The record-union., 1898-05-29

II is to be noted right here that at
Falls Church not more than half
dozen of the regular soldiers reported
on sick lists. and then only for trifiing
reasons Indeed, we are assured that
not one of them took TO his bed. These
regulars are what in army terms are
known as hardened" men.
1t is a Spanish boast, not wholly true,
that the superiority of the Spanish sol
dier is his ability to fight on an empty
stomach. That is largely an unfounded
claim, but there is enough truth in it
to be worthy of consideration. But
even if our volunteers were physically
sound, and well hardened, they have
not been and are not yet fully and ade-
quately equipped. This is not the fault
of the Administration, or of the army
officers, or the Secretary Of the War
1t is chargeable wholly to the niggard
policy of Congress, which has refused
all these years, to make provision for
war in time of peace.
1t was reported by cable the other
day that England had issued orders TO
store three years of army provisions
That process under the British system
it is said will take about one month. For
Great Britain has storage places ready.
men trained to select and store, and q
perfected system of army support. 1t
! is stated by experts that Germany and
! France have constantly on hand equip
ments sufficient to outfit armies just
| thrice the size of those they maintain.
! We have found that we had not IN
stock even shoes and stockings enough
! for one-half the men we called into the
volunteer force, while we had in stor-
age not army clothing sufficient to re-
supply the regulars alone.
There is no citizen soldiery in the
world better than ours. We do not
believe there is any as good. None as
suredly braver, more manly, intelligent
or representative of the best America
has to show in civilization. But no
matter how intelligent, brave, patriotic,
independent and free the man, he is
not made a soldier by simply shoulder
ing a musket. The ''embattled farmers"
of the revolution who met the British
at Lexington came from the plow and
the field and were hardy men. Yet it
is known that even they could not have
maintained themselves against the
trained regulars of King George for
any considerable time, even though
their battles had been fought on
ground of their own choosing. The
patriotic army even in those days met
with precisely the same difficulties
confronting us to-day, unreadiness and
unfamiliarity with the hard necessities
and seventies of war.
It is we'll known to army men that
/ General Taylor resisted the wish of the
Administration to move from Texas
upon Mexico with his command for a
soning his men and hardening them to
meet Mexican forces accustomed to the
/ field and the climate. He left New
| Orleans with / 800 men in July, 1S45,
and encamping at Corpus Christi had
! by November 1000 troops. When he
! got the peremptory order to advance
to the Mexican border from his defense
| of Texan territory, he paused in March,
| 1916, on the Rio Grande, until Arista
| crossed and engaged him in May, when
the famous battle of Palo Alto was
| fought. He had enjoyed the advantage
of two months in which to prepare his
men to meet the Mexicans. That he
might have provoked earlier assault
! is thoroughly believed, but that he did
not wish to do so for physical reasons,
as we'll as national ones, is equally be-
| lieved.
| So the history of all wars teach us
/ that raw levies are not to be moved at
once as armies of invasion into lands
with which they are unaccustomed and
! into climates they are not in some
measure prepared to adapt themselves
| to. Nor are they, save when they are
| to encounter bodies of their own char
| acter, to be taken into action until
! there has been time taken sufficient to
| harden them in some degree.