Part 5

Under modern conditions, in a great civilized state, the regular army is composed of officers who have as a rule been carefully trained to their work; who possess remarkably fine physique, and who are accustomed to the command of men and to taking the lead in emergencies; and the enlisted men have likewise been picked out with great care as to their bodily development; have been drilled until they handle themselves, their horses, and their weapons admirably, can cook for themselves, and are trained to the endurance of hardship and exposure under the conditions of march and battle. An ordinary volunteer or militia regiment from an ordinary civilized community, on the other hand, no matter how enthusiastic or patriotic, or how intelligent, is officered by lawyers, merchants, business men, or their sons, and contains in its ranks clerks, mechanics, or farmers’ lads of varying physique, who have to be laboriously taught how to shoot and how to ride, and, above all, how to cook and to take care of themselves and make themselves comfortable in the open, especially when tired out by long marches, and when the weather is bad. At the outset such a regiment is, of course, utterly inferior to a veteran regular regiment, but after it has been in active service in the field for a year or two, so that its weak men have been weeded out, and its strong men have learned their duties—which can be learned far more rapidly in time of war than in time of peace—it becomes equal to any regiment. Moreover, if a regular regiment consists of raw recruits and is officered by men who have learned their profession only in the barracks and the study and on the parade ground, it may be a cause of very disagreeable surprise to those who have grown to regard the word “regular” as a kind of fetich.

Again, a volunteer regiment may have the wisdom to select officers for the highest positions who know how to handle men, who have seen actual soldiering, who possess natural capacity for leadership, eagerness to learn, and the good sense to know their own shortcomings; and the rank and file may be men of adventurous temper, already skilful riflemen, and of great bodily hardihood, accustomed to exposure, accustomed to cook—that is to say, to take care of their stomachs—to live in the open, to endure hardship and fatigue, and to take advantage of cover in battle. Such a regiment, especially if raised on the frontier, may, from the outset, prove itself equal to or better than any ordinary regular regiment—as has recently been shown by our troops in the Philippines, by the Australians and Canadians in South Africa, and, above all, by the Boers; and as was shown nearly a century ago by Hofer’s Tyrolese and Andrew Jackson’s backwoodsmen. Of course, no good traits will avail in the least if men are possessed with the belief that they cannot be taught anything, if they are not eager to obey and to learn; or if they do not possess a natural fighting edge.

So it is with the men in high command. The careful training in body and mind, and especially in character, gained in an academy like West Point, and the subsequent experience in the field, endow the regular officer with such advantages that, in any but a long war, he cannot be overtaken even by the best natural fighter. In the American Civil War, for instance, the greatest leaders were all West Pointers. Yet even there, by the end of the contest both armies had produced regimental, brigade, and division commanders, who though originally from civil life, had learned to know their business exactly as well as the best regular officers; and there was at least one such commander—Forrest—who, in his own class, was unequalled. If in a war the regular officers prove to have been trained merely to the pedantry of their profession, and do not happen to number men of exceptional ability in their ranks, then sooner or later the men who are born soldiers will come to the front, even though they have been civilians until late in life.

None of the men on the Parliamentary side who had received their training in the Continental armies amounted to much. On the Royalist side the only professional soldier who made his mark was Rupert; and Rupert, after a year or two, was decisively beaten by Cromwell—a great natural military genius, who, although a civilian till after forty, showed an astonishing aptitude in grasping the essentials of his new profession. His only military rival in the war was Montrose, who was also not a professional soldier.

In September King Charles had gathered a force of 10,000 men at Nottingham, while Essex was getting together a larger army not far off, at Northampton. The wealth of the kingdom was with the Parliament, which also possessed the arsenal, the fleet, and the principal ports. On the other hand, man for man, the King’s troops were superior to the Parliament’s, especially in the most dreaded arm of the service, the horse. The fervid zealots who, like John Bunyan, entered the Parliamentary army, were never in the majority, and needed peculiar training to bring out their remarkable soldierly qualities. The sober, thrifty, religious middle class—which was the backbone of the Parliamentary strength—had no special aptitude for military service. If its members could once be put in the army and kept there a sufficient length of time, their qualities made them excellent soldiers; but, as a whole, they were not men of very adventurous temper, and had had no such training in arms, or in the sports akin to war, as inclined them to rush into the army. On the other hand, the Royalist nobles and squires, and their game-keepers, grooms, and hard-riding kinsmen, with their taste for field-sports, their love of adventure, and their high sense of warlike honor, made splendid material out of which to organize an army, and especially cavalry. In consequence, for the first half of the war the Royalist cavalry was overwhelmingly superior to the Parliamentary cavalry, composed as it was of men bought with the money of the _bourgeoisie_, who had no particular heart in their work; who were timid horsemen and unskilled swordsmen. The difference in favor of the Royalist horse was as marked as the superiority of the Confederate horse in the American Civil War, under leaders like Stuart, Morgan, and Basil Duke; until time was afforded, in the one case for the growth of Cromwell, in the other for the development of leaders like Sheridan and Wilson.

Cromwell had already shown himself very active. He had seized the magazine of the Castle of Cambridge, and secured the University plate, which was being sent to the King. He had raised volunteers and expended money freely out of his own scanty means. His troop of horse was, from the beginning, utterly different from most of the Parliamentary cavalry; it was composed of his own neighbors, yeomen and small farmers, hard, serious men, whose grim natures were thrilled by the intense earnestness of their leader, and whom he steadily drilled into good horsemanship and swordsmanship. His chaplains always played an important part; one of them, Hugh Peters, was a man of mark, who joined ability to high character.

The King’s cavalry was led by Prince Rupert, a dashing swordsman and horseman, a born cavalry leader, who, though only twenty-three, had already learned his trade in the wars of the Continent. Rupert opened the real fighting, scattering a large body of Parliamentary horse in panic rout when he struck them near Powick, on the Severn.

In October the King marched on London, and at Edgehill met the army of Essex. Each side drew up, with the infantry in the centre, the cavalry on the flanks. On the King’s side there was much jealousy among the different generals, and some insubordination, but far more activity and eagerness for fight than the Parliamentary troops displayed. The battle was fought on the afternoon of October 23d, and the Parliamentary army was demoralized at the outset by the treacherous desertion of a regiment commanded by a man most inappropriately named Sir Faithful Fortescue. He moved out of the ranks and joined Rupert’s horse. Rupert charged with headlong impetuosity, and by his fury and decision so overawed the Parliamentary horse opposed to him that they did not wait the shock, but galloped wildly off, actually dispersing the nearest infantry regiments of their own side. Rupert then showed the characteristic shortcoming which always impaired the effect of his daring prowess. He never could keep his men in hand after they had scattered the foe; he never kept a sufficient reserve with which to meet a counter-stroke. None but a great master of war could withstand his first shock; but after the first shock he was no longer dangerous. At Edgehill his horse followed the routed left wing of the Parliamentarians until they became as completely scattered as their beaten foes. He struck the Parliamentary baggage-train, which was defended by Hampden with a couple of infantry regiments, and his scattered troopers were beaten back when he attempted to take it.

Meanwhile, the Royalist horse of the left wing had fallen with the same headlong fury on the Parliamentary right, but had only struck a small portion of the Parliamentary cavalry. These they drove in rout before them, themselves following in hot pursuit. The result was, that the bulk of the Parliamentary foot, and a portion of the right wing of the Parliamentary horse, including Oliver Cromwell’s troop, were left face to face with the Royalist foot, which was inferior in numbers; and falling on it, after a desperate struggle they got the upper hand and forced it back. Rupert at last began to gather his horse together to face the victorious Roundhead foot; and as night fell, the two armies were still fronting each other. The King advanced on London in November, but was unable to force his way into the city, and fell back.

The war had not opened well for the Parliamentary side, and their especial weakness was evidently in cavalry—the arm by which decisive battles in the open field were won. Cromwell, with unerring eye, saw the weakness and started to remedy it. It is about this time that his famous conversation with Hampden took place. Said Cromwell: “Your troops are most of them old decayed serving-men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; and their troops are gentlemen’s sons, younger sons, and persons of quality; do you think that the spirits of such base, mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honor and courage and resolution in them?... You must get men of a spirit; and take it not ill what I say—I know you will not—of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go, or else you will be beaten still.... I raised such men as had the fear of God before them, as made some conscience of what they did, and from that day forward they were never beaten.”

The famous Presbyterian clergyman, Baxter, who was by no means friendly to Cromwell, described his special care to get religious men into his troop; men of greater intelligence than common soldiers, who enlisted, not for the money, but from an earnest sense of public duty. Naturally, said Baxter, these troopers “having more than ordinary wit and resolution had more than ordinary success.”

By another writer of the time, Cromwell’s horse are described as “freeholders and freeholders’ sons, who upon matter of conscience engaged in this quarrel; and thus being well-armed within by the satisfaction of their own consciences, and without by good iron arms, they would as one man stand firmly and charge desperately.” Cromwell at once distinguished himself among his contemporaries, alike by the absolute obedience he rendered to his superiors, and by the incessant, unwearying activity with which he drilled his men in the use of their weapons and horses. He was speedily promoted to a colonelcy. In a news-letter of the time his regiment was described as composed of “brave men; well disciplined. No man swears but he pays his twelvepence; if he be drunk he is set in the stocks or worse; if one calls the other Roundhead, he is cashiered; insomuch that the counties where they come leap for joy of them, and come in and join with them. How happy were it if all the forces were thus disciplined!“ Cromwell suppressed all plundering with an iron hand. An eminently practical man, not in the least a theoretical democrat, but imbued with that essence of democracy which prompts a man to recognize his fellows for what they really are, without regard to creed or caste, it speedily became known that under him anyone would have a fair show according to his merits. He realized to the full that the quality of troops was of vastly more consequence than their numbers; that only the best men can be made the best soldiers; and these best men themselves will make but poor soldiers unless they have good training. His troops proved what iron discipline, joined to stern religious enthusiasm, could accomplish; just as later their immense superiority to the forces of the Scotch Covenanters showed that religious and patriotic enthusiasm, by itself, is but a poor substitute for training and discipline. In one of his letters he writes: “I beseech you, be careful what captains of horse you choose; what men be mounted. A few honest men are better than numbers. Some time they must have for exercise. If you choose godly, honest men to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them, and they will be careful to mount such. I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman, and is nothing else. I honor a _gentleman_ that is so indeed.... It may be it provoked some spirit to see such plain men made captains of horse.... Better plain men than none; but best to have men patient of work, faithful and conscientious in employment.“

Ordinarily, Cromwell was able to get for his leaders men who were gentlemen in the technical sense of the term, but again and again there forged to the front under him men like Pride, whose natural talents had to supply the place of birth and breeding. He writes again: “My troops increase; I have a lovely company; you would respect them did you know them.... They are honest, sober Christians; they expect to be used as men.” Again he writes, when his Presbyterian colleagues were showing a tendency to oppress and drive out of the army men whose religious beliefs did not square with theirs: “Surely, you are not well-advised thus to turn off one so faithful to the cause, and so able to serve you as this man (a certain colonel). Give me leave to tell you I cannot be of your judgment. If a man notorious for wickedness, for oaths, for drinking, hath as great a share in your affection as one who fears an oath, who fears to sin.... Ay, but the man is an ‘Anabaptist’! Are you sure of that? Admit he be, shall that render him incapable to serve the public? Sir, the state, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions: if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies.... Take heed of being sharp or too easily sharpened by others, against those to whom you can object little, but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of religion.”

In these sentences lies the justification of genuine democracy, of genuine religious liberty, and toleration by the state of religious differences. They were uttered by a man far in advance of the temper of his age. He was not sufficiently advanced to extend his toleration to Roman Catholics, and even extending it as far as he did he was completely out of touch with the majority of his fellow-countrymen; for the great bulk—both Episcopalians and Presbyterians—were bitterly hostile to the toleration of even inconsiderable differences of doctrine and ritual. The ideal after which Cromwell strove, though lower than that to which we of a more fortunate age have attained, was yet too high to be reached in his day. Nevertheless, it was a good thing to have the standard set up; and once the mark which he had established was reached, it was certain that the spirit of toleration would go much farther. As soon as Baptists and Congregationalists, no less than Episcopalians and Presbyterians, were tolerated by the state for the reasons he gave, it was sure to become impossible to refuse toleration to Catholics and Unitarians.

We must honor Cromwell for his aspirations toward the ideal, but we must acknowledge how far short of reaching it he fell. At this very time he was handling without gloves the Episcopalian clergy. In order to secure the assistance of the Scotch, Parliament had determined to take the Covenant, which made the state religion of England the same form of lofty, but intolerant, Presbyterianism that obtained in Scotland. Under the decision of the Government the ritual of the Church of England was forcibly suppressed, and there was no little harrying of Episcopal clergy and vandal destruction of ancient art symbolism by the Puritan zealots. “Leave off your fooling and come down, sir!” said Cromwell, walking into Ely Cathedral, where the clergyman had persisted in the choir service; and there was no choice but to obey.

In 1643 Cromwell forged to the front as almost the only steadily successful Parliamentary commander. To marvellous energy, fervid zeal, great resourcefulness, fertility of invention, and individual initiative, he added the unerring insight of the born cavalry leader. He soon saw that the true weapon of the cavalryman was the horse; and, discarding the carbines with which his troop had first been armed, he taught them to rely upon the shock of a charging, close-knit mass of men and horses trained to move rapidly as a unit.

He was ceaseless in his efforts to get his men paid, fed, and equipped. Like his great friend, Sir Thomas Fairfax, though he stopped all plundering, he levied heavy fines on the estates of the Royalists, and by these means, and by assessments from the Association, and by voluntary loans and contributions, he was able to keep his men well equipped.

There was no comprehensive strategy in the fighting this year; but the balance of the isolated expeditions undertaken inclined in favor of the King. Cromwell appears clearly, for the first time, as a successful military leader in May, near Grantham. He had under him twelve troops. The Cavaliers much outnumbered him. Nevertheless, when, after some preliminary firing from the dragoons on both sides, Cromwell charged at a round trot, the Cavaliers, instead of meeting the charge, received it and were broken and routed. The fight was of great value as being the first in which the Parliamentary horse beat a superior number of Royalist horse. Cromwell was as yet learning his trade. On this occasion he hesitated a long time about charging, and only charged at all when it became evident that his opponents would not; and he owed his victory to the incompetence of the Royalist commander. It was an invaluable lesson to him.

A great deal of scrambling, confused, and rather pointless warfare followed. Rupert and Hampden encountered each other, and Hampden was defeated and killed. Hampden’s great colleague, Pym, died later in the year, just after having brought about the league with Scotland—one of the first-fruits of which was the trial and execution of Laud. Presbyterianism was now dominant, and set itself to enforce everywhere the rigid rule of clerical orthodoxy. Against this the Independents began to raise their voices; but the real force which was to gain them their victory over both Royalist and Presbyterian was as yet hidden. Cromwell’s Ironsides—as they were afterward termed when Rupert christened Cromwell himself by that name—the regiments which he raised and drilled after his own manner from the Eastern Association, these represented the real power of the Independents, and these were not yet recognized as the heart and right arm of the army.

Cromwell held Nottingham, where the Royalists attacked him and he beat them off. He took Burleigh House, which was held by a strong Royalist garrison; then, in July, 1643, he advanced to rescue the Parliamentary general, Lord Willoughby, who was besieged at Gainsborough by a division of Newcastle’s army. About a mile and a half out of town he met the cavalry of Lord Cavendish, which was drawn up at the top of a hill. To attack him it was necessary to advance up steep slopes, honeycombed by rabbit burrows; but Cromwell’s squadrons were already remarkable alike for flexibility and steadiness, and their leader knew both how to prepare his forces and how to take daring advantage of every opportunity that offered. As his leading troops struggled to the top of the hill Cavendish’s horsemen advanced, but the Cromwellian troopers, closing up, charged them at once. There was a stiff contest, but as the rest of the Parliamentary troops came to the front, the Royalists were overthrown and driven off in wild rout. Cavendish himself brought up his reserve and routed a portion of the Parliamentary forces; but Cromwell had neither lost his head nor let his force get out of hand. He, too, had a reserve, and with this he charged Cavendish and overthrew him, Cavendish himself being slain.

This feat was succeeded by another quite as notable. After relieving the town and giving Lord Willoughby powder and provisions, Cromwell advanced toward some Royalist soldiers who still remained in view, about a mile distant. To his astonishment, these proved to be the vanguard of Newcastle’s whole army, and there was nothing for it but to retreat. Cromwell’s troops were tired, and only his excellent generalship and indomitable courage prevented a disastrous rout. Both the Parliamentary horse and foot were at first shaken by the advance of the fresh Royalist soldiery, but Cromwell speedily got them in hand and retired by divisions, making head against the enemy alternately with one body of horse and then with another, while the rest of the troops drew back behind the shield thus afforded them. The alternating squadrons of the rear-guard always made head against the enemy and checked him, but always slipped away before he could charge, and thus the tired army was brought off in safety.