WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 184,7
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the service from love of their country, would render themselves indomitable in danger, unconquerable by their adversaries, and superior not only to the harshest privations, but to all difficulties e1.nd to all perils. .These are the men who left behind them a guarantee for their fidelity. They were not aliens, either by birth, habits, or education. They were young men chiefly between the ages of thirteen and thirty-five, with athletic and vigorous consti- tutions, possessing all the high qualities which distinguish soldiers of liberty, warmed by military enthusiasm, and capable of ren- dering mcst efficient service. More than three hundred thousand men [Mr. H. said] had tendered their services under the act of last session, but a large portion of them had not been accepted. He did not precisely understand the reason why; doubtless, however, because it was supposed that a sufficient force ·was already in the field. In the regular service, where the men never could be promoted from the ranks, all the efficiency of a corps was derived from the manner of its organization; there was no stimulus of hope addressed to the personal ambition of the soldier; his efficiency was owing to the drill, and to his acting together with his comrades. In the present amendment, that objection was remedied. The amendment provided that the officers should be chosen by · the men who had volunteered their services to the country. So soon as ten companies had been mustered and collected, they were to proceed to elect their own field officers. When this had been done, and the result of the choice intimated to the President, he would commission the individuals thus chosen; and when vacan- cies should afterward occur, they were to be regularly filled, according to the grade of the officer dead, resigned, or removed, by the officer next in grade. As soon as the promotion from below was completed, the junior officer would receive his com- mission, the President having of course been officially informed of the vacany. Another inducement to the volunteers, which could not apply to regular soldiers, would be presented by this amendment, and ihat was the opportunity afforded for promotion from the ranks. Here the private soldier was allowed to hope that, by good conduct :...nd deeds of noble daring, he might so distinguish himself as eventually to rise to the honor of a commission. This amendment did not allow vacancies in command to be filled, as they might be in the regular army, by one ·who was an entire stranger to the
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