Present:
DEAR GENERAL: I
would most respectfully suggest that you use your personal influence with
President Lincoln to accomplish a result on which it may be the ultimate peace
and security of our country depends. I mean to his use of the draft to fill up
our old regiments.
I see by the public
journals that a draft is to be made, and that 100,000 men are to be assigned to
fill up the old regiments, and 200,000 to be organized as new troops. I do not
believe that Mr. Lincoln, or any man, would at this critical period of our
history repeat the fatal mistakes of last year. Taking this army as a fair
sample of the whole, what is the case? The regiments do not average 300 men,
nor did they exceed that strength last fall when the new regiments joined us in
November and December. Their rolls contained about 900 names, whereas now their
ranks are even thinner than the older organizations. All who deal with troops
in fact instead of theory know that the knowledge of the little details of camp
life is absolutely necessary to keep men alive. New regiments for want of this
knowledge have measles, mumps, diarrhea, and the whole catalogue of infantile
diseases, whereas the same number of men distributed among the older regiments
would learn from the sergeants and corporals and privates the art of taking
care of themselves, which would actually save their lives and preserve their
health against the host of diseases that invariably attack the new regiments.
Also, recruits distributed among older companies catch up, from close and
intimate contact, a knowledge of drill, the care and use of arms, and all the
instruction which otherwise it would take months to impart. The economy, too,
should recommend the course of distributing all the recruits as privates to the
old regiments, but these reasons appear to me so plain that it is ridiculous
for me to point them out to you, or even to suggest them to an intelligent
civilian.
I am assured by many
that the President does actually desire to support and sustain the Army, and
that he desires to know the wishes and opinions of the officers who serve in
the wood instead of the "salon." If so, you would be listened to.
It will take at
least 600 good recruits per regiment to fill up the present army to the proper
standard. Taking 1,000 as the number of regiments in actual existence, this
would require 600,000 recruits. It may be the industrial interests of the
country will not authorize such a call, but how much greater the economy to
make an army and fight out this war at once. See how your success is checked by
the want of prompt and adequate enforcement to guard against a new enemy
gathering to the rear. Could your regiments be filled up to even the standard
of 700 men for duty, you would be content to finish quick and well the work so
well begun. If a draft be made, and the men be organized into new regiments
instead of filling up the old, the President may satisfy a few aspiring men,
but will prolong the war for years and allow the old regiments to die of
natural exhaustion. I have several regiments which have lost honestly in battle
and by disease more than half their original men, and the wreck or remainder,
with colonel, lieutenant-colonel, major, ten captains, lieutenants, &c.,
and a mere squad of men, remind us of the army of Mexico—all officers and no
men. It would be an outrage to consolidate these old, tried, and veteran
regiments and bring in the new and comparatively worthless bodies. But fill up
our present ranks, and there is not an officer or man of this army but would
feel renewed hope and courage to meet the struggles before us.
I regard this matter
as more important than any other that could possibly arrest the attention of
President Lincoln, and it is for this reason that I ask you to urge it upon him
at this auspicious time. If adopted, it would be more important than the
conquest of Vicksburg and Richmond together, as it would be a victory of common
sense over the popular fallacies that have ruled and almost ruined our country.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume 3 (Serial No.
124), p. 386-8
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