Col. Revere, of the Seventh New Jersey regiment, has recently addressed a letter to Governor Ogden [sic], in which he points out the folly of forming new regiments when the old so greatly need filling up. He says:
“With all due respect to the opinions of others, I am in favor of immediate drafting from the militia, en masse, and the filling up of our shattered regiments now in the field, so much reduced by the reverses of war, in preference to raising new regiments, which cannot be prepared for the field in less period than six months.
“It would be most unwise to send these raw regiments, without drill or discipline, even if they can be recruited in time to enable the armies now in the field to assume the offensive, to meet the rebel regiments of trained and valiant troops, who may be ranked among the best soldiers in the world, as all our army can testify who have met them in the recent great battles of the Peninsula.
“The best composition of a regiment, in the view of military men, is probably one-fourth of old soldiers, both by example and precept. Thus constituted, the regiments of the army of the Potomac would be irresistible, and its force and power in war be far superior to any force the rebels can bring into the field.
“The officers of that army have now been educated in the best school – the field of war – and any lack of them can be easily supplied from the ranks of the volunteers, which contain a plentiful supply of active, intelligent and ambitious young soldiers, inured to the hardships of campaigning, and imbued, in a great measure, with the spirit of military institutions. Besides, we have the traditions of the regiments already to excite the ambition and pride of the new recruits, who would much rather belong to a regiment which inscribes “Williamsburg,” “Fair Oaks,” “Malvern,” etc., to its [colors, than to a new one, entirely un]known to fame.
The superior advantages already acquired by drill and discipline are to apparent to be recommended, while the saving to the government in every way is something enormous, as one regiment of veterans filled up with recruits in the proportion of one in three [or] four of old soldiers, represents a military power of as one to two, as the least, when compared with a force composed entirely, as our new regiments cannot fail to be, of raw officers and soldiers, entirely uninured to war, and who have not received the baptism of fire.
“The saving of the number of officers is also to be taken into the account, unless the country is more plethoric of wealth than would seem to be the case at present.
The last is a point that does not seem to get proper consideration. The regiments now in the field have in general a fair, if not full complement of officers, who draw pay whether they have men to command or not. To fill up their commands would be to make use of these experienced and valuable officers; but instead of that, it seems to be preferred to create a new army list of inexperienced men, costing the government double what it ought, for half service. The nation has a right to demand that no such waste of means shall be permitted.
Col. Revere says that to prepare a new army for the field will require six months. – Have we much time to throw away. To recruit the armies now in the field is a work which could be done in one month, with proper efforts. The 30,000 men already said to be enlisted, and most of whom are, we fear, waiting for new regiments to be completed, would be of great and lasting value if they could at once be sent down to Pope not as fresh and distrained regiments, but in the shape of recruits to join his veterans and be mixed with them. Thirty thousand men, healthy and vigorous, in the hands of an enterprising general, might serve to turn the tide of victory again in our favor. But if they are kept at home, if they enter the field a mass of undisciplined recruits, with officers as ignorant as themselves; if they must be painfully and tediously drilled for months before they can be taken into action – then the generals who want to push on the war must do so without counting on the new levies, and the brave fellows who have already born the brunt of the contest must bear it yet longer dissatisfied.
Every consideration of justice to those in the field, the encouragement of those about to enter, speedy reinforcements of our armies, economy in means as well as time – everything points to the necessity of using the new levies to fill up the regiments now in the field – and yet, though time is precious and the enemy presses, our State authorities do not seem to realize the necessity of the hour, but continue a mode of enlistment which wastes both time and money.
– Published in The Daily Rebel, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Saturday, August 9, 1862, p. 1
