THE ARMY IN THE CIVIL WAR.

BY CHAS. A. PARTRIDGE.

[Charles A. Partridge, adjutant general of the Grand Army of the Republic, Illinois; is one of the best known veterans of the Civil war; he enlisted as a private in the Ninety-sixth Illinois Volunteers, and was promoted successively to corporal, sergeant, sergeant-major and lieutenant; after the close of the war he re-entered civil life, and has been one of the most active men in the organization of the Grand Army, becoming assistant adjutant general of Illinois in 1891 and adjustant general in 1904.]

The year 1860 found the United States at peace with all the world. The domestic problems that confronted the American republic were not new and few had any thought that these would not be threshed out as had been all others that had arisen since the adoption of the constitution.

The feeling of security from a foreign foe-no one conceived of domestic strife-due to the broad oceans that lave the American shores, had so influenced congress that the army had been reduced to about ten thousand men.

And this organization was not in fact an army at all, but a uniformed body of national servants divided practically into three departments. There were the engineers, a corps of scientists making civil maps, topograpical explorations and geological and geographical investigations, and doing the work of the government in dredging waterways, erecting lighthouses and building bridges and canals, all in the way of commerce and industry.

Then came, in order of precedence, the so-called artillery. This was a corps of caretakers who had charge of a series of obsolete forts that had been quite up to date about 1812.

The officers of this corps had a good knowledge of ordnance and gunnery from books, the men had most of them never even seen a modern piece of heavy ordnance. Had these old forts been armed, there were not enough men available to move them and keep the guns clean from the wear and tear of time.

The third, most important and only fighting department