But, as a rule, drill duty was not taken seriously.
Numbers of men failed to report; and those who came were likely
to give most of their time to horse-races, wrestling-matches,
shooting contests--not to mention drinking and brawling--which
turned the occasion into mere merrymaking or disorder. The men
brought few guns, and when drills were actually held these
soldiers in the making contented themselves with parading with
cornstalks over their shoulders. "Cornstalk drill" thus became a
frontier epithet of derision. It goes without saying that these
troops were poorly officered. The captains and colonels were
chosen by the men, frequently with more regard for their
political affiliations or their general standing in the community
than for their capacity as military commanders; nor were the
higher officers, appointed by the chief executive of territory,
state, or nation, more likely to be chosen with a view to their
military fitness.
So it came about, as Roosevelt has said, that the frontier people
of the second generation "had no military training whatever, and
though they possessed a skeleton militia organization, they
derived no benefit from it, because their officers were
worthless, and the men had no idea of practising self-restraint
or obeying orders longer than they saw fit.
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