their pockets, and cannot be brought before a court
or a military commission till much of the mischief they can do is
accomplished, bad habits amongst the soldiers formed, and the work
of training them made infinitely more difficult than with absolutely
raw recruits. It was in view of such probable results that I
expressed the hope that no more new regiments would be raised by
volunteering, when, in July last, the levy of an additional force
was mooted. It seemed to me that the President could well say to the
world, 'Our people have shown abundant proof of their enthusiasm in
support of the government by volunteering already to the number of
more than half a million, a thing unprecedented in the world's
history: we now, as a matter of military expediency, call for a
draft to fill up the broken battalions.'" [Footnote: From private
letter of Jan. 1, 1863.]

I urged with equal frankness the need of giving unity to the army by
abolishing the distinction between regulars and volunteers, and by a
complete reorganization of the staff. I said it seemed absurd that
with nearly a million of men in the field, the Register of the Army
of the United States should show an organization of some twenty
regiments only, of which scarce a dozen had been in active service.
"If a volunteer organization is fit to decide the _great_ wars of
the nation, is it not ridiculous to keep an expensive organization
of regulars for the petty contests with Indians or for an ornamental
appendage to the State in peace?" The thing to be aimed at seemed to
me to be to have a system flexible enough to provide for the
increase of the army to any size required, without losing any of the
advantage of character or efficiency which, in any respect,
pertained to it as a regular army. Circumstances to which I have
already alluded, probably prevented Mr. Chase from taking any active
part again in the discussion of army affairs in the cabinet.
Probably many of the same ideas were urged upon the President from
other quarters, for there was much agitation of the subject in the
army and out of it. But nothing came of it, for even the draft, when
it became the law, was used more as a shameful whip to stimulate
volunteering than as an honorable and right way to fill the ranks of
the noble veteran regiments. General Sherman found, in 1864, the
same wrong system thwarting his efforts to make his army what it
should be, and broke out upon it in glorious exasperation.
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