Too often the men of the country in which the fighting
took place played merely the ignoble part of victims, the burghers and
peasants appearing in but limited numbers in the mercenary armies by
which they were plundered. Gradually this has all changed, until now
practically every army is a citizen army, and the mercenary has almost
disappeared, while the army exists on a vaster scale than ever before
in history. This is so among the military monarchies of Europe. In our
own Civil War of the United States the same thing occurred, peaceful
people as we are. At that time more than two generations had passed
since the War of Independence. During the whole of that period the
people had been engaged in no life-and-death struggle; and yet, when
the Civil War broke out, and after some costly and bitter lessons at
the beginning, the fighting spirit of the people was shown to better
advantage than ever before. The war was peculiarly a war for a
principle, a war waged by each side for an ideal, and while faults and
shortcomings were plentiful among the combatants, there was
comparatively little sordidness of motive or conduct. In such a giant
struggle, where across the warp of so many interests is shot the woof
of so many purposes, dark strands and bright, strands sombre and
brilliant, are always intertwined; inevitably there was corruption
here and there in the Civil War; but all the leaders on both sides,
and the great majority of the enormous masses of fighting men, wholly
disregarded, and were wholly uninfluenced by, pecuniary
considerations.
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