The men individually, especially those drawn from
the West, are fully endowed with the courage, activity, and endurance
inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race: they can act promptly and daringly
enough on their own independent resources; but, when required to move as
unreasoning units of a mass, directed by a superior will, they utterly
fail. All the antecedents of the Federal recruit interfere with his
progress towards the mechanical perfection of the trained soldier. The
gait and demeanor of the country lads are not more shambling and
slovenly than those of the ordinary British; but the latter from his
youth up, has imbibed certain ideas of subordination to superiors, which
make him yield more pliantly and implicitly to after discipline. Now,
the American is taught to contemn all such old-world ideas as respect of
persons. Even the All-mighty Dollar cannot command deference, though it
may enforce obedience. The volunteer carries with him into the ranks, an
ostentatious spirit of self-assertion and independence. He has always
mixed on terms of as much equality as his purse would allow of, with the
class from which his officers have emerged by election; and knows that,
at the expiration of their service, each will resume his place as if no
such distinction had existed.
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