The Little River news., 1916-04-05

] The opening of this War found the government with an army of but 16 $67 men.
 1 Of the 19S companies of the reg Jar army 1S3 were on frontier posts or l West of the Mississippi and the oi Der ] fifteen were distributed along the At- l lantic Coast from Canada to MeXic
 As an army, considered in relatioS to 1 the area and the population of the lna- l tion. it was utterly inadequate. lnfuf- ficient as it was. Its strength existed largely in the imagination of the pub, 1 lie. Companies were scattered so far 1 and wide it could have been assemb led l in it's full force only after long delay l and then only by leaving importIan posts in the custody of caretakers.
 Three Million MiIitiamen.
 True, we had s,ooo,ooo militia, an- 1 other army whose strength lay i'll Ithe imagination of the public. "EXceptsi E Il few regiments. these did not md It the name of military force,' tnd when Lincoln turned to this he foi md the militia to be. as it ever waI. q broken staff.
 Many of the District of Columbia mi litiamen refused to be sworn and Ioth- CTS dictated that they should not be required to go outside of the Dist lict. The governors of six states in|dig nantly refused to supply any trolops. and then from the mistake of depelndt ing on the militia We turned to th4. companion error of short enlistmentSt The Government called for 7o,OOO menI and the President by law 60 years old was obliged to limit their service to three menths.
 The disaster of the First Battle of Bull Run was the logical result of thAe short-term error in the military systenl and the ignorance of the public in mili tary matters. Raw troops-2S.56 of 9O-day men. opposed to 29.949 ConI federates-were sent in to battle bel cause the North desired to get some service out of them before they werd tlisbanded.
 The Popular Belief.
 '"rhe disaster that ensued demands II fully considered. First was the popu1 lar but mistaken belief that because our citizens individually possess cour1 age. fortitude and self-reliance. theyl must necessarily possess the samel qualities when aggregated as sOldierS.l And next to this error was the fatall delusion that an army animated by t,.in 6r1 o{;n nor discipline to prepare it for battle.
 The Union loss was only five perl cent. Military authority declares that the same force after a years training would have scorned to retreat with less than loss of from 30 to 50 per cent. The complete rout of the Union forces convinced the country that war had arrived. but the public did not per. ceive that war had come because the government was unprepared.
 If the Government had at the out break of the war q regular army with a mobile strength of 10000 men and had hurled it against the COnfederates at Bull Run and followed up the vic tory which would surely have ensued. , Civil War! There would not have been lost 559,92S lives in four years of strife!
 The three-year term of enlistment which next followed gave the Govern ment an army of G37 ,12G men. in 1S6" but again the lack of another kind of preparedness prolonged the war--,." armies were mismanaged because mil tk0y Iyvo tpAr .,AI.S President and the Secretary of War" Upton observes. were simply eminent civilians. distinguished leaders at the bar, who, like the mass of our citizens. had given very little thought to the na- tional defense In military matters. or the direction of armies they made no profession of knowledge"
 Policy Made In Four Weeks.
 Gen. Upton makes no criticism of in div1duals enforcing the military sys tem of d people who were grossly igno rant of military knowledge. and iii bued with the thought that there was nothing to learn. But he observes that the military system by which Prussia in two campaigns of seven weeks each humiliated Austria and subvertcd the French Empire was GO years in the making while the system by which the Civil War was won in four years was fixed up in just four weeks by Con gresS.
 The weakness of the short-ternl of enlistment often revealed in other ,E Ears caused the usual demoralization inE the Rebellion. One regiment of infakry and one battery of artillery. their Fine expired, despite the entreaties of Hthe Secretary of War and of their q pm- manders marched home. ito the sd Blnd of the eneIny's cannon"
 Grants Offer Ignored.
 So little value was placed on lzthe services of d trained officer-evekp. d graduate of West Point-that HIfn General U. s. Grant wrote to the f jutant General telling him that he | It it to be his duty to place wha tever sl n md e;1Terlence ne mad acquired at e disposal of the government no Eet&e was taken of his letter, and hos s,K "A, take service in q regiment iu