WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1847
516
modification) heretofore submitted by him, and disagreed to by the Senate, while the bill was under consideration as in committee of the whole. Mr. Houston said that he regretted extremely that he should have felt himself compelled to occupy any more of the time of the Senate on this bill. Deeming it, however, a measure of very great importance to the country, as well as to the organization of the army, he was constrained to give the views which had influenced him to make this motion. As to the war itself, he had been uniformly of the opinion that it was necessary from its inc1p1ency. He was in favor of the original declaration of war, and he had also been of opinion that it ought to be vigorously prosecuted. And it was his wish, in submitting his amendment, to place the army in a situation to bring it to a speedy and successful termination. The proposition he had made would, in his opinion, enable the Government to bring an efficient force into the field with more promptitude than if we adhered to the original bill. Numbers of volunteers were now in readiness, ana were anxiously waiting in expectation of their offers of service ·1i>eing accepted. It was a time of great emergency; the season vas rapidly advancing; and unless the force contemplated in the ,ill should be sent speedily, it could not reach the field of action before the spring. If regular troops were to be sent, it was impossible that they could be in readiness for the effective service until the season for action is over. He thought that his amend- ment would obviate this serious objection to the employment of an additional regular force. T'o enlist and collect, and discipline a regular force of ten thousand men, would necessarily consume some months, and, in the mean time, the heats of summer wiil have commenced. The fatalities of a southern climate had already been very disastrous to our troops, and they were pregnant with admonition as to the future. Great numbers have been swept off, the camp has been partly desolated, and hundreds who had escaped death were still recovering so slowly as to render an early return to duty impossible. If the new troops could be in the field during the month of March, theY. might, in that case, reach the table lands of Mexico before the summer shall have so far advanced as to render the heat dangerous to those who were unaccustomed to the climate. He would suppose that the force was to be composed of reg- ulars. Thirty days at least would expire before the regiments could be filled by the slow process of inlistment; it would then
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