George’s Pet
France. Congress appropriated money to fortify the coast and authorized the President to raise a provincial army of 10,000 men, in case of a declaration of war against the United States. They meant to wait, however, until war was actually declared against us. This army was never called into service. Later on further preparations were made for conflict with Great Britain, but Congress, with full power to maintain a real army, still clung to its militia delusion, and even reënacted the odious and ineffective bounty provisions.
Bounty attractions drew precisely the same results—or rather lack of results. The army, which in 1810 numbered 2,765, had only increased to 6,686 in July, 1812. On paper we were supposed to muster 35,603 men. It passes human belief that our muddle-headed mistakes should be repeated and made more glaring by a return to short-term enlistments so appalling in the Revolution. But that is exactly what Congress did, by reducing the term of enlistment from five years to 18
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