August 8, 1864
“What do you think of filling up with Germans?” you ask.
Now, what do you think of a man who has the toothache — a werry, werry big
molar! — and who has not the courage to march up and have it out, but tries to
persuade himself that he can buy some patent pain-killer that will cure him;
when, in his soul, he knows that tooth has to come out? This is what I think of
our good people (honest, doubtless) who would burden us with these poor, poor
nigs, and these nerveless, stupid Germans. As soldiers in the field the
Germans are nearly useless; our experience is, they have no native courage to
compare with Americans. Then they do not understand a word that is said to them
— these new ones. So it has proved with the Massachusetts 20th (which has a
perfection of discipline not at all the rule). Under the severe eyes of their
officers the German recruits have done tolerably in simple line, mixed with the
old men; but they produced confusion at the Wilderness, by their ignorance of
the language; and, only the other day, Patten told me he could not do a thing
with them on the skirmish line, because they could not understand. By the Lord!
I wish these gentlemen who would overwhelm us with Germans, negroes, and the
off-scourings of great cities, could only see — only see — a Rebel
regiment, in all their rags and squalor. If they had eyes they would know that
these men are like wolf-hounds, and not to be beaten by turnspits. Look at our “Dutch”
heavy artillery: we no more think of trusting them than so many babies. Send
bog-trotters, if you please, for Paddy will fight — no one is braver. It should
be known, that ill-disciplined, or cowardly, or demoralized troops may be
useful behind walls, but in open campaigning they literally are worse than
useless; they give way at the first fire and expose the whole line to be
flanked. At the Wilderness the 6th Corps would have been stronger without
Ricketts's division; at Spotsylvania the whole army would have been stronger
without Mott's division. Howland1 has influence in recruiting;
impress upon him, therefore, that every worthless recruit he sends to this army
is one card in the hand of General Lee and is the cause, very likely, of the
death of a good soldier. The trouble is this: we have not the machinery
to work up poor material. They won't let us shoot the rascals, and few
regiments have the discipline to mould them into decent troops; the consequence
is, they are the stragglers, pillagers, skulkers and run-aways of the army. If
you had seen as many thousands as I, you would understand what sort of fellows
they are. I don't believe in recruiting another man! We have recruited already
more volunteers than any country ever saw. Volunteers are naturally
exhausted; and now we pay huge bounties to every sort of scoundrel and vagabond
and alien. These men will not fight and you can't make 'em fight. But
draft men and you will get good ones, without bounty. They will not want to
go, but they have the pride of native-born Americans, and they fight like
devils. The very men that desert the next day will fight the day before, for
sake of avoiding shame. I have written quite a disquisition, but the topic is
an important one, and I have the honor, in conclusion, to suggest to the
honorable City of Boston that, when the Germans arrive, they should be let out
as gardeners, and the poor remnants of the old regiments should be allowed to
fight it out alone.
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1 His brother-in-law.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 207-9
