g drawn out intensive training have done these men with war
already on? They would soon have "bucked"--grown disgusted--gone
stale--lost their spirit and enthusiasm--their morale and force, and
given their officers no end of trouble by their restlessness and
eagerness to try out their mettle and "get in". They needed plenty of
hard discipline and proper guidance daily, and Theodore Roosevelt says
they _got it_. They already possessed most of the other qualifications
which he so clearly enumerates. They needed to be taught prompt
obedience to lawful authority, and they soon found that out and who were
their leaders. What more did they need to fit them for battle than what
he so concisely states in the way of tactical drill, to enable them to
get on and off a battle-field, and the courage-born stimulus of good
competent officers and non-commissioned officers? Most of them already
knew the use of arms, and nobody ever stands up on a battle line and
exercises in the manual of arms, either "by the count" or "at will".
There was no time to put them into large cantonments with other troops
and intensively train them according to a War College prescribed
schedule. _Everything had to be sacrificed to time._

The late Col. Arthur Wagner, U. S. Army, is reported to have said
shortly after the Spanish-American war, when asked what his experience
had been at Santiago--"There was nothing I saw there that fitted into my
text books in any way."

No cut and dried plans such as might be worked out in a Staff War
College to fit into every program could be used, unless, perchance, the
conditions which we were constantly meeting fitted into such
plans--which they seldom do--and we could not afford to fall back on any
"perchances", necessitating, as they would, the rapid changing of such
plans, in the face of a situation or crisis which might and did demand
immediate and decisive action.

The query then naturally arises--of what vital or practical use is much
of these enforced student theoretical courses at Leavenworth and the
Staff War College, especially in feeding up officers--who have no
special aptitude for the profession--on sham battles and sham war
maneuvers, if, after stacking up hundreds of these worked out war
problems, such as four or five different plans for the invasion of
Mexico, and the same number for the invasion of Canada, it shall be
found that just at that particular time the conditions bear no relation
whatever to, o