Excerpt from Our Army: The Necessity of a Well Organized and Trained Infantry at the Outbreak of War, and the Best Means to Be Adopted by the United States for Obtaining Such a Force
The Monroe Doctrine has become a tenet of the National Creed, and at no distant day the possession of Cuba and the adjacent isles will be essential to the protection of our interests in the canal across the Isthmus. The very possession of over 17,000 miles of frontier (not including Alaska) is a menace to permanent peace. Even without facing one of these contingencies, each of which might mean war, there is no better index to the future than the history of the past. From first to last over a million men have given up life or limb for the flag. Since Waterloo no other nation has had as much war as the United States. Every generation since our Independence has had its war. More lives were offered up on the bloody fields of our Civil War than have been lost in British battles since Harold died at Hastings. Over ten per cent of the past ninety-six years has seen us at war. Nor does this include that anomaly of war in peace, Indian trouble, in which, for example, from 1866 to 1891 inclusive, 874 engagements were fought with Indians. The sieges and battles of the United States are counted by scores and its minor combats by thousands.
"Military virtue is not the growth of a day, nor is there any nation so rich and populous, that despising it can rest secure." A similarity marks the beginning of all wars in which the United States has engaged. At the outset of the War of 1812, many posts for want of orders or timely reinforcements fell into hostile hands. A generation later, in 1846, the country was even less prepared for hostilities. When General Taylor was ordered to the southern frontier in the autumn of 1845, the army was numerically less than it had been since 1808. In 1861 the country was as unready for conflict as a treasonable administration of the War Department could render it.
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