They do this alike for all. They do it as well for the sinner
as for the saint,--as well for the traitorous Secessionist striving to
destroy his country as for the patriot endeavoring to sustain it.
In neither case is it a matter of will, but of necessity. The amount of
power to be generated in both living and dead machines is simply a
question of quality and quantity of provision for the purpose. So much
food, air, protection given produce so much strength. A proposition to
reduce the amount of either of these necessarily involves the
proposition to reduce the available force. Whoever determines to eat or
give his men less or poorer food, or impure air, practically determines
to do less work. In all this management of the human body, we are sure
to get what we pay for, and we are equally sure not to get what we do
not pay for.
All Governments have tried, and are now, in various degrees, trying, the
experiment of privation in their armies. The soldier cannot carry with
him the usual means and comforts of home. He must give these up the
moment he enters the martial ranks, and reduce his apparatus of living
to the smallest possible quantity. He must generally limit himself to a
portable house, kitchen, cooking-apparatus, and wardrobe, and to an
entire privation of furniture, and sometimes submit to a complete
destitution of everything except the provision he may carry in his
haversack and the blanket he can carry on his back.
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