Since That We Have Extemporized Two If Not Three
Armies.
There are our volunteers at home; and the army which holds
India can hardly be considered as one with that which is to
maintain our prestige in Europe and the West.
We made some natural
blunders in the Crimea, but in making those blunders we taught
ourselves the trade. It is the misfortune of the Northern States
that they must learn these lessons in fighting their own
countrymen. In the course of our history we have suffered the same
calamity more than once. The Round-heads, who beat the Cavaliers
and created English liberty, made themselves soldiers on the bodies
of their countrymen. But England was not ruined by that civil war;
nor was she ruined by those which preceded it. From out of these
she came forth stronger than she entered them - stronger, better,
and more fit for a great destiny in the history of nations. The
Northern States had nearly five hundred thousand men under arms
when the winter of 1861 commenced, and for that enormous multitude
all commissariat requirements were well supplied. Camps and
barracks sprang up through the country as though by magic.
Clothing was obtained with a rapidity that has I think, never been
equaled. The country had not been prepared for the fabrication of
arms, and yet arms were put into the men's hands almost as quickly
as the regiments could be mustered. The eighteen millions of the
Northern States lent themselves to the effort as one man.
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