It is a miserable thing for a country to have to get ready for war when war is forced upon it. This was the case when the rebellion broke out. We were not ready for it. There was indeed no lack of men. Hundreds of thousands responded to their country's call; and the great body of the people were carried away with the delusion that men with arms in their hands are soldiers, and that massing them in great numbers makes them a great army. Wise men--men of military judgment and experience--knew better. But the popular clamor for onward offensive operations prevailed; with disastrous result in the first instance. Not on the whole perhaps to be regretted. It did what nothing else could have done--it dispelled the popular delusion. It did something toward teaching the nation a lesson indispensably necessary to be learned--that a million men with arms in their hands without discipline, are nothing but an armed mob, and that the discipline which alone makes an effective army, implies a great deal more than is gotten in company trainings and regimental parades under our old militia system.
Discipline--discipline--discipline; these are the first, second, and third requisites to make men into soldiers. With it the poorest materials can be made effective. Napoleon made good soldiers of the Italian lazaroni--and a poorer material can scarcely well be conceived. It is Napoleon that said: 'discipline is the first requisite for a soldier--bravery is only secondary.' Indeed the more there is of bravery in an army composed of such men as the New England States and the rural districts of New York send to the war--'reasoning bayonets,' as Napoleon called them, bayonets in the hands of men with heads on their shoulders, and heads that have the habit of doing their own thinking--the more there is of bravery in such a soldiery, the greater the need of discipline. Not only thorough training in the use of arms, but a habit of implicit obedience is indispensable to make good soldiers.
There can be no doubt this war is destined to make us a more military people than we have been before. And good reason we should be. In the first place, because the prevalence of a higher military tone and the maintenance of a more effective military force are indispensable for the national security and defence. Until the millennium comes we shall always be liable to foreign invasions or internal rebellion. In either case there is nothing before us but to fight, and nothing but successful fighting can save us. But how can we fight successfully if we have only raw recruits or an ill-trained militia, and officers better skilled to handle the yard stick than the sword, to marshal a column of figures than a body of men? In the nest place, because the military virtues--courage, fortitude, endurance, subordination, and obedience; the military habits--promptitude, vigilance, order, attention to details; and the physical developments--health, strength, and heightened muscular activity, which come from military discipline--all these are no less valuable as elements of the _morale_ or general character of a nation than indispensable in a merely military view, to a nation's security and success in arms.