WRITINGS OF SA:M HOUSTON, 184,7
514
but the officers and the men behaved in a manner wen worthy of the honor of their profession and of the cause for which they went to battle. There was other evidence which might be referred to in support of the same view. Instances might be quoted where the fate of nations hung on the volunteer service, and where they behaved with inflinching bravery in hours of the extremest peril. Need he refer to the siege of Monterey? Could any man name that place and then speak about distrusting volunteers? Who could have exhibited more indomitable courage than did those ad- vancing columns? 'rhey pushed forward, and were cut down in numbers, but still continued to advance with unflinching valor. And these, too, were men who never had known regular service. Yet they did all that could have been demanded at the hands of the oldest veteran soldier of the line in any service. What was it that made the only difference between volunteers and regulars? It was nothing but discipline. But when volunteers, as was proposed in this bill, were made a permanent attachment to the _army, how long would it be before active, intelligent young men, taken from reputable families, would learn both discipline and subordination? The excellence and efficiency of regulars was derived from their perfect discipline. They became a mass of mechanism, systematical in their move- ments, and promptly and certainly obeying the will of the com- manding mind which animated them. But when it became nec- essary to drive a retreating enemy, volunteers ,,,ere to be preferred to regulars, inasmuch as they were more eager in spirit and less encumbered or enfeebled. Again : He regarded volunteers as far more suited to the char- acter of our nation and the genius of our Government and in- stitutions than regulars. The original bill was a perfect anomaly in its shape; it went, in effect, to raise a corps of regulars out of a body of militia. There was to be no inlistment, no oath; but somebody must go to them and ask them, for fear they should come of themselves. They were not regulars. Why? Because they were to be discharged at the end of the war. They were not regulars in fact, but they bore the name. And for what was that name retained? Only to encumber the department with the appointment of a host of officers, when the volunteer corps were already organized and had only to receive marching orders. He was as much opposed to democracy in an army as any man possibly could be, and to mobocracy too. But, after the organ- ization of a volunteer ·corps had once taken place; after the
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