Disqualification for military service.
Although it is evident that the
Federal Government will be compelled to resort to a draft to make up the required numbers for the army of invasion, we venture to predict that it will by no means, even in that event, find its path free from obstructions and difficulties.
Hitherto, it has raised troops without difficulty, because there is always a large floating population in the principal cities, composed not only of able-bodied but adventurous men, who make the best fighting materials that can be found in the
North.
In addition to this was the compulsory alternative, enlistment or starvation, which may still in some measure exist.
Besides these, was the blazing enthusiasm of that dramatic period, when the
North expected to swallow the
South at a mouthful; when Broadway avenue was one immense arena of flags; when the horses in the carriages were decorated with the stars as well as the stripes; when the women invoked the soldiers to bring them home, each of them, a Southern man's head; when
Greeley promised every man a nice farm in
Virginia; when Beauty and Booty was placarded in the streets; when
Billy Wilson and his regiment of burglars knelt in the
Astor House and swore to kill and eat the entire Southern country in ten days from date, and when the pious
Tyng gave them his blessing, and said that he thought such devotion to their country might be the means of their salvation.
Those, too, were the times when Christian Associations decorated the envelopes of their letters with representations of
Jeff. Davis swinging from a gallows, and
Ellsworth's Zouaves keeping guard around the scaffold.
But that hour of jubilant diabolism, in which Satan seemed to be let loose, and all his subordinate devils permitted to take possession of the swinish herd of the
Northern cities, passed away.--The glorious battle of
Manassa, the grandest and most decisive victory ever achieved on this continent, dispelled forever these maniacal fancies, and convinced the
North that they had undertaken a huge enterprise, which half a million of men and hundreds of millions of dollars would be necessary to prosecute.
They have sent to
England for the money, but the roar of the Confederate Artillery at
Bull Run followed
Belmont to
London, and no loan was to be had. They have called for half a million of volunteers, but the retreating Zouaves have drawn such terrible pictures of the masked batteries, black horse, bright bayonets, and bloody
bowie-knives of the
Confederates, that volunteering is at an end, and a draft of the militia is the only alternative.
A draft of the militia is, at the start, a confession of weakness, and emphatically so on the heels of such a defeat as that at
Manassa.
It shows that the tremendous blow dealt by our army at
Bull Run, felled to the earth the war spirit of the
Yankee nation.
It was not only the ‘"Grand Army"’ that was defeated, but the faith of the
North in its invincibility, that was destroyed.
The proof of this is the slowness with which the
North now comes up to the scratch, when before she was eager for the fray.
Before
Manassa, volunteers had to be refused; after it, there must be a draft of the militia!
Not only is this a confession of weakness, but the thing itself will prove difficult of execution, and a miserable substitute for volunteers.
The farmers and farmers' sons of the
North, and all men of productive industry, will be reluctant to leave the vocations by which they live, and come here to be made food for powder.
Their characteristic ingenuity will be exercised to evade the requirements of the law; and we have now before us a popular Northern authority on ‘"Medical Jurisprudence,"’ which devotes to the subject of ‘"Disqualifying Diseases"’ a chapter which we shall not be surprised to see republished, and have a wide circulation in the
Northern papers.
Besides the law by which all persons under eighteen and above forty-five years of age are exempted from military duty, there are many disqualifying diseases, which our author sets forth at great length and with much particularity.
He quotes largely from the
Code de la Conscription, by
Bonaparte, which was made up from the investigations of the eminent Medical Inspectors General of the
French Army, and which suggests every principle involved in deciding upon the fitness or unfitness of each individual for military service Twelve diseases are enumerated, which are styled ‘"evident infirmities, implying absolute incapability of military service, and which are left to the decision of the municipal administrations of the canton,"’ and
twenty-eight which occasion absolute or relative incapacity, and are reserved for the examination of the central administration.
The same regulations are closely imitated in the armies of
Prussia and the Netherlands.
The New York
Herald would do its readers, especially in the agricultural districts, an especial service by publishing the chapter entire.
We venture to say that in one week after its publication there would be a greater amount of ‘"lamenes, arising from various causes,"’ ‘"chronic opthalmia,"’ ‘"short sightedness,"’ ‘"permanent defects of vision,"’ ‘"giddiness,"’ ‘"confusion of vision,"’ ‘"deafness,"’ ‘"loss of the right eye or of its use,"’ ‘"bad health,"’ ‘"loss of the incisive or canine teeth of the upper or under jaw;"’ causes ‘"hindering the biting of the cartridge, impeding mastication, or injuring the speech;"’ ‘"ulcers and tumors;"’ stone, gravel, hernia; contagious diseases of the skin; dropsy, debility, gout, sciastrica, epilepsy, &c., &c., &c., not to forget ‘"convulsions, habitual trembling of the whole body, (which, after
Ball's Run, has already become epidemic in the
North,) general or partial palsy, madness and imbecility."’
Keeping in view this liberal schedule, we predict that the drafting of the militia in the
North will give rise in that region to all ‘"the ills that flesh is heir to."’ Were their own country invaded, we do not doubt their willingness and ability to defend it; but in an enterprise where conscience must make cowards even of the brave, it is not to be supposed that the
Yankee masses will hesitate to make use of every possible quibble and device to evade the execution of the law.
