“This same power of steam would enable European nations to disembark upon our shores even a larger force than that which finally encamped around Sebastopol.  To resist such an attack, should it ever be made, our cities and harbors must be fortified, and those fortifications must be provided with guns, ammunition, and instructed artillerists.  To repel the advance of such an army into the interior, it is not enough to trust to the number of brave but undisciplined men that we can bring to bear against it.  An invading army of 15,000 or 20,000 men could easily be crushed by the unremitting attacks of superior numbers; but when it comes to the case of more than 100,000 disciplined veterans, the very multitude brought to bear against them works its own destruction; because, if without discipline and instruction, they cannot be handled, and are in their own way.  We cannot afford a Moscow campaign.”

“Our regular army never can, and, perhaps, never ought to be, large enough to provide for all the contingencies that may arise, but it should be as large as its ordinary avocations in the defence of the frontier will justify; the number of officers and non-commissioned officers should be unusually large, to provide for a sudden increase; and the greatest possible care should be bestowed upon the instruction of the special arms of the artillery and engineer troops.  The militia and volunteer system should be placed upon some tangible and effective basis; instructors furnished them from the regular army, and all possible means taken to spread sound military information among them.  In the vicinity of our sea-coast fortifications, it would be well to provide a sufficient number of volunteer companies with the means of instruction in heavy artillery, detailing officers of the regular artillery for instructors.”

On this subject of instructing our volunteers and militia in the use of sea-coast batteries, we add the following quotation from Major Barnard’s pamphlet:—­

“One of the main causes of inefficiency in coast batteries, which has given color to the idea that they may be passed, or even attacked with impunity, I conceive to be the want of skill and care in the use of the guns.  The result is a prodigious smoke, and a prodigious throwing away of balls, and very little damage done.  This has been, however, by no means a peculiarity of coast defences.  The same system of random firing has hitherto prevailed, both in the use of small arms in land and of heavy ordnance in sea battles; nor has it occurred apparently to even the greatest masters of the art of war, to ask why, for one man wounded, or for one effective shot in a vessel’s hull, so many thousands of shot should be thrown uselessly into the air.”

   “But this question is now asked, both in the use of the soldier’s
   rifled musket, and in the management of ships’ guns, as well as of
   artillery of all kinds.”