Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-10-28
THE BEST SOLDIERS.
Experience Shows That They Are Obtained by Enlisting from
 All Glasses.

T was surprised" said the doctor,
 that the newspapers didn't give Field Marshal Oyama's characterization of the modern Japanese army. After ex- plaining that under the old rule mili- tary service was limited to the he-
 reditary fighting or soldier class, the general pointed to the result of break { ing away from the old rule, and calling men of all classes into the army. He
 insisted that an army including all
 classes had a finer national spirit and
 fought better than the old army made
 up exclusively of professional fighters.
 This interested me greatly, because
 1t called to mind experiences in the
 union army of the civil war which H.
 frustrated the processes by which the
 average man of patriotic impulse was
 transformed into a soldier. It is i'm
 possible for the present generation to
 understand how utterly ignorant the
 men of 1861 were of the simplest de- tails of military service There were then very few military companies out side of the large cities, and the mem
 bers of the few carried themselves as
 superior beings.
 When Fort Sumter was fired on the
 members of the military companies in
 the country towns constituted sort of fighting caste, and they became the
 drill masters of the thousands of pa-
 triotic young men, no one of whom could come to an about face. I re-
 member well when 100 of our best young men organized a military con- pany. They sent to Capt. Branch in the nearest city, asking him to send one of his crack company out to drill us. A private in the company donned lieutenant's uniform and came out to act as instructor at five dollars an hour, and he lorded 1t over 100 as earnest and intelligent men as ever lived.
 So anxious were we to learn, and so much respect had we for man who knew military things, that we bore with the autocratic impertinences of the drill master and conceded all he demanded in the way of difference to himself. He seemed to us a great man, although we discovered later that he taught us very little We went forward rapidly, however, after he left us, and were soon at the front, where we learned in a few months more than any cronk hnlidau cnldia- no,,ld teach us. After several campaigns we were with Buells advance to Shiloh, and as we climbed the bank of the river, where thousands of stragglers were gathered, I heard a voice that knew.
 .'The men of the company had been in the service nearly a year They constituted the crack company of a fighting regiment. They were going up the river bank into battle, and they were ready and eager to meet the enemy. Imagine their surprise when they saw their pompous little drill mastor of the previous April standing among the stragglers declaiming to the newcomers about the glory and death that awaited them in front.
 ''The captain, who had been among the humblest of the learners, in April, 1861, and was in April. 1862, one of the most resourceful officers in the regiment, looked at the declaimer in wonder. The orderly, who had been roundly abused because he could not hold his hands still, said quietly to the shouting straggler: If you want to go to the front and glory, fall in at the rear of the company Then came the marching men, whose swing into line and soldierly bearing silenced the man who had lorded it over them for i've dollars an hour less than a year before They had become fight ing soldiers, while he stood still at SIS 2 month.
 There had been surprises and dis in the company, of course. In the first forced march five of the strongest and finest looking men fell by the way, and three of them did not recover their health for several years. Slender young fellows, given Lhre. months to break down, stood that march and all others we'll Men 1f refinement and education had come Into close fellowship with men who sould not write their names, and the 1odcarrier had become the eomrade of | ais employer, but the thinning out and leveling processes had made de- l oendable soldiers of all" Chicago Inter Ocean.