129
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1855
The nominal number of the army is fourteen thousand. There is not a vacancy, I presume, for an officer in the whole service. According to the data I have before me, and the items I have given, I suppose there are about four thousand five hundred men in the service. To make the actual number of fourteen thousand complete, you would have to make the nominal force three times fourteen thousand. Let the head of the Department show that they can keep this establishment perfect before they go to ingrafting new limbs on it, in its present imperfect con- dition. Let the trunk be sound before you graft it. I know that the officers will never be less than the establishment; and if the soldiers be less than the establishment, it shows that it is too large, and ought rather to be reduced. Whenever we see that the present establishment is kept in order, and the requisite number of men to make it complete always in the service, it will commend itself to consideration; and if a greater amount of force, or a larger establishment be necessary, it would be acceded to. I do not, however, now see any necessity for it. If you in- crease it, it will never get less. We know that, even when the army is increased in time of war, there is difficulty in reducing it to a peace establishment afterward. It has always been the case, and always will be, that a man, by once holding an office temporarily, acquires a claim to it which is enforced by rela- tives and friends; and the army thereby will become an eye-sore to the people, and a carbuncle upon the body politic. It may be asked, sir, how I would furnish protection to the emigrants who travel on the plains to California and Oregon. I would fix a proper season at which they should take their de- parture from Fort Laramie. I would have them depart in com- panies, each company consisting of about one thousand emigrants. Out of these one thousand, the usual proportion would be about two hundred and fifty men. I would give them a guard of two hundred and fifty more, making five hundred men to each com- pany. I would have them start in three several bodies in the course of the year, so that they should accomplish the trip prop- erly, and let them start at such distances.that they should not be more than one hundred miles apart. In this way they would be enabled to march across the plains without difficulty. I would have a fort at each end of the road to prevent the passage of a company incompetent to defend themselves, and not let them un- dertake to cross the wilderness alone. This is the course which I would pursue, and, I think, in this way perfect security would
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