The St. Johns herald., 1898-03-19
NOT RECORD MAKERS.
Farmer Boys and Clerks Make
 the Best Soldiers

The following article is from the pen
 of Captain Allen T. Bird, editor of the
 Nogales Oasis. It seems that the pres- ent frantic efforts to organize com.
 mands with high sounding titles is merely one more example of history repeating. It would be well for aa to
 remember that there are only four kinds of soldiers known to the United
 States military service. VIZ. : Engineers,
 artillery, cavalry and infantry. and a command with such a funny name as the Fierce Fighting Flying Cowboy Cavalry" would have no place in the military establishment. The following is the first and only sensible article we
 have seen on this subject:
 When war was threatened in 1s60-61, there was a rush to organize regiments with high sound ing names, enlisted from the tough element, the known fighting stock of The country. There were Ellsworth's Fire Zouaves, recruited from the firemen sf Kew York; Billy Wilson's Zou- ayes. recruited from the Bowery and Five Points regIons and @ score or more of similar Organi- cations were quickly organized and marched to the front But in the four bloody years that followed no one ofthose phenomenal organiza- tions made record. The Fire Zouaves were mustered out of the service in disgrace because of their insubordination so were Billy Wilson's ZOuaves The rank and file could submit to discipline. and it was impossible to bring them
 to that state of efficiency where an entire regi-
 ment, brigade division or army moves as ma
 chine. Individually the men were fine fighters,
 but collectively they were worthless on the field
 of battle. On the other hand, the regiments
 which made records were recruited from an en- tirely different class of men. The regiment which showed the heaviest per cent of loss in nll the was the Second Wisconsin. recrui' ed from clerks in stores and farmers boys close second was the Twelfth Massachusetts (the reg iment in which General Miles did his first sol- dier duty as privaie) consisting of Boston dry goods and grocery clerks another regiment with record was the Sixth Wisconsin, farmers boys, miners and lumbermen; the sixth regi- ment in the list of heaviest lorses in battle was the Fifty-fifth Illinois, consisting of farmers, clerks and mechanics. The regiments showing the heaviest losses in any one battle were two heavy artillery regiments from New York at the battle of the Wilderness. Each regiment went into the fight eighteen hundred strong, and came out with only six hundred odd each. The ranks were recruited from mechanics. clerks and farmers. Now. in case of war with Spain, the Oasis ventures the prediction that the regiments being raised in various parts of the country and their services to the president. will never be heard from-credi ably. AS in the last war, the record will be made by regiments re- cruited from other classes of men. The man who is spelling for fight never makes a good soldier ;iard all oldi soldiers will bear ont the assertion that the bully of the regiment, who was always seeking fights in camp. was gener- ally the most arrant coward under fire It is he man who dreads fighting, but enlists from sense of duty who stays with the cOlors the long est. Those were the men who fought the last war to finish. and the same class of men will do the same kInd of work in the next