O. forms,
we say we possess "an army corps capable of indefinite extension."

The American army is a beautiful little army. Some day, when all
the Indians are happily dead or drunk, it ought to make the finest
scientific and survey corps that the world has ever seen; it does
excellent work now, but there is this defect in its nature: It is
officered, as you know, from West Point.

The mischief of it is that West Point seems to be created for the
purpose of spreading a general knowledge of military matters among the
people. A boy goes up to that institution, gets his pass, and returns
to civil life, so they tell me, with a dangerous knowledge that he is
a suckling Von Moltke, and may apply his learning when occasion offers.
Given trouble, that man will be a nuisance, because he is a hideously
versatile American, to begin with, as cock-sure of himself as a man
can be, and with all the racial disregard for human life to back him,
through any demi-semi-professional generalship.

In a country where, as the records of the daily papers show, men engaged
in a conflict with police or jails are all too ready to adopt a military
formation and get heavily shot in a sort of cheap, half-constructed
warfare, instead of being decently scared by the appearance of the
military, this sort of arrangement does not seem wise.

The bond between the States is of an amazing tenuity. So long as they
do not absolutely march into the District of Columbia, sit on the
Washington statues, and invent a flag of their own, they can legislate,
lynch, hunt negroes through swamps, divorce, railroad, and rampage
as much as ever they choose. They do not need knowledge of their own
military strength to back their genial lawlessness.

That regular army, which is a dear little army, should be kept to
itself, blooded on detachment duty, turned into the paths of science,
and now and again assembled at feasts of Free Masons, and so forth.

It is too tiny to be a political power. The immortal wreck of the
Grand Army of the Republic is a political power of the largest and most
unblushing description. It ought not to help to lay the foundations of
an amateur military power that is blind and irresponsible.

By great good luck the evil-minded train, already delayed twelve hours
by a burned bridge, brought me to the city on a Saturday by way of that
valley which the Mormons, over their efforts, had caused to blossom like
the rose. Twelve hours previously I had e