Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1864-07-01
How to Keep the Ranks Full.

i I II INC Important speech Vi OtHhtOi
Wilson, in which he stated that within a
year we had put into the field 100000
new recruits an re-enlisted men, was
suppressed by the telegraphic censor
This accounts for the fact that the country
heard nothing of it till it appeared in the
Washington Globe. Why should b e
war department wish the facts suppress
ed Evidently n o t from any fear that
they would give any information to the
enemy that would be of use to them
We cannot avoid the painful suspicion
that the secretary of war did not wish to
hear the questions asked, Where are these
700, 900 men And where are the million
soldiers that the government is paying, if
Senator Wilson's statement is correct
No reasonable estimate of the soldiers
actually in the field in the various armies
makes their aggregate b l. a million !;
where are the other half million a d
more :? Can Secretary Stanton give any
account of them How many of them
have skedaddled, after taking the national
and state bounties !? Not half a million,
we hope, but evidently great many
The volunteers W e have purchased at
such cost have proved the poorest posi-
BILE material, as a general fact, and at
every battle they disappear by hundreds
or thousands. Some of the correspond
ents with Meade's army have said there
was no struggling during the recent march
to the James, but the correspondent Of the
Boston Journal, who was with the army
on the march, says
GAN the corps have more or less stray
Igers. The best regiments in the service
are cursed with bounty jumpers and men
W b o enlisted TO have an easy time.-
These fellows are the ones who 90 to
swell the list Of prisoners, as the rebel
cavalry pouuces upon them while skulk-
ing around farm houses and by places to
avoid duty. They are the ones who rob
and plumber If circumstances beyond
their control compel them TO be in fight,
they are ID g most jealous in assisting
wounded to get to the hospital. You
will three or four leading ina
wounded in the wrist, and be assured
they will not return to the regiment till
the fight is over. Stragglers rush to the
rear if possible with frightfnl stories Of
carnage and defeat. II does indeed seem
strange, that such state Of affairs can
exist. Whether the provost marshal has
an insufficient force or the fault arises
from some other cause, | am unable to-
say but a screw is loose somewbere.-I
Just after the army had left Cold Harbor
last Sunday, found five good muskets
lying where Gen Patrick's quarters had
been. As there was no means of con-
veying them to proper place, ! was OBJ
lised to destroy them that they might not
fall into the hands o. the enemy"
Struggling, however, cannot account
for the manifestly great discrepancy be-
tween the number of soldiers under pay
a those actually in service. There
must be other screws loose somewhere.
The practical question the people ask,
when they see Senator Wilson's figures,
is, How does it happen that the govern
ment wants more men, and that three
hundred thousand will soon be called for !?
Senator Wilson, in the speech alluded to,
solemnly invoked divine help to organize
and direct our armies, and undertook to
say that the war might have been closed
long ago ifthe courage of the leaders had
been equal to that of the people. We
are not sure Of this, and there has been
another cause OF delay and disaster that
The senator did not mention. We mean
he failure of Congress to act up to the
emergency. 1t is true the people have
wonderfully kept up their courage, but it [
las often been almost the courage of des- i
pair. And there has been nothing q
lisheartening and demoralizing to h e =
people as the hesitating, uncertain and
continually changing policy of Congress {
n regard to his whole matter. They S
nave been continually tinkering the law, Il
md now seem to be more uncertain as {
o what needs to be done than ever be- :.
ore. Almost any fixed system would
lave been better b n t h i continual II
changing and the uneasness it has pro- e
luced in the public mind. Under any t,
lefnite and stable arrangement recruits .
ng might have been kept up and the
Irmies been steadily replenished from the o
tate. But we have b d inopportune t
f volunteering, spasmodic a
alls for men in moments of needless 81
larm, and such frequent experimenting ;,
nth the law of enrolment and draft that u
he people b q ve felt quite uncertain P
whether h government wanted most 81
heir money or their lives, or whether it n
id not run the drafting machinery mere ;,
? to show its power to do SO. y
We suppose il TO be the fact, notWith- '