by natural sickness, while the mortality from mismanagement would at one
season of the next year exceed that of London in the worst days of the
Great Plague.

That the case was really what is here represented was proved by the
actual prevention of this needless sickness during the last year of the
war. In the same camp, and under the same circumstances of warfare, the
mortality was reduced, by good management, to a degree unhoped for by
all but those who achieved it. The deaths for the last half year were
one-third fewer than at home! And yet the army that died was composed of
fine, well-trained troops; while the army that lived and flourished was
of a far inferior material when it came out,--raw, untravelled, and
unhardened to the military life.

How did these things happen? There can be no more important question for
Americans at this time.

I will not go into the history of the weaknesses and faults of the
administration of departments at home. They have been abundantly
published already; and we may hope that they bear no relation to the
American case. It is more interesting to look into the circumstances of
the march and the camp, for illustration of what makes the health or the
sickness of the soldier.

Wherever the men were to provide themselves with anything to eat or to
wear out of their pay, they were found to suffer. There is no natural
market, with fair prices, in the neighborhood of warfare; and, on the
one hand, a man cannot often get what he wishes, and, on the other,
he is tempted to buy something not so good for him. If there are
commissariat stores opened, there is an endless accumulation of