al years with their regiments, and were well
qualified to drill a regiment and command it in battle. A large
proportion of them were fitted to command brigades, and some of
them divisions, and even army corps. The three years' volunteers
first called out could have been fully supplied with brigade,
division, and corps commanders from graduates of West Point who
were thoroughly qualified by theoretical education and established
character, and many of them by practical experience in the Mexican
war and Indian campaigns, for the instruction, discipline, and
command of troops, still leaving a sufficient number with the
regulars for efficient service. The old sergeants of the army in
1861 were relatively competent company commanders. One commissioned
officer to four companies of these veteran Indian-fighters made as
reliable a battalion as any general could wish for in the conditions
then existing.

Experience demonstrated that a volunteer regiment could in a very
few weeks be converted into an efficient and thoroughly reliable
force in battle by a single young officer of the regular army. In
other words, by a judicious use of the small body of officers whom
the country had educated at so great an expense, a fine army of
500,000 men, or more, could have been called into service, organizied,
disciplined, and put into the field by August 1, 1861; and that
without interfering in any way with the three months' militia called
out to meet the first emergency, which militia ought, of course,
to have acted strictly on the defensive until the more permanent
force could take the field. In a few months more, certainly by
the spring of 1862, the instruction, discipline, and field experience
of the first levy would have given good officers enough to organize
and command a million more men. It required, in short, only a wise
use of the national resources to overwhelm the South before the
spring of 1863.

The supply of arms, it is true, was deplorably deficient in 1861.
But the South was only a little better off than the North in that
regard. Besides, the National Government had command of all the
markets of the world, and of the means of ocean transportation.
It could have bought at once all the available arms everywhere,
and thus fully equipped its own troops, while preventing the South
from doing the same. Hence the excuse given at the time--namely,
want of muskets--was no excuse whatever for delay in the organization
of ar