Sunday morning globe., 1901-11-17
MAJOR PHILIP DOUGLAS
Relates His Experience Of the Men
in the Ranks.
THE KIND WHO ENLISTED.
The City Bred Boy and The Country Chap -
kII Types Of Charaoter-AoW Volunteer
Soldiers Disagreed with tho Digestion Of
Regular Officers Interesting Anecdotes and
Dissertations.

UUoblTdWOnS'
What sort of chaps enlisted? Well.
can speak only of the West. There
a very large part were farmers sons.
boys Of from twenty to twenty-five
years Of age; sound, healthy, docile,
used to outdoor life and plain fare,
and lacking only a quick understand
ing of distinctions of rank and. in
their earlier service, the power of dis
pensing with regular sleep.
The city-bred boy, used to theatres
and other sleep-robbing amusements,
could keep awake on guard or on
picket duty without trouble. The
country boy hau to acquire this power
painfully. As to rank, the farmers
son put on no airs and allowed none.
So at first his officers, AS own play
mates, perhaps, elected by the recruits
themselves, appeared to his view as
differing from himself chiefly in the
matter Of shoulder-straps and chew
rons and in getting more pay. Why
he should salute and call by a title
a friend who had hitherto been Jim"
or 'Bill' to him, did not at first dis
cover itself. The officers were at first
quite as awkward in these matters as
the men, disliking "to put on airs"
with their boyhood frienus, and hating
caste as much as did the soldiers they
commanded.
l remember the startled, disgusted
look of young regular officer riding
with the new colonel Of a new infantry
regiment on hearing a voice from the
ranks call out to the colonel Say,
John, what's the news from home?"
These things were not intentional dis
respect; they were natural and hard
ly blamable. OF course, campaigning
soon corrected the more glaring Of
such faults, for the men required no
course Of lectures, after actual work
began, to teach them the value and the
necessity or organization.
In this 1 claim the volunteer from
our Western states as peerless; his
wonderful adaptability, his straightfor-
ward, practical sense. These made him
| a trustworthy and efficient soldier
while a foreigner would be learning
| his facings. Young fellows who had
never seen even a militia company be-
/ came with a few months of field sery-
| ice, efficient company commanders
sure to do the proper thing even under
/ the most adverse circumstances
! Clerks from country stores were in
| the same time developed into active,
saries, while young family physicians
became surgeons of marked capacity.
They were patriotic; but hatred of the
foe semed to come i'm only later, after
this comrade had been killed and the
other one crippled, or, harder still,
captured.
Many lads enlisted younger than the
ages prescribed General Rosecrans
had a boy of thirteen made a sergeant
on the battlefield of Chickamauga for
conspicuous bravery, and the first Ken
lucky CUnion) had a SCARED veteran
Oh captain promoted at seventeen for
good soldiership. But as a general
ling the immature recruit broke
down and went home invalided. When
he escaped this, he became a thing Of
whipcord and tempered steel.
Likewise men came into the ranks
who were past the age of useful serv-
ice. A man Of fifty, or even forty,
however strong and healthy, was very
apt to find lacking a certain resiliency,
without which full value as a private
solder is not to be had.
The Mexican War veterans were at
first in great demand; but apart from
their methods being largely obsolete,
they were generally past the military
prime. The Mexican War had ended
fourteen years before me Civil War
broke out, and its veterans were nearly
middle-aged men at least. These Mex
lean veterans were great terrOrs to us
youngsters. Aggravating airs Of eX
perience were added to an unconcealed
contempt for men who had never seen
Taylor and Scott and who didn't even
know such names as "Paller Alter and
"Bewner Vister," to say nothing OF
"Cherrybuster' and "Chipulterpeck"
The WestPointers we did not 50
/ much mind. We felt that we needed
them as generals, and we had the deep
est respect for their fighting qualities
but we secretly sneered at them foi
being so finikin over what we saw as
trifles, and we were right in believing
early in the struggle that Jney had q
E good deal to learn as well as ourselves
Most Of them had been fighting In
dians, and instinct told us that fighting
= Confederates was another contract.
The ideal soldier was perhaps Z
J twenty-five or twenty-three year o'C
I Ohio or Indiana boy, fresh from tn,
, farm, and with a good crossroad
! school education. Some latitude ma!
1 be given as TO years and states
. say two or three preferably added, ant
. to the Northwest Such boys had NJ
a vices and very rarely had bad habits
; They loved their mothers and were
g little afraid OF the "old man. AS 70
g physical courage, no class Of men, II
our country at least, can be labelle,
4 one way or the other Most men figh
I II melted by their passions or orderel
!. by proper authority. A few, very few
h love .t, and a good many hate It; but /
, 1t has to be done, mans preference
/. don't cut much of a figure. My owl
l. observation, when serving with a smal
q semi-independent command, made m
, select for exceptionally dangerou
O. work those men who paled a little a
n first and then steadied themselves
% Such men had sense enough to meai
ure the danger and to avoid adding M
necessary risks, and yet had fore
enough to do their duty The reckless
L daredevil compelled admiration, bu
A. the steady fellow who kent duty bef0T