"In the Dutch army promotion extends to the rank of colonel.

"In the Prussian army advancement continues to the rank of colonel, and medical officers wear the same uniform as that of the corresponding military rank. "In the Sardinian army the highest rank of the medical corps is that of majorgeneral.

"In the Spanish army the advancement of medical officers extends to the rank of lieutenant-general. The medical inspector-general holds the same rank and enjoys the same privileges as the inspector-general of the different arms. Medical officers receive the same rates of retired pay as the corresponding military [line] ranks; they are permitted to count as seven years' service the time passed in preparatory studies.

"The director-general has the power to recommend medical officers for certain distinctions, as the 'Cross of Scientific Emulation,' the 'Cross of Isabella the Catholic,' the Cross of Charles III.,' and the Cross of St. Ferdinand.'

"In the Spanish navy the rank of medical officers is established upon the same liberal and satisfactory basis.

"In the Bavarian army medical officers attain the rank of colonel, and wear the same uniform as other officers of similar relative rank; when unfit for service from age or disease, the pension nearly equals their full pay.

"In the Austrian army the rank extends to major-general, and medical officers enjoy the same honors and privileges as corresponding military ranks [line grades] -wear the same uniform, and receive the same rates of retired pay.

"If a medical officer die of wounds or exposure on duty, the pension to his family is equal to two-thirds of his pay. If from other causes, to one-half of his pay.

"The director-general is ex officio a member of the Aulic council, and receives, as such, a liberal addition to his salary.

"In the army of Portugal medical rank extends to the grade of colonel.

"I refer to these facts merely to illustrate how unfounded is the idea that medical officers of the navy, in desiring a proper position in an artificial organization are striving for novel expedients or dangerous precedents. The experience of the civ ilized world seems to have acquiesced in the propriety of giving to every person in military life a position somewhat appropriate to the importance of his duties, and though long periods of peace had assured to the military branch an exclusive preeminence and power. Recent events most plainly demonstrate that it requires as much intellect, training, as high an order of moral qualities, to insure efficiency to the medical department as to any other branch of military service. It is now esteemed not less important to preserve life than to destroy it; and he who stands unmoved amid the unseen arrows of pestilence in the performance of his humane duties, surely evinces no lower order of courage than he who encounters the visible perils of war in another sphere.

"The health, and consequent efficiency of an army, or a fleet, in time of war, demands much care, solicitude, and watchfulness; and the State is mindful of its true interests when it encourages talent, zeal, and usefulness in so important a service.

"The rank of captain, recently conferred [March 13, 1863] on the senior surgeons, is not positively of as much value as their former rank of commander, at the time the second grade in the navy, while that of captain is now the third; so that promotion has reduced them one step in the miiltary scale. In point of sea-service there are medical officers who surpass some of the admirals and commodores; and relatively to length of service, the sea-service of many medical officers is larger than that of the senior officer of the line.

"As preferment has been liberally bestowed upon line officers, four new grades having been created since the war, it is not, I hope, presumptuous to propose that those who have equally shared the perils of battle and dangers of climate, whose labors have been so great, and whose rewards have been so few, may at last receive a fitter recognition of their fidelity and usefulness.

"The war showed the absolute necessity of offering higher inducements in the shape of rank to medical officers of the army; and who will deny that the medical corps of the navy, so isolated and necessarily so self-reliant, should embody the best talent and the highest professional and social character the government can invite to its service ?

"I am so well aware of the feeling existing on this subject, that I should forbear to introduce it, did I not as fully know the worth and patriotism of those whose case I plead.

"I can safely refer to the records of the war for any instances of short-coming, or lack of zeal or interest, and yet while, as a corps, medical officers have proved so vigilant and efficient on every occasion of danger or duty, it is but seldom, indeed, that they receive a passing notice in official dispatches, as is so commonly the practice in the army.

"Perhaps some reorganization of the medical department might overcome the indisposition to enter the naval service now so generally manifested by young medical men. We have very considerable difficulty in keeping up the number of officers of the permanent service, while it requires all our exertions to provide, indifferently, for the temporary service.

"Many vessels are in commission without medical officers; for the simple reason that, after all sorts of publicity, we cannot procure them in sufficient numbers."

In the preceding extract from the report of the Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy Department, may be seen precedents enough to show that there is no novelty in assigning a fixed position to staff officers in naval organizations. It shows, too, that employment in the navy of the United States is so little sought by competent members of the medical profession, that it is impossible to supply a sufficient number to fill the permanent medical corps. The facts suggest that a better position and better compensation are requisite to attract to and retain in the service men who are equal in professional qualifications to the existing standard; or the government must be content to trust the lives and health of officers and privates of the navy to an inferior class of practitioners. But an opinion has prevailed that the lives and health of men in the naval service are too valuable to be intrusted to incompetent hands; and yet, strange as it seems, those who are most nearly interested in securing when afloat the best skill the country affords, are advocating measures which are calculated to discourage from entering the navy those who are best qualified.

NOTE. On the first day of 1865, the navy consisted of six hundred and seventy-one vessels of all rates. Each vessel in service requires one medical officer, and many of them two or three. Hospitals, recruiting offices, navy-yards, etc., employ seventy-seven; so that there are not less than seven hundred and eighty-four posts, each requiring at least one.

The existing laws authorize the appointment of two hundred. medical men permanently, and an unlimited number temporarily, in the naval service. In the permanent navy there was a deficiency of twelve on the 1st of January, and since, three have died in battle. There are two hundred and forty-seven medical officers with temporary commissions, or an aggregate of four hundred and thirty-five, thus leaving three hundred and thirteen. vessels without a surgeon of any kind.

During the year 1864, the casualties in the permanent medical corps were, resignations, fifteen; deaths, thirteen ;-total,

twenty eight; and of the temporary appointments, the resignations were, forty-seven; deaths, eight; dismissed, eight; -total, sixty-three; or an aggregate of ninety-one."

During the last four months of the year, no less than one hundred and three medical men, in different parts of the country, declined to accept the appointment of assistant-surgeon in the navy. Only ten were received into the medical staff during this period.

Now, as medical services on shore command fees, varying in the aggregate from two to ten, fifteen, and even twenty thousand dollars a year, competent men will not engage permanently in the navy for from twelve hundred and fifty to three thousand dollars per annum, with risks of climate and the sea, as well as the perils of battle, in addition to professional labors.

March 1, 1865.

RELIEVED GUARD!

BY HENRY P. LELAND.

THERE at his post by oozy marsh that binds

The borders of the bay,

Where moaned through rustling sedge the winter winds,

The soldier silent lay.

Through the cold blue of heaven the evening star

Set the first watch of night:

While 'thwart the west one lingering crimson bar,
Crowned the dead day with light.

Slyly the gray fox peering, swiftly ran

Along the dusky shore;

Stopping, perchance, with pricked up ears, to scan
The wild fowl winging o'er.

The pulsing whir of wings that beat the air
With a deep, trembling hum,

Unheeded pass the soldier there:

Unseen the wild-fowl come.

Now o'er the line of marsh the new-born day

Lifts up its rosy wings,

And through the frosty air, far down the bay,

The "honk" of wild geese rings.

Unharmed the wild duck preens its plumage bright,
Swimming the soldier near:

Gazing the while with eyes of liquid light,

It sees no sign for fear.

Calmly at peace he lay, while the bright sun
Tinged his pale cheek with red:-

Shot through the heart-his duty done-
There lay the soldier, dead.

Whether 'neath sheltering roof or open sky
We render the last breath,

God give us strength to calmly die

With hope, for after death.

OUR MORAL WEAKNESS.

A MOST curious feature of the unparalleled war power of the nation is the moral weakness of its representative men. It is still the more curious because revolutions are generally attended by too fanatical a conformity to the views and prejudices of the dominant party. In our own case we have reached that point of extreme gentleness which enables our enemies to inflict injuries and commit depredations with almost perfect impunity. Our grand operations are embarrassed by unrecognized bands, our soldiers are murdered in cold blood, citizens speak treason under the very ears of commanding officers, give information to the enemy, and perform other acts of the most culpable character, without experiencing severer punishment, as a rule, than a few days' confinement in a guard-house; or, with equal lack of justice, others are imprisoned for months without trial, and very probably upon mere suspicion.

We are not surprised, then, that the subjection of the spirit and strength of the rebellion has not been altogether commensurate with the gigantic triumphs and efforts of our armies. There are several reasons for this strange fact, all of which originate in a deficiency in moral strength. The first is, the mistaken conservatism, the retrospective tendency of the leading minds of our armies. The past is merely a lesson of experience, they consider it an unsolved problem. They are not up to the social ideas of the year. They still linger upon the threshold of the rebellion. They have fought and won great battles. For what? The principles of '61. They need to be advanced. The people are striving for the theories of a quarter of a century ahead. In the beginning, the war on the part of the Government was defensive. The South was the aggressor. The loyal people rallied to the defence of their flag, their nationality, their constitution, and their honor. The disloyal element, intent upon a separate national existence, endeavored to rend asunder the strong bonds that bind the Union into one of the great states of the world.

At first it was supposed the action of the South was the overfanaticism of a few misguided communities. A few months later demonstrated this opinion was a mistake. Unfortunately, at the end of more than three years of toil and danger, there are many men of our armies who have not yet discovered their error. They still labor in the dangerous belief that the South is to be induced to submit by courteous means. The war, consequently, drags along, and is gradually exhausting the powers of the nation.

VOL III.-24

There is not the least question, had the moral force of the commanders of our armies been as remarkable as their ability to cope with the enemy in the field, we would have had peace before this. To compel a people into submission by strength of arms may succeed in the beginning, but when backed by weak, inefficient, and partial administration of law and order, the most that can be expected is but a semblance of obedience, a suppressed enmity, and an uprising the moment the actual presence of bayonets is removed. A powerful hand would have insured the reverse. There is no control which people so long remember, as that which emanates from the exercise of a rigid and just authority. Had this been the case in the local administrative departinent upon the occupation of territory, how dif ferent would have been the results of the victories, which have been thrown away by mismanagement and misgovernment.

Palpable injustice in some instances, and partial and dangerous forbearance in others, have done their natural work, and bitter enmity has resulted in one case, while contempt has followed in the other. There is no motive so uncompromising, when brought in antagonism to military force, as the spirit, the moral being of a people. Armies may conquer territories, devastate fields, burn cities, destroy commerce, but they can never extinguish that inner being, which burns in the breasts of men. Bayonets may destroy individuals, but they can never destroy a people. Military power may subject but it cannot conquer. Moral influence soothes the body and controls the mind. In men, the average of moral is greater than physical strength. The obduracy of the former controls all of the latter.

to the rack, their moral strength supports them in their suffering. The patriot woman by the side of her bleeding husband, by moral force rises into that sublime condition that weeps not over the sacrifice of being or companionship, but weeps that she has no other sacrifices to make. The moral strength of the Revolution triumphed over Great Britain. The moral force of the armies of 1865 will alone triumph over the revolution in the

South.

We do not mean to convey the idea that the South is to be conquered by moral influence alone, nor even do we mean that moral tone and leniency, without justice, are synonymous. The difficulty has been in the fact that the war has been conducted merely in the light of the operations of armies. Campaigns against the enemy, when the people at home, our most dangerous enemy, have been entirely disregarded and overlooked. It is but natural to suppose that all the people of the South are hostile, and all should be treated in that light. Authority should be so exercised that those who are semi-hostile may reap the benefit of their obedience to the laws and Constitution of the United States in accordance with their repentance and disposi