1871, it was stated that 
one-half the wounded can reach afoot the nearest ambulance or 
field hospital. Such a statement is evidently exaggerated, espe- 
cially as applicable to the present day. Even were it physically 
possible for that proportion of wounded to walk such a distance, 
it would be unwise and inhuman to require it; it is the sense of 
the best authorities that as many as possible of the wounded 
should be carried off, and thus spared the danger of irritation and 
aggravation of their wounds which walking is sure to produce. 
Upon a careful consideration of the subject, I estimate that, as 
a general rule, about one-fourth of the total number of wounded 
can safely dispense with stretcher transportation. Therefore, out 
of our hundred patients there will remain seventy-five for whom 
this transportation, if not always absolutely necessary, will be 
advisable and should be provided. The problem now is to deter- 
mine the number of stretchers needed for these seventy-five men. 
Several questions must at first be answered and data ob- 
tained: What available time have the bearers to remove the 
wounded during the battle and immediately afterward? How 
far will they have to carry them, and how many trips can they 
make ? 
A modern battle only lasts a few hours, seldom more than 
five or six; all the important engagements of the Franco-Prus- 
sian and Turko-Russian wars were fought and decided before 
sunset. While the battle rages, the bearers are compelled to 
more or less inaction from the difficulty of reaching patients, 
and will seldom have more than three or four hours of active 
duty. If we further assume the limit of time, after the close 
of the fight, beyond which wounded men should not be left un- 
attended, to be three hours, it follows, in conclusion, that the 
bearer, will have six or seven working hours within which to give 
the first aid to, and remove, the wounded from the battlefield. 
Patients must be carried on stretchers to the nearest ambu- 
lance picket. This ought to be as near as possible to the line 
of battle, just beyond the range of bullets—a distance which 
will seldom exceed half a mile. There, ambulances are not safe 
from stray artillery projectiles, but it is a reasonable risk to 
which they may be exposed. After the battle, the ambulances 
of the victorious army drive as near the battlefield as roads or 
the nature of the ground will permit. MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
Some experiments were made by Prof. Longmore to deter- 
mine the time occupied by trained bearers in carrying wounded 
men on stretchers. It was found that to remove the accoutre- 
ments from a soldier, apply a simple dressing, carry him, his rifle 
and accoutrements, a distance of one measured mile over moder- 
ately rough but still level fields, lift him off the stretcher and 
return with the empty stretcher, one hour must be allowed. As 
already stated, bearers will carry their burdens seldom more, and 
often less than half a mile; in seven hours, therefore, were they 
able to work continuously without delay, rest or accident, four 
men with one stretcher would remove at least fourteen patients. 
Making due allowance for all causes of delay, needed rest and 
the contingencies of their service, we may fairly estimate that, 
in practice, a detachment of four bearers will be able to attend 
to ten or twelve patients. Consequently, for the removal of 
seventy-five, that is, the number of wounded needing transport 
in a regiment of 1,000 men, from six to seven stretcher detach- 
ments will be required. 
THE FIELD MEDICAL DEPARTMENT IN EUROPEAN ARMIES. 
We find that in all European armies the division is practically 
the military unit of medical organization, and that the divisional 
field service consists of three lines of help : the regimental help- 
station, the divisional ambulance, and the field hospitals. 
Germany.—Each regiment (of three battalions of 1,000 men) 
has a medical personnel of six surgeons, twelve nurses, and forty- 
eight stretcher-bearers. One-half of the surgeons, with one-half 
of the nurses, accompany the troops into action ; the remaining 
surgeons and attendants establish the regimental help-station 
(truppenverbandplatz) in the rear, generally beyond the reach of 
musketry fire. The medicine wagons, one to each battalion, are 
driven as near the help-station as is safe. The two surgeons of 
the battalion are each attended by a bearer with the bandage 
knapsack ; the other bearers take the stretchers carried in the 
medicine wagons and proceed to the front. 
The division ambulance, or Sanitatsdetachemcnt, has a total 
personnel of 248 men, of whom 159 are bearers and 16 nurses. 
Three Sanitatsdetachements are attached to each mobilized army 
corps: one to each of the two infantry divisions; the third remain- 
ing at the disposal of the General commanding, for duty with 
corps troops and as a reserve. Each is complete in itself, equipped MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
79 
for independent action, and divisible in two sections. Its ma- 
teriel consists of eight four-wheeled ambulances, two four-wheeled 
medicine wagons, and two four-wheeled baggage wagons. The 
haiiptverbandplatz or depot of the Sanitatsdetachement is located 
at a safe and convenient place behind the division. Here all 
patients are brought, examined and dressed, and urgent opera- 
tions performed. The ambulances advance beyond the depot as 
far as they can toward the front, and stop in a sheltered spot; 
the wagcn haltcplatz, corresponding to our ambulance picket. 
The regimental help-stations are provisional and temporary; they 
are established at the beginning of an engagement, and discon- 
tinued (unless still found necessary) as soon as the divisional 
dressing-station (ambulance depot) is in working order. The 
personnel of the discontinued help-stations, followed by the bat- 
talion medicine wagons, reinforces the dressing-station, which, if 
hard pressed, also receives assistance from the field hospitals in 
the rear. The regimental bearers, after the help-stations have 
been merged in the general dressing-station, assist the divisional 
bearers if needful, or else are sent back to their companies. 
The third line of help is made up of field hospitals, twelve of 
which are assigned to each corps, or four to each division : they 
move with their respective divisions. 
France.-— Each regiment (of three battalions) has a medical 
personnel of six surgeons, twelve nurses, and fifty-two stretcher- 
bearers. Surgeons do not accompany troops into action ; they 
establish the regimental paste dc secours just back of the battalion 
reserves. The medicine wagons, one to each battalion, are driven 
as near it as is safe. The bearers take the stretchers carried in 
these wagons and proceed to the front. As in the German army, 
they are combatants and remain in the ranks up to the time of 
battle. 
Each army corps possesses four Ambulances: one for head- 
quarters, the corps troops and as a reserve ; one for each of the 
two infantry divisions ; one (smaller and without stretcher-bearers) 
for the cavalry brigade. The Ambulance of an infantry division 
has a personnel of r47 men, of whom 98 are stretcher-bearers. 
Its materiel consists of six two-wheeled and four four-wheeled 
wagons for the transport of the wounded, two medicine wagons, 
two administrative wagons, six wagons for provisions, tentage 
and baggage, one wagon for the transport of the personnel. 
The ambulance depot is practically as in the German army ; the 80 
MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
postes dc secours are more independent of it and may be continued 
to the end of the battle. 
The third line of help is made up of field hospitals which, in 
almost every respect, are as in the German system. 
England.—Each regiment (of three battalions) has a medical 
personnel of three surgeons and forty-eight attendants (bearers and 
nurses). Colonels are authorized and advised to have enough men 
trained to double the number of attendants when necessary. One 
stretcher for each company (eight per battalion) is. carried in the 
company cart. When an action is expected, the bearers leave 
their rifles and valises in the carts and march with stretchers to 
the scene of battle. They remove the wounded to the “ collect- 
ing station ” in the rear of the regiment. 
The divisional organization corresponding to the Ambulance 
of the French is the “ Bearer Company." An army corps has 
eight of them; two for each of the three infantry divisions, one 
for the cavalry brigade and corps troops, one as a reserve. Each 
“company" is complete in itself and is not to be divided. Its 
personnel, excluding the officer and men of the commissariat 
and transport corps, consists of sixty-six men. Both regimental 
and divisional bearers remove the wounded from the scene of 
action to the “ collecting station," and place them in the ambu- 
lances to be carried thence to the “ dressing station." But little 
attention is given to the dressing of wounds until the patients 
reach the “dressing station.” 
The field hospitals make up the third line of help. 
The Austrian and Italian field services are practically organ- 
ized on the German system and need no description. In all 
the above armies, a certain number of men are yearly trained 
and instructed in the special duties of stretcher-bearers and 
nurses so that, at all times, each regiment of infantry con- 
tains enough qualified men for its own service and its quota 
to the divisional ambulance. To sum up in a general way : We 
find in European armies, in each division of troops, two med- 
ical organizations, separate but acting conjointly, the regi- 
mental service and the divisional service or ambulance. The 
first, consists of about twenty men per battalion 1000 strong, 
sixteen to act as bearers and four as nurses. The second, con- 
sists of from one-half to two-thirds that number, namely, ten 
to fifteen men per battalion, eight to twelve to act as bearers and 
the rest as nurses. In all, from thirty to thirty-five men to each MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
81 
thousand combatants. To express it in another and more practi- 
cal way: The personnel at the regimental service is 2 per cent, 
of the combatants while that of the divisional ambulance is from 
1 to 1.5 per cent. 
UNITED STATES El ELD MEDICAL SERVICE. 
Let us now turn to the United States Army Regulations and 
see what provisions are made therein for the wounded on the 
battlefield. To each regiment of 500 men or more, three ambu- 
lances are allowed, and three privates to each ambulance ; of these, 
one is driver, the other two are for duty as stretcher-bearers and 
nurses. The allowance of ambulances is sufficient; it is, as it 
should be, more liberal than that of any European army. As to the 
personnel, we have only six men per 1000 if the regiment be full, 
that is less than one-fourth the number allowed in Germany, France 
and England. Even if the regiment be reduced to 500, the ratio 
is still conspicuously insufficient. The result will inevitably follow 
that, in the absence of an adequate force of regular bearers, men 
in variable numbers will fall out from the ranks to carry the 
wounded to the rear, and one of the great evils which the rational 
modern system of field medical organization is intended to remedy 
will continue to exist. Again, the Regulations provide but one 
class of bearers, namely, the bearers of the ambulance corps; there 
are none on immediate duty with the regiment, so that if the 
latter, getting under fire, does* not happen to be followed by a 
section of the ambulance corps, its wounded are left without the 
benefit of trained assistance. This gave rise to unfavorable com- 
ment during the war.* In the third place, the men of the ambu- 
lance corps are not trained for their duties in time of peace as in 
Europe, nor, in the event or war, are they insured a regular 
course of instruction. Their technical education is left to the 
discretion of the commandant of the ambulance corps who, during 
the hurried mobilization of his forces, can have but scant oppor- 
tunities for giving it. 
Let us see what, in this country, would be the probable com- 
* Gen. Ilazen, in a letter to Asst. Adj.-Gen. Wm. D. Whipple, dated June 7, 
1864, wrote : * * * At Resaca, where the brigade lost 250 men, there were but few, if 
any, stretcher-bearers upon the field, and the wounded were removed by details from 
the efficient fighting command. * * * At the affair of the 27th of May, wherC my 
brigade lost over 600 men, there was but one stretcherto be found anywhere about the field, 
and that far to the rear. The men who were carried off the field at all were carried by 
the members of the command, on guns, poles and in blankets, and 17 of the wounded 
are known to have fallen into the hands of the enemy from this neglect. 82 
MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
position of an army corps in war time, and how the modern 
rational system of relief to the wounded can be applied to it. 
As to the strength and organization of an army corps, the 
Regulations are silent, so that we have only the experience of the 
past to guide us. It would probably consist of three divisions, 
each division of three brigades, and each brigade of four or more 
regiments. The regiments would at first be full, that is, muster 
1000 men, but would soon decrease to 500 or less and thereafter 
fluctuate within variable limits. This fluctuation was very marked 
during the Civil War, and the causes that produced it are still 
extant and would doubtless again operate in the same manner. 
Our system must therefore be flexible and capable of easy adapta- 
tion to any regimental and divisional strength. It is based on 
the following rule which is simple and applicable to any formation 
of troops: To each 100 combatants assign 2 men as bearers and 
nurses for duty with the regiment, and 1.5 men for duty with the 
divisional ambulance. 
A regiment of 1000 men will have thirty-five nurses and bearers 
to take care of its wounded, fifteen permanently detached with 
the ambulance corps and twenty remaining in its ranks up to the 
moment of battle." As a division decreases, the bearers in 
excess of the above proportion will be sent to the Headquarters 
Ambulance Brigade (noticed further on) for distribution to the 
other divisions if need be. As a regiment is about to become 
engaged, the senior medical officer on duty with it, from the roll 
of the stretcher-bearers and nurses, calls for the proportion of 
men allowed by the above rule, but should be authorized to call 
for the rest in case of special exigency. As soon as, in the prog- 
ress of the battle, the ambulance corps men reach the field, the 
regimental bearers can be sent back to the ranks or else may work 
conjointly with them as long as their services are required. 
AMBULANCE CORPS. 
The modern ambulance corps operates between the scene of 
action and the field hospitals, and upon it chiefly devolves the 
care of the wounded on the day of battle. In front, it works 
jointly with the regimental service, and may be reinforced from 
the’ rear, early in the action, by the staff of the field hospitals. 
* Whether musicians should be trained and employed as regimental stretcher- 
bearers, as in France, or not, as in Germany and England, is an unettled matter. The 
tendency of modern times is to separate and specialize duties. MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
In the United States, it is the ambulance organization of an 
army corps. The modern army corps, however, has become so 
large and is so likely to break up into parts operating separately 
that its ambulance service does not give the best results if kept 
together as a homogeneous whole. European experience shows 
that not the corps but the division should be the unit of ambu- 
lance organization. The name of Ambulance Corps, as defined 
by the Regulations, is too well consecrated by usage to permit of 
any alteration in form or general meaning; what we can, and all 
we need do, is to change the composition of the body it desig- 
nates. 
The Ambulance Corps should be made up of independent 
units, each one corresponding to a division of the army corps and 
operating with it. The unit thus assigned to a division is the 
Ambulance” of the French; it is the “ Sanitatsdetachement ” 
of the Germans, the “ Sanitatscolonne ” of the Austrians, and the 
“ Bearer Company ” of the English. The name of ambulance 
brigade, which I propose for it, seems to me the most appropriate 
for the United States Army; it has the merit of originality with- 
out clashing with any of the traditions of the Service, and is more 
exact and comprehensive than any of the above foreign names or 
equivalents. 
The ambulance corps, thus reorganized, will be under the 
general direction of the medical director as provided by law. It 
will consist of as many ambulance brigades as there are divisions 
in the army corps, and an additional one, known as the Head- 
quarters ambulance brigade, for the corps troops (calvary, artill- 
ery, engineers, etc.), and the reinforcement of any divisional brig- 
ade in need of assistance. Our hypothetical corps of three 
divisions would, therefore, consist of four ambulance brigades 
fully manned and equipped for independent action. 
What will be the strength of the medical personnel (bearers 
and nurses) of an ambulance brigade? Our rule assigns 1.5 per 
cent, of the command to the ambulance corps; therefore if we 
have a division 12,000 strong, the Ambulance Brigade will get a 
detail of 180 men. From this number must be deducted the 
quota to the Headquarters Brigade, say twenty-four men. Of 
the remaining 156, thirty-six will do duty as ambulance orderlies. 
We have now left only 120 men, a number which represents the 
exact rate of one per cent of the strength of the division. These 
•120 men are divided into stretcher-bearers and nurses,—ninety-six MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
84 
of the former and twenty-four of the latter. The ninety-six bear- 
ers will man twenty-four stretchers, or at the rate of two stretch- 
ers per 1,000 combatants; these two, added to the four stretchers 
manned by the regimental bearers, give us six stretchers for each 
full regiment, independently of the help which in case of need 
could be obtained from the Headquarters Brigade. 
The composition of an ambulance brigade is complex. Its 
total personnel, for a division of 12,000 men, would be about as 
follows: 
i Surgeon in charge. 
5 Surgeons, 
i Captain. 
t First Lieutenant, 
i Second Lieutenant, 
i Sergeant M'ajor. 
8 Sergeants. 
8 Hospital stewards. 
24 Hospital attendants, (nurses and 
cooks J. 
2 Buglers. 
36 Ambulance drivers. 
36 Ambulance orderlies (nine of whom to 
be mounted corporals). 
10 Wagon drivers. 
96 Stretcher-bearers. 
4 Mechanics (blacksmith, wheelwright, 
saddler, farrier). 
Total, 234 
As the division dwindles down, these numbers can be reduced 
correspondingly, all in excess of the proper ratio being sent to the 
Headquarters Brigade for redistribution. 
The materiel will consist of thirty-six ambulances, two medi- 
cine wagons, six service wagons for tentage, baggage and supplies, 
and two water carts. 
Personnel and materiel are so organized as to admit of being 
split in halves, each capable of separate action. 
The ambulance orderlies follow the ambulances, or ride on the 
rear step, and are responsible for the safety and comfort of the 
patients in transit to the depot and the field hospitals. Each of 
the nine orderly corporals, besides his own ambulance, will also 
exercise supervision over three others,—the four ambulances thus 
under his authority constituting an ambulance section. The 
twenty-four stretchers will be divided into six sections or four 
stretchers, each section being in charge of a sergeant designated 
chief of section. 
The Headquarters Brigade need not be so large as the others. 
It will be made up of twenty-four men from each of the infantry 
divisions, therefore, in our hypothetical corps, will only have sev- 
enty-two bearers and attendants. 
LINES OF SURGICAL HELP. 
The three lines of the field service are, as already noticed,* MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
85 
the regimental help-stations, the ambulance brigade depot and 
the field hospitals. 
On the battlefield nothing can be done for the wounded, while 
under fire, but to lift them upon stretchers and carry them off 
speedily to the help-station. Here they are rapidly examined 
and given such immediate attention as may be required to secure 
their safe transport to the ambulance depot; time and place sel- 
dom permit to do more. As far as practicable, help-station and 
ambulance-picket should be united so that, after examination, the 
patients may be at once placed into the ambulances. Wounded 
men must be dressed and then placed into the ambulances with- 
out being lifted off the stretchers on which they are brought. 
The modern formation of infantry advancing against an enemy 
may be practically described as consisting of three lines : firing 
line, line of support, regimental reserves, with an interval of 300 
yards between them. The line of support, placed 300 yards be- 
hind the skirmishing or firing line, is supposed by tacticians to be 
comparatively safe from the fire aimed at the first line, while the 
regimental reserves are entirely Safe from bullets. The help-sta- 
tion should not therefore be further than just in rear of the re- 
serves. This will place it about 600 yards behind the firing line. 
In certain cases, where good shelter is available and the reserves 
can get nearer to the front, the station, of course, follows them. 
The German and French regiment of infantry, made up of 
three battalions, is 3,000 men strong; one help-station for each is 
provided and considered sufficient. Our formation correspond- 
ing in number to the above regiment is the brigade which seldom 
would exceed but often fall short of 3,000 men. Such brigade 
in battle array would only cover a front of from 300 to 500 yards, 
and, therefore, obviously needs but one station ; to have three or 
more stations 100 or 200 yards apart would be a waste of means 
and detrimental to the wounded. 
A medicine wagon containing the supplies of the help-sta- 
tion and carrying the regimental stretchers should follow each 
brigade to the field, and advance to the station or as near it as 
possible. 
The depot of the Ambulance Brigade constitutes the second 
line of help. It is the centre and rallying point of the brigade. 
Here, as a battle becomes impending, all the ambulances which 
followed the regiments on the march rejoin the brigade train. If 
no suitable building can be found, the grounds are cleared by the 86 
MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
attendants and hospital tents pitched; the necessary medi- 
cines and appliances are drawn from the wagons and held in 
readiness. 
The stretcher-bearers are divided into as many platoons as 
there are help-stations; each platoon, under command of a lieu- 
tenant or the senior chief of section, marches toward its assigned 
station, followed by a picket of ambulances; these are driven as 
near the station as possible ; as soon as halted, the bearers re- 
move the stretchers and with them proceed to the front, or else 
first carry off the wounded collected at the help-station. 
The patients brought to the depot are carefully but rapidly ex- 
amined, and assorted according to their injuries ; one surgeon 
applies simple dressings, a second attends to serious wounds, a 
third, with assistants, performs urgent operations. The diagnos- 
tic red and white tags used in Germany, France and Italy could 
advantageously be introduced in our service. Encumbrance must 
be avoided by sending the wounded to the rear as soon as at- 
tended to, beginning with the less severely hurt. If circum- 
stances permit, a field hospital, or section thereof, moves up to the 
depot after the battle so as to spare grave and desperate cases the 
danger of transportation. 
At what distance in the rear should the ambulance depot be 
established ? 
We have seen that at 600 yards behind the firing line one was 
practically safe from bullets ; at the distance of about a mile, 
rather less than more, we shall not only be beyond the range of 
musketry fire but also beyond the aim of artillery projectiles, and 
there seems the proper place for the depot. Whatever danger there 
may be at this distance is reduced to a minimum by a judicious 
selection of the spot, availing ourselves of any shelter, natural or 
artificial, which the grounds may afford. 
The field hospitals form the third line of help. They should 
be at an absolutely safe distance from the scene of conflict, that 
is two or three miles behind the ambulance depot, and have a free 
outlet toward the line of evacuation. There should be three 
provided for a division, all completely equipped. Each accom- 
modates 200 patients and is divisible in two equal sections. It 
will be sufficient to mobilize two of them on entering the field; 
the third one can remain at the hospital depot whence, in case of 
need, it can be rapidly forwarded. It is essential that at least one 
hospital, or section thereof, be always able to move close behind MODERN FIELD SANITARY SERVICE. 
87 
its respective division ; the others follow as soon as their inmates 
can be disposed of. 
Of the various matters touched upon in this paper, one more 
than any other, claims our immediate attention, namely, the 
necessity of instructing stretcher-bearers. Each regiment of 
Federal or State troops should at all times have a sufficient 
number of qualified bearers for emergencies. This seems a 
reasonable proposition, but one to the importance of which 
no proper attention has yet been paid in this country. If a 
riot breaking out to-morrow should cause the Army or National 
Guard to be called out, it is but too certain that the wounded 
would have to undergo the torture and danger of being handled 
by untrained and inexperienced troopers. Considering the ease 
with which the necessary instruction is imparted, its immense 
value in war and great usefulness at all times, there seems no 
reason why, in this respect, we should lag so far behind other 
civilized nations.