who had contrived, first or
last, to lose hopelessly their tempers or their digestions, or their
faith, hope, and charity. Beyond all this lay the trouble, that the best
regular officer from the very fact of his superior training was puzzled
to know how much to demand of volunteer troops, or what standard to
enforce upon them. It was a problem in the Differential Calculus, with
the Army Regulations for a constant, and a raw volunteer regiment for a
variable, and not a formula in Davies which suited the purpose.
Unfortunately, these perplexities were quite as apt to end in relaxation
as in rigor, so that the regiments thus commanded sometimes slid into a
looseness of which a resolute volunteer officer would have been ashamed.

These were among the earlier results. Against them was to be set the
fact, that, on the whole, no regiments in the field made progress so
rapid, or held their own so well, as those placed under regular
officers. And now that three years have abolished many surmises, and
turned many others into established facts, it must be owned that the
total value of the professional training has proved far greater, and
that of the general preparation far less, than many intelligent
observers predicted. The relation between officer and soldier is
something so different in kind from anything which civil life has to
offer, that it has proved almost impossible to transfer methods or
maxims from the one to the other. If a regiment is merely a caucus, and
the colonel the chairman,--or merely a fire-company, and the colonel the
foreman,--or merely a prayer-meeting, and the colonel the moderator,--or
merely a bar-room, and the colonel the landlord,--then the failure of
the whole thing is a foregone conclusion. War is not the highest of
human pursuits, certainly; but an army comes very near to being the
completest of human organizations, and he alone succeeds in it who
readily accepts its inevitable laws, and applies them. An army is an
aristocracy, on a three-years' lease, supposing that the period of
enlistment. No mortal skill can make military power effective on
democratic principles. A democratic people can perhaps carry on a war
longer and better than any other; because no other can so well
comprehend the object, raise the means, or bear the sacrifices. But
these sacrifices include the surrender, for the time being, of the
essential principle of the government. Personal independence in the
soldier, like personal l