17 ilaginot ported engineers in political favor and had used them with While Great Britain was about to strike from the east and In these post Revolutionary years the army passed through swift periods of rise and fall. It was the thermometer of the nation's fear. At first, under the constitution, it was barely 1 regiment, then 2 in 1789, 3 in 1791, a legion corresponding to 5 in 1792, 6 in 1796, 9 in 1798, 6 in 1800 and 3 again in 1802. In 1808 it suddenly sprang to 11 regiments each having 8, 10 or 20 companies depending upon the law by which the particular organization was born. But the actual number of soldiers recruited, irrespective of laws, seemed to vary little. In 1805, the army consisted of 2,732 officers and men; in 1807, of less than 2,500; and 1809, 2,965; although the authorized strength during these years showed differences of nearly 400 per cent. How could any organization under such whimsical change be otherwise than far below standard? How could the velocity of such expansion and contraction do else than break the joints of our land defense? There could be no unity or spirit in the 17 The first graduate of the Military Academy. 1811 Line Dec. 24 1811 army under such sudden measures of giving and taking away. Aside from a very few men who had graduated from the Military Academy and others who, like Winfield Scott, had entered the service with the highest motives, the officers took little interest in their profession. Politics rather than qualifications commissioned them. Steuben's work had been rooted up and nothing had been planted in its place save West Point, which as yet could give few results. The old training had passed out when the army had been flung aside. Too often was the officer at this time an idler or martinet, and often both. When Congress and the people took so little interest in proper national defense, such decadence was to be expected. A good man, who might under better conditions have enlisted, sensed the instability of the army and shied at the unknown. Either in entering or leaving the service of his country he would be unpopular. His pay would be low and his life hard and dangerous. His treatment, too, was likely to be bad. He hesitated to give up his chances in civil life when he did not know how long the government might keep him. In spite of the small wages, he might have come into the army had there existed an established pride of corps and a distinction in being a defender of his nation. But when both these elements were taken away, the excellent recruit was hard to obtain. Congress had to offer to any man who would enlist or reënlist for five years a bonus of $16 bounty, to be paid at once, and 3 months' pay and 160 acres of land upon honorable discharge. As an added inducement his heirs were to receive all this gratuity if the soldier died or was killed in line of duty. With ordinary attention to the happenings of the Revolution thirty years before and to the first man in peace as well as war, who had just died, Congress could have made an excellent, economical force. But it had forgotten the magic word "training." Because it had not listened to the voice of experience and wisdom, it could not in a twinkling find a substitute for time. Nor could it organize efficiently or economically after the panic was once started. To Washington, the country accorded mourning for thirty days, the annual observance of his birthday, a high monument, the name of the capital of the nation and the splendid title of "Father of his Country," but it consistently spurned the advice he held most dear: "To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only be armed but disciplined." N CHAPTER V THE ARMY IN NAME (1812-1820) O period casts upon the United States a more justifiable shadow than the one which includes the second war against Great Britain. Almost thirty years had passed since the first one, when nearly 400,000 frantically raised soldiers had sought to drive little more than 40,000 of the enemy from our shores. At the end of this illuminating interval, the government found itself with larger resources and a firmer control, but with nothing that might be mistaken for trained forces. Men of the type of Washington, Steuben, Greene and Morgan had passed out. There had meanwhile been no incentive to produce soldiers technically schooled for battle and campaign. Bereft of ordinary means of keeping afloat, the country was about to plunge into war. The opening of 1812 saw the army almost as heterogeneously organized, or disorganized, as when Steuben appeared at Valley Forge. Congress had established companies ranging from 64 to 100 men; and regiments, from 10 to 20 companies. Although the regular establishment had been raised to 11 regiments, less than one fifth of the added numbers had been recruited and no provisions had been made for a competent staff to handle the increase. Only 71 cadets had so far been graduated from a Military Academy of irregular and infantile curriculum. Even if such men as Thayer, Swift and Totten were beginning to give good accounts of themselves, they were so young and few that they scarcely formed a nucleus. The several thousand regulars were chained to the frontier forts and the coast line. They could not be withdrawn for combined use without inviting massacres of the frontiersmen and the loss of possessions. The First, Fourth and Fifth regi ments of infantry were scattered in small groups along the vast stretch of territory on the edges of the Great Lakes and on the borders of Ohio and Indiana; the Seventh was spread through Kentucky; the Sixth was found in the southwest; the Second in the vicinity of New Orleans; and the Third along the frontier of Georgia and Florida. The artillery in small detachments was dotted along the coast from Maine to Georgia and the regiment of dragoons was broken up and used as foot troops with the infantry. Off in their primitive inclosures, the little companies, platoons and sections formed their ranks for morning parade with white belts immaculate, breast plates polished and "silk” (or "plug") hats shined to a gloss. The musketeer in his blue coatee with bullet buttons and herring-bone buttonholes, the rifleman in the full-dress gray coat of a modern cadet, and the officer in his high black boots with gilt spurs marched solemnly and punctiliously before the commanding officer. If from the blockhouse there came the cry "Indians," the scene suddenly took on more action. Each man knew his part. The hunting shirt and nankeen overalls replaced the coatee and the tightfitting breeches. The dress quickly changed, but the discipline remained. Through straining days and nights the meager garrison watched every loophole for the fatal fiebrand or the crawling redskin. After hours of sleeplessness, hunger and oftentimes fever, the defenders finally convinced the savage of the futility of his errand. Then came the burials, the ministrations to the sick and the repairs to the stockade. The few, who had become fewer, returned to the routine of toil and isolation. 1812 1812 To help in the protection of these frontiers Congress au- Jan. 2 thorized the enlistment of 6 companies of "Rangers" for twelve months. Then, because of threatening war with England, it Jan. 11 added to the regular troops 10 regiments of infantry of 18 companies each, 3 regiments of artillery of 20 companies each and a regiment of light dragoons of 12 companies. After the increase, the army theoretically consisted of 17 regiments of infantry, 4 of artillery, 2 of dragoons and 1 of rifles, together with a corps of engineers composed of 16 officers and 4 cadets.1 1''Sec. 3. That to each regiment raised under this act, whether of infantry, artillery or light dragoons, there shall be appointed 1 colonel, |