102 APPENDIX. were as far advanced perhaps towards an adequate preparation for actual service when tlie war broke out, as any other militia companies in the country; but it is certain that in the whole South there were not .W many well-drilled, uniformed, and efficient companies capable of acting together, regimentally, as would have sufficed to put a regiment at once on a war footing. The Seventh and the Seventy-first regiments of New York State Militia were bodies of men not to be matched in the South. The military schools of Virginia and of South Carolina had no doubt educated a certain number of young men in the course of the last ten years to a higher degree of preparation for the duties of officers in the field than was brought to the service of the nation by the average volunteer officers of the armies first raised in the north; and I believe there is no doubt that Mr. Davis, Mr. Floyd, and particularly Mr. Henry A. Wise, did a great deal during the four years from 185G to 1SG0 towards accustoming the Southern people to the idea of a more extensive military system than their manner of life and the geographical conditions of the country had previously encouraged. The “John Frown raid’’ contributed powerfully to the success of these efforts. But the first armies called into the field by the South were quite as mnnilitary in organization and not so military in appearance as their contemporaries at the North. The contrast between the bearing .and equipment of the troops from Ala. mchusetts, Vermont and New A ork, which I saw pass through New York in the Spring of 18GL, on their way to Washington, mid the army of General Johnston which I saw at Harper’s Ferry in June of that year, might almost have excused the hasty self-confidence with which the North rushed into the operation of “ crushing out the rebellion.” The author is equally nt fault in his further discussion of this subject when lie attributes to Mr, Davis the merit o{
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