, and we shall have such an army as the world never saw. But
nothing costs the nation a price so fearful, in money or in men, as the
false pride which shrinks from these necessary surgical operations, or
regards the surgeon as a foe.

It is not being an officer to wear uniform for three years, to draw
one's pay periodically, and to acquit one's self without shame during a
few hours or days of actual battle. History will never record what fine
regiments have been wasted and ruined, since this war began, by the
negligence in camp of commanders who were brave as Bayard in the field.
Unless a man is willing to concentrate his whole soul upon learning and
performing the humblest as well as the most brilliant functions of his
new profession, a true officer he will never become. More time will not
help him; for time seldom does much for one who enters, especially in
middle life, on an employment for which he is essentially unfitted. It
is amusing to see the weight attached to the name of veteran, in
military matters, by persons who in civil life are very ready to
exchange a veteran doctor or minister for his younger rival. Military
seniority, though the only practicable rule of precedence, is liable to
many notorious inconveniences. It is especially without meaning in the
volunteer service, where the Governor of Maine may happen to date a set
of commissions on the first day of January, and His Excellency of
Minnesota may doom his contemporary regiment to life-long subordination
by accidentally postponing theirs to the second day. But it has
sufficient drawbacks even where all the appointments pass through one
channel. The dignity it gives is a merely chronological distinction,--an
oldest-inhabitant renown,--much like the university-degree of A. M.,
which simply implies that a man has got decently through college, and
then survived three years. But if a man was originally placed in a
position beyond his deserts, the mere lapse of time may have only made
him the more dangerous charlatan. If he showed no sign of military
aptitude in six months, a probation of three years may have been more
costly, but not more conclusive. Add to this the fact that each
successive year of the war has seen all officers more carefully
selected, if only because there has been more choice of material; so
that there is sometimes a temptation in actual service, were it
practicable, to become Scriptural in our treatment, and put the last
first and the fi