The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1898-08-20
ARP MAKES APOLOGY
he Did Not Intend to Wound Any
body's Feelings.
The Comparison He Made Claiming
That Volunteers Behaved Bet
ter Than Regular Army
Soldiers.

Il don't mean Gregg have become |
satisfied that however bad the mate
rial out of which the average regular
is made he can and does in time be-
cone disciplined and makes a good
soldier. Of course no young man who
has pride or ambition or pleasant do
mestic relations or loves pretty girl
would willingly Offer himself to be en-
shaved as private in the regular
army. The reasons for doing this
must be peculiar and extraordinary.
IL is simply an escape--a refuge from
a worse condition that is impending.
I have known q few of those who en-
listed and they did we'll. know some
now who ought to. tits fortunate that
there is regular army for this class
of unfortuHates to join.
A gentleman writes me from Macon
and says: "You are too hard upon the
regulars and l doubt if you have had
much experience with them" No,
have not, for but few have ever been
made down south, especially in the in
terror, where there are no ports of
entry and no floating population. Our
only experience was during the civil
war, when we were unable to distin-
guish regulars from volunteers so far
as conduct was concerned on their
march tc the sea. This Macon gentle
man says that the only big camp row
that has occurred in this war was in
the camp of Georgia volunteers, and
he begs me not to write so thoughtless-
ly and says: "You would dissuade
every decent man from joining the
standing army and we would have only
an army of toughs and brutes who
would disgrace Christendom. No
camp of regulars was ever guilty of
such bestiality as occurred at Chicka-
manga"
Well, there is now good chance for
a moral fight between the regulars
and the volunteers and hope the dis
cussion will do good and raise the
standard of our soldiers. Hundreds
of them have disgraced their calling
and spread terror in their march to
the gulf and paralyzed the patriotism
of our people. My Macon friend says:
II Travelled with few regulars not
long ago who had just reenlisted for
another five years and | talked to one
who was more than ordinarily intelli-
gent and when l expressed surprise
that he should reenlist he said there
was fascination about army life and
it operated alike on the private and
the epaulet, and that it offered fine
opportunity for self-culture and the
acquisition of book learning. He gave
me new views upon the subject, and
was glad to talk to him." Well, of
course there is a light to every shad-
ow and there are many men of many
minds. Some men turn hermits from
disappointed hopes or for contempla-
ton, and suppose that q private in
the regular army who draws SIS a
month and is fed and clothed and has
no responsibility and there is no pros
pect of war, can pass self-satisfied ex-
istence. Self-satisfied! but who else
does he live for?
My ideal of the patriot soldier is the
volunteer-the men who in the revo-
luton of 1776 left the plows and their
shops, and Selling their guns and
their knapsacks, rushing to meet the
invaders. Those are the kind that
fought for the south in the late civil
war, fought against odds of four to
one and put million on the pension
rolls. Can it be possible that the sons
of those veterans are the soldiers who
are disgracing their fathers and their
uniforms and their state by their
shameful conduct? No! My Macon
friend is mistaken. The rioters were
not Georgia volunteers. I'll bet on
it. The Constitution tells of some
Iowa soldiers. the T:;,oatty -ninrn regi-
Hent, who went down on the South
ern the other night and broke all the
lamps and window glass in the cars,
and at station where the train
stopped awhile they went out and
ran the people out of their houses in
the dead of night.
But thoughtful Atlanta friend
says: MY friend, it is useless and
impolite to criticise the army during
war. We must suffer in silence
and endure what we cannot help
/ reckon that is good advice, and
am reminded of the old woman whose
little dog parked necessarily at the
soldiers who passed, and she said:
"Hush, Fido, hush, you'll bark your
little self to death. You can't bite ar
army"
And so l will hush and let the pro
cession proceed, but / am pleased tc
see that Capt. Davies, of Atlanta, is
drawing the lines and rejecting al
tramps and vagabonds and lawles:
men who apply to join his command
Every veteran of the army of North
ern Virginia remembers how mucl
trouble the Louisiana Tigers gave the
officers. They were the wharf rat'
of New Orleans--devils incarnate whC
feared not God nor regarded man, bu
they fought like tigers and fell will
their faces to the foe. This is theil
5est-epitaph. Just so even the wors
of our soldiers reckon will fight tn,
Spaniards. Some of them have al
ready fought and fallen, and as the.
are all now at the front and in con
slant peril, let us draw the curtain
over the past and say "Allah is mer
ciful-great is Allah"
Andthe Press says the army is go
ing to celebrate the Fourth of July b,