RECRUITING TACTICS OFFICERS. 119 



ent system of education and command, the Mexicans would make 

 excellent soldiers. Their horsemen, probably the best riders on the 

 continent, paid more attention to the management of their animals 

 than to the use of their horse's force in the charge ; while their in- 

 fantry and artillery avoided those close quarters which make the 

 bayonet so powerful a weapon when directed by intrepid, unquail- 

 ing arms in the presence and under the lead of unflinching com- 

 pnay officers. Their lancers did more damage to dismounted vic- 

 tims than to erect and fighting foes. 



With the majority of the rank and file, the army is, in all likeli- 

 hood, not a profession of choice. Enlistment is now scarcely ever 

 voluntary. When men are required for a new regiment or to fill 

 companies thinned by death or desertion, a sergeant is despatched 

 with his guard to recruit among the Indians and peons of the neigh- 

 borhood. The subaltern probably finds these individuals laboring 

 in the fields, and without even the formality of a request, selects the 

 best men from the group and orders them into the ranks. If they 

 resist or attempt to escape, they are immediately lazo'd^ and, at 

 nightfall the gang is marched, bound in pairs, to the nearest bar- 

 rack, where the wretched victims of military oppression are pursued 

 by a mournful procession of wives and children who henceforth 

 follow their husbands or parents during the whole period of service. 

 From the hands of the recruiting sergeant the conscript passes into 

 those of the drill sergeant. The chief duty of this personage is to 

 teach him to march, countermarch, and to handle an unserviceable 

 weapon. From the drill sergeant he succeeds to the company offi- 

 cer, and here, perhaps, he encounters the worst foe of his ultimate 

 efficiency. 



Officers in Mexico have no thorough military and scientific edu- 

 cation. There is a military school at Chapultepec, near the capi- 

 tal, but it has never been carefully and completely organized, nor 

 has it furnished many men who have distinguished themselves in 

 the field. The politicians, relying on the dramatic power of the 

 army, made that army the means of reward and influence in civil 

 life, by selecting its officers of all grades from every employment or 

 occupation. Merchants, tradespeople, professional men, children 

 of wealthy or ambitious families, all attained rank in the army by 

 this unwise means, and the consequence has been that the majority 

 of company, and perhaps even of field officers, was rather fitted to 

 display the magnificent uniforms to which their grades entitle 

 them than to discipline the rank and file when organized in battal- 

 ions, regiments and divisions. 



