Congress, instead of tempting new men by exaggerated bounties. I
believe it would have been more economical to have raised the pay
of the soldier to thirty or even fifty dollars a month than to have
held out the promise of three hundred and even six hundred dollars
in the form of bounty. Toward the close of the war, I have often
heard the soldiers complain that the "stay at-home" men got better
pay, bounties, and food, than they who were exposed to all the
dangers and vicissitudes of the battles and marches at the front.
The feeling of the soldier should be that, in every event, the
sympathy and preference of his government is for him who fights,
rather than for him who is on provost or guard duty to the rear,
and, like most men, he measures this by the amount of pay. Of
course, the soldier must be trained to obedience, and should be
"content with his wages;" but whoever has commanded an army in the
field knows the difference between a willing, contented mass of
men, and one that feels a cause of grievance. There is a soul to
an army as well as to the individual man, and no general can
accomplish the full work of his army unless he commands the soul of
his men, as well as their bodies and legs.

The greatest mistake made in our civil war was in the mode of
recruitment and promotion. When a regiment became reduced by the
necessary wear and tear of service, instead of being filled up at
the bottom, and the vacancies among the officers filled from the
best noncommissioned officers and men, the habit was to raise new
regiments, with new colonels, captains, and men, leaving the old
and experienced battalions to dwindle away into mere skeleton
organizations. I believe with the volunteers this matter was left
to the States exclusively, and I remember that Wisconsin kept her
regiments filled with recruits, whereas other States generally
filled their quotas by new regiments, and the result was that we
estimated a Wisconsin regiment equal to an ordinary brigade. I
believe that five hundred new men added to an old and experienced
regiment were more valuable than a thousand men in the form of a
new regiment, for the former by association with good, experienced
captains, lieutenants, and non-commissioned officers, soon became
veterans, whereas the latter were generally unavailable for a year.
The German method of recruitment is simply perfect, and there is no
good reason why we should not follow it substantially.

On a roa