Prompt military legislation.
A review of the past history of this war brings out one feature in bold relief; which is, that the people have at no moment been wanting in the duty demanded of them. There are those who feel some apprehension of trouble on the subject of enlisting a sufficient army to take the place of the men of twelve months who will go out of service next spring, summer, and fall; but our own fears on this account are removed by a recollection of the alacrity which has characterized the people in meeting every emergency that has arisen in the course of the war. Even at this moment there are many thousands of troops, enlisted for the war, seeking admission into the Confederate service, who cannot yet be accepted on account of the deficiency of arms; and we believe that with proper effort, the fact will continue to be as it heretofore has been at every moment of the war, that more troops offer than there are arms to place in their hands.The capacity of the Southern Confederacy in arms we believe to be from two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand. This is a full large enough force to keep in the field, and we do not fear but that enough, troops will always be seeking admission into the service to give employment to this number of arms.
The enemy have committed a great mistake in bringing so large an army into the field as anything like their boasted six hundred thousand. It is too large a force to be employed to the best advantage; and while producing an enormous drain upon their Treasury, supplies wholesale food for death and camp disease. They will break down their Treasury and frighten their people by heavy taxation out of all taste for the war, long before they can bring their vast and cumbrous machinery for invasion into play, and long before they can succeed in subjugating the South.
The blunder they are committing is apparent, and they have gone too far in it to retrieve it, although they have now plainly discovered the error they have committed. We must not copy their fatal mistake by bringing a too large and an utterly unwieldily force into the field. Our policy is to employ a smaller force, and to husband our men, supplies, and finances, in proportion as they lavish and waste theirs. Those of our Southern people take a very mistaken view of the war who think our cause is ruined if we fail to meet the vast hordes of the enemy with proportionate forces. A mighty army of our own, disproportion to the resources of our country, would do us infinitely more damage than a like army of the enemy invading our soil. The invader may lay waste particular districts of our territory; but the support of his army would at last fail wholly on his own treasury; while the loss we would sustain would not be a hundredth part of the cost of a vast opposing force placed by ourselves in the field to confront his own.
That view, therefore, is a most erroneous one, which supposes we must meet the North, man with man, and copy the greatest blunder that an adversary ever committed, merely because he has set us the fatal example. No; two hundred thousand men would be a force fully adequate to meet all the requirements of the South, and to conduct this war to a glorious conclusion. None can doubt that we can bring, and keep, that number in the field throughout the war without trouble, strain or exhaustion.
All that is required at present is the proper legislation looking to the organization of our military forces. It is not so essential that this legislation should be exactly the best that can be devised, as that it should be speedily matured and put into operation. The laws, whatever they may be, should already be upon the statute book, and the important business of enlistments should be at this moment in active progress. Let the people only know the duty required of them, and, depend upon it, they will do the rest. They desire just and impartial laws, laying the burden of service with even hand upon all capable of duty; and such a system of impartial drafting as will leave no room for, nor appearance of, favoritism. All that the people demand is a just system of legislation on the subject; and they will engage to do the rest. The country has made no call upon them as yet that they have failed to respond to with alacrity. In the matter of enlistments they have always been ahead of the capacity of the Government to arm them. With proper legislation they will continue so; and the great desideratum now is, not soldiers, but prompt and just legislation-regulating the organization of the military forces of the States.
Our own Legislature is now engaged upon this important subject; and we trust that wisdom and dispatch will characterize their proceedings. The present week ought not to close without witnessing the consummation of the proper laws for this purpose; because the time is growing so short for the organization of the troops of the State, that any longer delay of the requisite legislation would be most prejudicial to the public interests.
