Uniforms desirable, not Essential.
It is desirable that our volunteer companies should be in uniform, but it is not essential.--It is folly to reject good companies for not being uniformed.
The Revolutionary war was fought without uniforms.
We doubt if a single company throughout the war was clothed all alike.
The
British called our soldiers
ragamuffins, from the variegated character of the clothes they wore.
Their garments presented as many colors as Joseph's coat, thought not so gaudy.
We suppose the old copperas dye and the poke-berry red are very fully represented in our regiments.
The cranial covering, too, was by no means uniform, either as to fashion, material or color.
The wool hat was probably a richer distinguished article of wear in those days — the beaver a most aristocratic ornament.
Rabbit skins, coon skins, bear skins, and the other hairy felts doubtless figured most conspicuously along our lines.
What a mistaken idea have we of the times that tried men's souls, if we dress our Revolutionary patriots out, in our imagination, with the glittering and tawdy uniforms of our modern holiday parades, and surround them with the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious mock war!
War then was a very stern reality, a most matter-of-fact affair of frost and suffering, of dust, and sweat, and blood.
It was an affair in which men might well choose to wear their old clothes, and to leave their Sunday and gala attire (which they had not) at home.
The stuff the men (not the clothes) were made of, was then the thing of most account; soldiers were mustered into the service, not caps, coats and trousers.
While they are esthetically desirable, we never could imagine any strong military necessity for uniforms.
The best soldiery in the world have been without them; the most notable struggles of heroes have been those in which the overworked heroes dressed in fatigue garb.
The Scotch Highlanders notoriously fight breeches less, and they have always fought very well.
It is claimed that these tall, brawny, sinewy Sawneys, in bare legs, decided the day at
Waterloo.
The American savages have done very terrible execution in simple breech cloths and elaborate paint.
Each savage daubed himself according to his fancy, and an Indian file of the monsters a mile long would not present two alike.
They painted themselves for inspiring terror, and variety of costume, not uniformity, was the idea of these men in a state of nature — these natural warriors — these best fighters the world ever saw in the natural state.
A regiment of
Indians, painted all alike, would be a first step towards civilization; but it would be a very droll spectacle.
Certainly the idea of uniforms did not come from the savage condition.
It originated in mere convenience.
Where the
Government clothes the soldiers, it is cheaper and more convenient to make all their suits of like material and pattern than otherwise.
The thing grew out of mere economy, and began with the
Quartermaster.
It was demanded by no principles of military science.--A mountain rifleman does better in his hunting-shirt than in the
Government dress.
He can fight well in trousers of any color, and, if need be, without trousers at all.
Jackson's armies fought all their campaigns in home-made hunting shirts.
A soldier should not be rejected for the color of his breeches.
If such a system be carried too far, it degenerates into this absurdity, that jackets and trousers are mustered into the service and not men.
The notions of
Frederick the
Great on these subjects have been altogether discarded by modern
Europe.
The supple, loosely clad, Algerian Zouave is the farthest possible remove from the stiff, booted, belted, pilloried grenadier of the great Prussian martinet.--
Frederick was a remorseless
Procrustes in this matter of uniformity.
He not only enforced absolute uniformity in the habiliments of his men, but he attempted as far as possible to coerce nature by reducing their bodies to fit the same arbitrary mould.
He left an afflicting legacy in these respects to military science in
Europe, from which the great genius of
Napoleon succeeded in achieving only a partial emancipation.
The burning sun and sands of
Algeria wrought an innovation on this subject, which it would have cost a General his epaulets or a Prince his crown to have instituted.
The most intractable, dogmatical, ferocious foe to innovation is your veteran officer of the regular service.
He would rather receive a bullet than a new idea into his brain.
To talk to him of a new mode of contributing to the soldiers' comfort is as bad as intermeddling in his domestic affairs.
If Government supplies the clothing of soldiers, then it may suit its own taste and convenience in the cut and material used.
But, in the first outburst of war, when
soldiers are wanted, the volunteer must be accepted with his own clothes on his back.
Here, the reason out of which the uniforms grew, does not hold, and
cessante ratione, cessat et ipsa lex.--Even a straw hat is a good covering in the summer season, and no jacket at all better than the tight, padded, suffocating, parade coat.
We understand that our authorities have arrived at these wise conclusions in regard to uniforms, and that good companies will no longer be refused admission into the service for want of regulation clothes.
It is not dress that makes the man; it is the soul that makes the soldier.
These are times that try men's souls, and why should our mustering officers be fumbling with what neither makes a brave a poltroon, nor a poltroon a brave?
As the soldier provides in general his own clothes, let us see only that we muster in soldier and think ourselves fortunate that we have got him, even if he should be dressed in the homely linseys of the Revolutionary war. Indeed, we owe great reverence to the linseys.
