ineers, and 10,000 "immunes," or men supposed not to be liable to
tropical diseases. The war seemed equally popular all over the country,
and the million who offered themselves for service were sufficient to
allow due consideration for equitable state quotas and for physical
fitness. There were also sufficient Krag-Jorgensen rifles to arm the
increased regular army and Springfields for the volunteers.

To provide an adequate number of officers for the volunteer army was
more difficult. Even though a considerable number were transferred
from the regular to the volunteer army, they constituted only a small
proportion of the whole number necessary. Some few of those appointed
were graduates of West Point, and more had been in the militia. The
great majority, however, had purely amateur experience, and many not
even so much. Those who did know something, moreover, did not have the
same knowledge or experience. This raw material was given no officer
training whatsoever but was turned directly to the task of training the
rank and file. Nor were the appointments of new officers confined to the
lower ranks. The country, still mindful of its earlier wars, was charmed
with the sentimental elevation of confederate generals to the rank of
major general in the new army, though a public better informed would
hardly have welcomed for service in the tropics the selection of men old
enough to be generals in 1865 and then for thirty-three years without
military experience in an age of great development in the methods of
warfare. The other commanding officers were as old and were mostly
chosen by seniority in a service retiring at sixty-four. The unwonted
strain of active service naturally proved too great. At the most
critical moment of the campaign in Cuba, the commanding general, William
R. Shafter, had eaten nothing for four days, and his plucky second in
command, the wiry Georgian cavalry leader of 1864 and 1865, General
"Joe" Wheeler, was not physically fit to succeed him. There is not the
least doubt that the fighting spirit of the men was strong and did not
fail, but the defect in those branches of knowledge which are required
to keep an army fit to fight is equally certain. The primary cause for
the melting of the American army by disease must be acknowledged to be
the insufficient training of the officers.

This hit or miss method, however, had its compensations, for it brought
about some appointments of unusual merit. Conspicuo