Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-01-23
REGULARS AND VOLUNTEERS.
~7-'N' . 11A410 4AA'O VVAON 44444ND'
Volunteers Criticisms of Regular Omcers.
WASHINGTON, January, 1862.

WAsHINGroN, January, 1862.
AS the war goes on, and as the volunteers
grow more and more familiar with the details
OF the service and nave fuller opportunities
OF observing men and things around them, it
is obvious that they regard with less and less
favor the officers of the regular army. Six
months ago, happy was the regiment that
could get a West Point man to command it,
The fact that man had passed five years of
his boyhOod at tue military academy was held
TO be sufficient proof OF his qualifications tor
almost any position in the army. The yolun-
teer officers, many OF them men Of great tai.
ents and natural capacity for command, and of
high social and political station, modestly sub
mltted to the pretensions of the regulars, and
yielded certain Difference to their assumed
superiority.
But, after serving with them for six or eight
months, with ample opportunities Of testing
their merits, the more UbseI want and capable
volunteer officers fluid their respect for the
regulars senSibly abated. The following are
some OF the remarks on this subject which
have been made to HE by candid and judicious
men, IN whose powers OF correct ubSerya-
tons and reflection | have much confidence
1hey say that it does not tullUw because
man has been graduated at West Point he
is necessarily a man OF talent. TO get through
the academy only requires average intelli-
gence, industry, and steadiness. The ablest
men at West Point have generally entered the
engineer and typographical corps, and those
two corps, the volunteers readily admit, are
composed OF officers of decided ability, and of
scientific attachments of the highest value to
the army. They also concede the general su-
perlority in skill of the regular artillery of.
nCers. But here their concessions stop.
They maintain that the regular infantry and
cavalry officers excel neither i'll talent nor in
knowledge the volunteer officers .oi the same
ranks, and in many cases, where personal
comparisons are made, the regulars are pro-
nounced to be positively inferior. The voluu-
teers claim that many Of their regiments are
better drilled and better managed than the
regulars. They say that the majority OF the
regular officers have lost what knowledge
they brought from West Point, because they
have had no opportunity to exercise it, having
wasted their lives since, for the most part in
dull service at s!enderly garlsoned forts or i'll
petty warfare with the Indians, So that few
OF them have ever Seen a hundred sol
dierS together, till this war broke out
They accuse them, too, OF ignorance of
human nature, and OF the art OF managing and
Leading masses OF men-au ignorance Incl
dental to their life on the barbarouS frontier,
surrounded only by savages and by few
parties whom they regarded and treated as
of the general officers recently appointed on
the strength Of their West Point education,
are said to be incapable OF drilling their COM
mands. One of them, who has been on the
other side of the Potomac tor six months,
made, soon after he assumed the command, an
attempt to drill his brigade, and having pro-
duced only confusion by his laundering orders,
prudentIy relmquished the attempt, and has
since credilably confined himself TO less am.
bilious performances.
But the most serious charge against the
regular officers, and one THAI unhappily cannot
be cOntroverted, is that, with II few honorable
exceptions, their hearts in this great struggle
are not entirely and cordially with the govern,
ment. West Point seems 10 have been, for
many years, seminary OF southern preiu-
dlces. 1t is hard to find regular officer " ho
is not tnll Of such prejudices. The opinion
Is very common among them that the north
brought on the war by unjust and unrcason-
able agitation against southern feelings and
interests; that, politically, on the slavery
question, the south is. entirely right, aud the
north entirely wrong; and that tile north can
at any time restore peace by taking proper
position on this point, that is, by conserving
to the extension Of slavery and restoring
the shareholders to their former domination
IN our national councils. They admit that
the south has done wrong in rebelling, and
that the rebellion must be put down; but its
suppression must be effected without touching
the sacred, the divine institution of slavery,
and, if possible, without hurting any of its
defenders. II the war can be so managed that
no great damage shall be done TO the slave.
holders till 1864 a combination may then be
formed to bring about pro slavery peace, and
reconstruction OF the union on a southern
basis, by electing to the presidency Mcclellan
or some other pro slavery general, to whom
the Shareholders will not have the violent an
hpathy they express towards Mr.. Lincoln.
Such are the notions which the more intel
lgent volunteers ascribe 10 the regulars, with
some exceptions. The volunteers, rank and
file, they say, are full of ardor and enterprise
and would go ahead, if allowed, and finish the
war in few months. But they are held in
check by the unsympathizing regulars, who
dread the triumph of their own government
and are secretly longing for some decent mode
OF restoring southern supremacy.
1t is to be hoped that the senate will look
INTO tins matter, and confirm no man who is
tainted with dis.oyal sentiments. The pres
ent war can no more be carried on successfully
win such agencies than could the revolution.
airy war If our armies had been commanded
by men who believed that the stamp act and
tea tax were constitutional, that Great Britain
had been touy abused by our politicians. and
that all the trouble had been created by Desti.
lent agiNtors like Adams, Hancock Jefferson.
Franklin and Hamilton.