But the men that fell out on the march to Sedan and in the passes of the Pyrenees were physically incapable of further effort.  They were not stragglers in the true sense of the term; and in an army broken to discipline straggling on the line of march is practically unknown.  The sickly and feeble may fall away, but every sound man may confidently be relied upon to keep his place.  The secret of full ranks is good officers and strict discipline; and the most marked difference between regular troops and those hastily organised is this—­with the former the waste of men will be small, with the latter very great.  In all armies, however constituted, there is a large proportion of men whose hearts are not in the business.* (* General Sheridan is said to have declared that 25 per cent of the Federal soldiers lacked the military spirit.)

When hard marching and heavy fighting are in prospect the inclination of such men is to make themselves scarce, and when discipline is relaxed they will soon find the opportunity.  But when their instincts of obedience are strong, when the only home they know is with the colours, when the credit of their regiment is at stake—­and even the most worthless have some feeling for their own corps—­engrained habit and familiar associations overcome their natural weakness.  The troop-horse bereft of his rider at once seeks his comrades, and pushes his way, with empty saddle, into his place in the ranks.  And so the soldier by profession, faint-hearted as he may be, marches shoulder to shoulder with his comrades, and acquires a fictitious, but not unuseful, courage from his contact with braver men.

It is true that the want of good boots told heavily on the Confederates.  A pair already half-worn, such as many of the men started with, was hardly calculated to last out a march of several hundred miles over rocky tracks, and fresh supplies were seldom forthcoming.  There was a dearth both of shoe-leather and shoe-factories in the South; and if Mr. Davis, before the blockade was established, had indented on the shoemakers of Europe, he would have added very largely to the efficiency of his armies.  A few cargoes of good boots would have been more useful than a shipload of rifled guns.

Nevertheless, the absentees from the ranks were not all footsore.  The vice of straggling was by no means confined to Jackson’s command.  It was the curse of both armies, Federal and Confederate.  The Official Records, as well as the memoirs of participants, teem with references to it.  It was an evil which the severest punishments seemed incapable of checking.  It was in vain that it was denounced in orders, that the men were appealed to, warned, and threatened.  Nor were the faint-hearted alone at fault.  The day after Jackson’s victory at M’Dowell, Johnston, falling back before McClellan, addressed General Lee as follows:—­

“Stragglers cover the country, and Richmond is no doubt filled with the absent without leave...The men are full of spirit when near the enemy, but at other times to avoid restraint leave their regiments in crowds."* (* O.R. volume 11 part 3 page 503.) A letter from a divisional general followed:—­