This is not a singular instance, but an example of cases
occurring literally by the thousand in our vast army during the year
past.... Governor Tod (of Ohio) said to me some time ago, with the
deepest sorrow, that he was well aware that in raising the new
regiments by volunteering, the distribution of offices to the
successful recruiters was filling the army with incompetent men whom
we should have to sift out again by such process as we could!....
Have we time for the sifting process? Even if we had, how
inefficient the process itself when these officers have their
commissions in their pockets, and cannot be brought before a court
or a military commission till much of the mischief they can do is
accomplished, bad habits amongst the soldiers formed, and the work
of training them made infinitely more difficult than with absolutely
raw recruits. It was in view of such probable results that I
expressed the hope that no more new regiments would be raised by
volunteering, when, in July last, the levy of an additional force
was mooted. It seemed to me that the President could well say to the
world, 'Our people have shown abundant proof of their enthusiasm in
support of the government by volunteering already to the number of
more than half a million, a thing unprecedented in the world's
history: we now, as a matter of military expediency, call for a
draft to fill up the broken battalions.
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