Other nations have not been slow to follow French example.  Russia is rapidly manufacturing rifled pieces for her service; England is providing her whole army with the Minie musket, and Austria and Prussia are applying inventions of their own to the armament of corps organized and trained on the principle of the French Chasseurs.

The Duke of Wellington is said to have remarked, not long before his death, while speaking of the English troops, that they had, indeed, adopted the new musket, but that it would be physically difficult for them to transform themselves into light infantry.  The same observation will undoubtedly apply to all the Continental nations excepting the French; but in the United States, while we could muster the finest heavy troops in the world, we have also the most abundant material for just such light infantry as those described in the foregoing sketch.

The Chasseurs are not merely distinguished as perfect light infantry, but they also form excellent troops of the line.  By the weight of their fire, they are capable of producing in battles and sieges effects unknown before their appearance on the scene, and that is the great point, the entirely new feature about them.

The creation of these battalions, well planned and happily executed as it has been, remains a most important event in military history.  Consecrated by the valor and the intelligence of the officers and soldiers of France, it has been the signal and the source of new and rapid reforms.  One of these battalions attached to each infantry division adds fresh force to that fine classification which first arose under the Republic, and, although somewhat perverted under the Empire, still remains the basis of the French grand organization, recalling, as it does, the immortal idea of the Roman Legion.

With the aid of its example, and the emulation inspired by the success of the Chasseurs, the splendid system of the French infantry-service has been completed under the present Napoleon; and we now behold the race he rules so disciplined for war, the respective qualities of the North and the South of France, the firmness and solidity of the former and the enthusiasm and ardor of the latter, so beautifully blended, that we may well exclaim, “Here, indeed, is a whole nation armed! in pedite robur!”

In conclusion, the writer and compiler of this sketch would not be venturing too far, perhaps, were he to remark that so excellent an example can be nowhere better followed than in this country, if, as would to-day appear a certainty, we are to turn aside from the ways of peace to study the art of war.  We have here precisely the material for whole armies of light infantry, the most favorable conditions for their equipment and instruction, and, owing to the nature of the region we inhabit, its dense woodlands, its wide savannas, its broad rivers, and its numerous ranges of rough mountains, the very land in which the tactics and marksmanship of the Chasseurs would be most available.