The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1916-07-06

The other states were asked to raise
troops and hold them in readiness to
respond to the call of the president.
The account of an Indiana regiment
is probably typical of the way in
which many of these troops were col
lected. At the appeal for volunteers,
many applied for enlistment. The
medical examination seems to have
been rather superficial. When enough
men were secured they were muster
ed into the service of the United
States by regular army officer The
next day the field officers were elect
ed. 1t is stated in the account that
most of the officers and men were
then doing military duty for the first
time.
OF this regiment and its first days
one of its officers wrote The en-
campment at Fort Clark was pleas
ant enough. though there were no dis
cipline or order maintained by our
commanding officer, and the soldiers
were suffered to roam at will" Later
their roamings were checked, as they
went down the Ohio and Mississippi
on a boat.
The regiments recruited along the
coast went south by sea. A most un-
happy trip it was for most of them.
When they reached dry land once
more good many of their members
sickened and died. Accounts of burial
in the sand along the shore of the
Gulf of Mexico are common.
In those days cavalry furnished
their own transportation. They rode
toward the seat of war. The trip
from Kentucky or Tennessee consum-
ed between two and three months.
1t was also marked by hardship. Many
of the soldiers were left in farm
houses along the route, and many of
the horses failed to stand the journey.
How many soldiers served in the
first year of the war against Mexico
no one knows, or ever knew. Albert
Gallatin, the statistical authority of
his day, declared in an analysis of the
finances of the government that the
number of effective troops at the out
break of the war did not exceed 5000
and was hardly 10000 at the end of
the first fiscal year According to him
it seemed fair to estimate the average
number at 25,000 although he declares
that it may have been as high as
10000
Many of the officers commissioned
for the war with Mexico were to-
tally incompetent for their duties as
leaders and stewards of men, and the
story of the life in camp and on the
march is one characterized with Incl
dents which serve to low that troops
gathered and officered in a haphazard
manner as at that time must pay
heavy toll before they become et-
fective soldiers.
The speed with which mobilization
has proceeded in Massachusetts is
in marked contrast with the methods
in 1916. Our militia system and its
relation to the federal service may be
lacking here and there, but it is a
vast improvement over the primitive
days in 1876, when men who knew
nothing of soldering. not even so
much as the manual ov arms. we're
lined up. marched aboard a boat and
sent TO the scene of war.
Today the militia is a military or
ganization of trained citizen soldiers,
led by men who have been obliged to
know their job. while the men OF the
rank and file strike a very high aver
age. The community recognizes the
sacrifices they are now showing that
they have all along been willin, 10
make. 1t 10 no small public service
that each and every o1e has u PER
form.-Boston Globe.