Since then the claim has always been in every stage of army existence that the army itself would have been a better and more effici ent instrument if the militia had been abolished. Nevertheless the Stares and the United States have continued to maintain the militia so that it is apparent that in the view of the country at large this branch of the military service has really been much less unworthy than it has been declared to be by its professional army critics.
In the War of 1812 the whole operations of the land forces might be admitted to have con tributed little or nothing to the ultimate victory. The militia were frequently inefficient and the regulars won no decisive campaigns.
The Indian wars were frequent, sometimes lengthy and always more costly than they would have been if the country had kept ready for all emergencies a strong regular army. The Mexican War was a brilliant chapter in the history of our army which carried an aggressive and uniformly successful campaign through great physical difficulties to complete success.
The Civil War disclosed the fact that whereas the government school at West Point had produced a fine standard of professional efficiency among officers, it had not so far nationalized them that all could be depended upon to join a national issue when opposed to sectional interests. Many of the most capable officers were from southern States and resign ing their commissions in the United States army they took service in the Confederacy and sup plied the skilful leadership which kept the War raging for four years. The regular army sup plied but a small fraction of the great armies called out between 1861 and 1865 and the vast majority of both officers and soldiers joined the colors utterly devoid of previous military training.
For many years preceding the Civil War there had been no need of the militia and in consequence it had degenerated into a practically worthless military asset. The State records ex hibited a considerable paper strength but the regiments were little more than picturesque fea tures for Fourth of July parades. When the Civil War made its demand for men in large numbers the early campaigns showed clearly that the previous decades had seen the develop ment of prosperous communities and the decay of militant virtues.
The progress of the war with its long hard campaigns of varying fortune demonstrated that the nation both North and South still possessed the raw material out of which fine armies could be raised.
When the war ended in 1865 great armies of splendid veteran soldiers returned to the pur suits of peace. The credit for most of the skill
in training and leading those armies belongs to officers who had been educated in the regular service. Many thousands of capable and bril liant officers came green into the service and learned the science of war on the battlefields, but until they had learned they were nearly as dangerous to their own men as were the enemy.
The Indian Wars which followed the Civil War were entrusted almost entirely to the small regular army which was for many years kept constantly in the far west. A very high degree of efficiency for border warfare was developed but the conditions were decidedly unfavorable to the study of modern warfare between civil ized powers.
The sudden outbreak of war with Spain in 1898 made it necessary to call into the National service the National Guard of the States as well as a numerous volunteer army. The Na tional Guard in a few of the States was a fairly well organized and partly trained force but in many of the States neither officers nor men had more than the most elementary preparation for service in war.
Fortunately the campaign in Cuba was a very brief one and the fine aggressive spirit of the small regular army caused the Spanish defense to crumple up with very little hard fighting.
The large forces gathered in training camps in the States suffered heavy losses from camp diseases and showed every evidence that they would have needed much training before they could have been described as parts of an efficient and disciplined military force. The Spanish War while brief and rather trivial in the nature of its one short campaign did the country a great deal of good. The old notion that no foreign complications could ever disturb the peace of the United States was rudely and quite effectually uprooted. The country was ready to believe that there was need to support a somewhat larger regular army and to give more attention to all of our military interests. The condition of the state troops had been shown to be far from any reasonable degree of efficiency. The next 20 years witnessed a great improvement in the quality of the National Guard in several of the States but in many places the organization continued to merit the criticism which the professional aimed at its glaring faults. Those criticisms were often permitted to seem to apply to all the forces in all of the States and the result was an un fortunate antagonism between the, regular es tablishment and the National Guard which was hurtful to both.