surgeons' reports — CONNECTICUT — SECOND DISTRICT. 233 



shown that the .vonn": men of the country, between the ages of eigliteen and twenty years, are as 

 ready to enter the military service as are those over twenty years of age; many between eighteen 

 and twenty years of age have enlisted and been recruited into the service; and the testimony of 

 Army officers lias been that such young men have made hardy and effective soldiers. INlany youths 

 of good size and well-developed physique, even un<ler the age of eigiiteeii years, have also enlisted, 

 and have managed, by devices and statements which they chose to make, to get aduiitted into the 

 military service of the country, and, having rendered gooil service in the national cause, are now 

 returning home with the conscious dignity and bearing of veterans of tweniij years of nye, in the 

 glorious armies of the Uniou. Had we been aUowed, we could have recruited by enlistment, at 

 this office, almost any desirable number of good-sized ,\oung men, of sixteen and seventeen years 

 of age, who, I am of opinion, would have been more valuable to the service than others in the Army 

 turned forty years of age. Nonc^ however, were recruited here wiio were liiomi to be under eight- 

 een years of age. * • * I would, therefore, suggest that the enrollment-law be so 

 amended as to make the extremes eighteen years and forty-live years, instead of twenty and forty- 

 flve years, as it now stands. » • » 



I must remark upon the impolicy of making a distinction as to the requisite condition, (jualilica- 

 tions, and titness of a man for entering the military service as a volunteer, and the condition, 

 (lualilications, and fltnessof a man to betaken compulsorily by draft into the same service. In 

 other words, it seems unreasonable to allow certain defects or infirmities (such as lack of stature, 

 er dimensions, or suspicion of incipient disease) to be sufficient to exclude a volunteer who is desir- 

 ous of entering the military service of his country, and not to allow the same delects and infirmities 

 to exempt a drafted man who desires to keep out from the same service. I think it is imi)olicy for 

 the Government to take one of its free citizens, against his will, into the military service, when it 

 will nut take the same free citizen, or one just like him in every particular, if lie comes willingly. 



A practice has obtained of applying distinct standards of military efiiciency i,i the- examina- 

 tion of men for the same military service, under the same call of the Government ; one standard 

 being employed for examining drafted men, and another in examining volunteers sind substitutes. 

 The lower standard has been applied to the drafted man, the higher standard to the recruit, so 

 that, logically, it would be true that a man would be taken as a drafted man, when the same man, 

 in the same health, would be rejected as a volunteer. It is said, "The volunteers are seeking to 

 enter the service, and drafted men are already in, and examination is to see if they should be dis- 

 charged." This does not seem to me to be correc-t ; drafting (as well as volunteering) is but one 

 step in the process of getting men into the service; and they are Tiot in till all the steps are taken. 

 In the light of barter, officials consider drafted free citizens, whether actually drafted or in anticti- 

 pation of being drafted, as the absolute property of the Goveinment, and will not exchange an 

 actually drafted man for a substitute, nor a man drafted in anticipation, for a volunteer, without 

 making a profit to the Government.' » # * 



But while this has been the object and purpose of the system of enrollment and drartin<J, in 

 its history thus far, it has been used, and, as I think, wisely and prudently so, as a means of stimu- 

 lating aud encouraging voluntary enlistments; and the wisdom of such use has been demonstrated 

 by the fact that our volunteer (atizen soldiery (whatever may have been said in earlier times of 

 their leaders and officers) have proved themselves men of the very first order of military efiiciency. 

 It may safely be predicted that volunteering (even if under the stimulus of a threatened draft) 

 will, on future occasions, be the source from which the Government will draw its supplies of mili- 

 tary strength. Hence, the importance of the standard of military efficiency, api)licable to volun- 

 teers, being first definitely fixed upon a proper basis, after which the drafted men .should be examined 

 by it? * # * 



' This idea is erroneous. The fact is, that it is so difficult to discover the real physical abilily of a drafted man who 

 not only claims disability, but sustaius his statement by mtdical certificates, that to establish the same medical regula- 

 tions for drafted men as for recruits and substitutes would result in the exemption of nearly all drafted men. — B. 



- It is much easier to nuike rules as to what shall diaqnalifij thau to enumerate what shall qiialifij a man physically 

 for the Army. It is, iudeed, practically Impossible to make out regulations for recruiting, sijecifying in detail all the 

 disqnalilicatious for a recruit. The subject must be treated iu a general manner, the details being left to the discretion 

 of the surgeon. — B. 

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