detachment; but a large proportion had
absented themselves without asking leave. Two days after Winchester,
in a letter to Ewell, Jackson writes that "the evil of straggling has
become enormous."

Such severe exertion as the march against Kenly, the pursuit of
Banks, and the retreat from the Potomac, would have told their tale
upon the hardiest veterans. When the German armies, suddenly changing
direction from west to north, pushed on to Sedan by forced marches,
large numbers of the infantry succumbed to pure exhaustion. When the
Light Division, in 1818, pressing forward after Sauroren to intercept
the French retreat, marched nineteen consecutive hours in very sultry
weather, and over forty miles of mountain roads, "many men fell and
died convulsed and frothing at the mouth, while others, whose spirit
and strength had never before been quelled, leant on their muskets
and muttered in sullen tones that they yielded for the first time."*
(* The War in the Peninsula, Napier volume 5 page 244.)

But the men that fell out on the march to Sedan and in the passes of
the Pyrenees were physically incapable of further effort. They were
not stragglers in the true sense of the term; and in an army broken
to discipline straggling on the line of march is practically unknown.
The sickly and feeble may fall away, but every sound man may
confidently be relied upon to keep his place. The secret of full
ranks is good officers and strict discipline; and the most marked
difference between regular troops and those hastily organised is
this--with the former the waste of men will be small, with the latter
very great. In all armies, however constituted, there is a large
proportion of men whose hearts are not in the business.* (* General
Sheridan is said to have declared that 25 per cent of the Federal
soldiers lacked the military spirit.)

When hard marching and heavy fighting are in prospect the inclination
of such men is to make themselves scarce, and when discipline is
relaxed they will soon find the opportunity. But when their instincts
of obedience are strong, when the only home they know is with the
colours, when the credit of their regiment is at stake--and even the
most worthless have some feeling for their own corps--engrained habit
and familiar associations overcome their natural weakness. The
troop-horse bereft of his rider at once seeks his comrades, and
pushes his way, with empty saddle, into his place in the ranks. And
so the