WRITINGS OF S,tM HOUSTON, 1847
511
standing in society feels, by entering as a common soldier, that he has Jost caste in the community. Even in the war of 1812, when the recruit received a very high bounty, both in money and land, such was the influence of this feeling, that it required a strong will and a spirit of hardihood and daring to induce a man coming from the bosom of respectable family connections to inlist. In fact, a young man was considered by his friends as in a great degree thrown away who did so. He was cut off from his family, and occupied a degraded rank, until, by some daring deed of valor, he obtained promotion, and was thus restored to his former standing. This had ever been the case, and it would be so again. The man who inlisted in the i-anks of the regular army would find himself a doomed man-doomed to a long and hopeless servitude, with the door effectually closed upon him to all promotion. Yet there was an attempt to raise a corps of this description in preference to volunteers, and· thus to disappoint the hopes of men who panted to be led against the enemy. The emergency of our affairs required instant effort: it demanded a force that could be immediately raised and organized. Who so proper to be employed as those who had voluntarily proffered their services to the country; who were always marshalled for the field and eager to march, and who wanted only the opportunity to prove that it would be their joy and pride to vindicate, by their prowess, their country's cause? There were men who would act in the face of an enemy with the remembrance deep in their hearts that they were acting also in sight of family and friends. What stimulus was like this to breathe patriotic ardor into the heart of a brave man? The heart that responded to the throb of affection was the heart that would beat high upon the battlefield with the fond remembrance of home and kindred, and with the noble reso]i.Ition so to act in the presence of their foes, as to secure that hearty welcome at home, which was a soldier's reward. This corps, he was well assured, would meet all the expectations of their country. The road to honorable distinction would be open before them, and they would be held together by sympathies which voluntary service alone could create, and which would lead them to maintain the honor of the corps in the lower- ing front of battle and in every path of peril. The reason why tt was proposed, in one of the sections of this bill, that colone]s should select their own staff, was, that the persons likely to compose it would be taken from young men in the army, of education, talent, and genius; many of them from
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