The private soldiers.
We have no words to express our admiration of the private soldiers in the ranks of the
Southern Army.
They are not enlisted mercenaries; they are volunteers, and yet bear all the hardships and perils that fall to the lot of mercenary privates, and like them, thrown in the front ground in peril, and thrown in the back ground in the distribution of glory.
It is necessarily so, for glory, so widely diffused, bears to each man no distinguishing mark, though each has been a hero worthy ‘"all
Greek and Roman fame."’ And it is because, knowing that they would have the lion's share of danger, and that the monopoly of the renown must, and perhaps ought to, fall to the more prominent figures in the canvass, to the military leaders, they rush not only with willingness but enthusiasm to the ranks, that we honor and admire the volunteer private soldiers of the
South above all other men and classes of men in this Nineteenth Century.
We honor and respect, as all men ought, the great military chieftains, and all the subordinate officers who are qualified for their positions, but yet we look upon the private volunteer soldiers with a reverence that we feel for no official rank.
Their being where they are shows as just what they are. Their position saves us the trouble of analyzing their motives; they are honest as they are brave,--they are men — genuine men, the true metal, pure gold.
They are no political aspirants, no military pretenders, no ‘"fuss and feathers"’ humbugs; but patriots and heroes, to whom you may take off your hat, and do homage to sincerity and manliness in the most perfect combination and unquestionable shape.
With few exceptions, of worthless and reckless adventures — so few that they only establish the general rule — the volunteer privates of the
Southern States are the very flower of the whole land.
In all that constitutes character, virtue and social position, the great body of these men, carrying muskets on their shoulders, sleeping often on the bare ground, and eating cheerfully the coarsest food, are equal in every respect to the highest officers by whom they are led to battle.
Yet, for that very reason, no symptom of discontent, no spirit of insubordination, is ever manifest in their ranks.
Implicit obedience to orders, which it was thought would be a difficult thing to enforce among high-spirited Southerners, has become a distinguishing characteristic of the
Southern camp, whilst the very opposite prevails among the
Northern soldiers, whose frequent rows and breaches of discipline are matters of constant newspaper notoriety.
The reason of the difference is that the
Southern Army, the rank and file, is mostly made up of gentlemen, who have taken up arms from the purest sentiments of patriotism; who submit to the most irksome discipline on account of the cause, and whose habitual self-respect precludes the very existence of a spirit of envy and insubordination towards official superiors.
We do not speak the language of exaggeration when we say that such an army as the
South has now in the field the world never saw before.
Europe has had larger armies, made up, however, of mercenaries, of the very dregs of the earth, but never any country, in ancient or modern times, an army comprising the very cream of the intelligence, virtue and honor of the land.
Braver men neither
Greece nor
Rome ever produced; the Old Guard of
Napoleon and the Zouaves of the present
Emperor, never achieved greater prodigies of valor; but who would compare the one or the other, in individual dignity of character, with the private soldiers of the
Southern Army?
Their valor, however, is surpassed by their fortitude and patience, exercised in the endurance of privations and hardships far more trying to such spirits than the ordeal of the battle-field.
It is a mystery to us how youths, tenderly nurtured, and many of them not come to man's estate; how gentlemen accustomed not only to the comforts of competency, but the luxuries of wealth, exchange all this for the corn-cakes and fried bacon of the camp, cooking it themselves, and in the most perfect ignorance of how to cook it properly; sleeping often on the bare ground, exposed to all the vicissitudes of weather, and enduring personal privations, wants, and hardships which the most of their slaves have never suffered, and all this without a murmur or complaint; all this for the cause and without the faintest hope of that renown and fame officers may hope for, but which, in the nature of things, must be greatly weakened by diffusion through a large mass.
A gentleman, who has seen many of our wounded soldiers, informs us that he has not met one who complained of his wounds, and it is difficult to find one who complains of his coarse fare and hard life.
Did the world ever see such men before?
It is an honor to live in the same age with such lofty, disinterested spirits.
Surely such men will be blessed of Heaven, and their cause and all they hold dear be under its special care.
