The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-10-18

not been more terrible and disastrous.
Gen. A. B. r. Sprague. who was one
of the men who achieved well-merited
promotion for his bravery in the civil
war, said ON the same subject: ! think
that the complaints Of those who criti-
cize the conduct Of this war are not
wholly we'll judged or advisable. They
do not recognize the conditions that
war entails. War is not pleasure out
ing nor an every day affair, War is
hell"
/ am not a complete believer in the
present militia system. / do not be-
lieve in placing elected officers in COM
mand of militia organizations and
sending them to the front. What is
needed to make efficient bodies of
troops is strict discipline. and l don't
think that can be obtained in the gen
eral run by anything but men who are
appointed because of fitness, and not
elected because of popularity. Some
times a good man is elected and then
you have an efficient company. We
have case of this kind in this city.
Discipline is the keynote in all army
matters, and l do not think that dis
cipline is to be obtained in many cases
under the present system.
The militia is a good training school
or could be made SO, but volunteers
who have only the highest patriotic
motives to compel their enlistment are
the only troops who can be made equal
to regulars. The militia system needs
revision. The annual encampments
should be shorn Of their holiday fea-
lures, there should be no caterers to
provide fancy meals, there should be
no promiscuous visiting the camps al
lowed, and there should be an effort
made to approach in some degree the
condition Of actual service.
have no disposition to decry the
deeds of the volunteers but ] think
people do not realize the comparative
smallness of the recent conflict and
the immensely of the rebellion. They
talk Of the awful loss of life that the
recent campaign has entailed, and it is
indeed deplorable, but my regiment
alone lost more men than the volunteer
troops lost in the whole war, and the
Union killed at the single battle of
Port Hudson far outnumbered the
whole loss in the war with Spain.
The losses from disease were lust as
severe then, too, for there was just as
much malaria, yellow fever and typhoid
in the southern states in certain sea-
sons as there is in Cuba. But then
the men did not come home when they
We're sick, they stayed and died or
recovered as the case might be-
l believe that the principal cause of
much of the complaint that is heard is
due to the action of unprincipled news
papers. They have caught up and
spread sensational reports that came
not from the good men who went from
the highest motives, but from the class
that is always present in an army
who are worthless as soldiers and who
are generally worthless as anything
else. The good men did just as they
did in the rebellion, performed their
duty in a quiet manner and left COM
plants to the loafers. Those are the
men who did the most work. and who
are now saying the least about what
they suffered. l am sure every veteran
honors such men and is proud of them
as soldiers of the republic.
Such opinions as these are the pre-
vailing ones among all the Grand
Army men of Worcester, and it must be
admitted that they have good reason
for thinking that in some measure the
recent campaign has been over-rated.