Let us now examine and consider, with impartial eye, the Stockade in
detail--the locality, the hospital, the dietary, and, in fact, all that
relates to the condition of life in this region; reviewing at length the
laws which regulate the animal economy, and judging of cause and effect
with that spirit which Bacon calls the "_prudens quaestio_."
In selecting new grounds for the habitations of human families, whether in
large or limited numbers, particular care must always be observed,
especially in warm climes, or where malarial influences are known to
prevail. In the selection of places for the encampment of troops, the
problem is still more difficult to treat, on account of the general
dyscrasial condition of the soldier; and oftentimes far more skill and
prudence are required than in the choosing of a field for battle.
How many a noble regiment have we seen impaired in its effective strength,
and robbed of its glorious future, by the injudicious encampment, where
vain and ignorant officers have sacrificed the health and morale of their
men to please their fanciful ideas as to military etiquette--the form of
shelter, the position, and the regularity of the prescribed lines of
encampment!
In one of the last campaigns of Europe, when all the resources which
modern wealth could afford were lavished with unsparing hand, there was a
useless and preventible loss of life, that recalled the most disastrous
epidemics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
War is one of the natural laws for the demolition of the human race, and
we see the spirit of destruction silently at work among friends as well as
foes. The supreme commands seem mysteriously to be placed in the hands of
men who can cause the greatest devastation and sacrifice of life; who
march their columns steadily to the deadly and murderous assault when
there is no occasion for it; who encamp their troops in pestilential
lowlands, when the healthy heights offer safer and better accommodations.
"Nobilitas cum plebe perit, lateque vagatur ensis."