CAPTAINS

The following article was published by an unknown author in the Citizen Soldier Newspaper on Friday September 4th, 1840. This article demonstrates the attempts by early Army National Guard officers to internally professionalize their officer corps. The article remains as valid today as the day it was written. This research was undoubtedly influenced by the works of Captain Alden Partridge, the founder of Norwich University (Norwich University operated in the same town as this publication and served as the intellectual head of the Militia prior to the American Civil War). This article was discovered in the archives of the Kreitzberg Library. Efforts to scan and digitize the historical records held within the archive are ongoing. For those that wish to further support these preservation and research efforts, please consider becoming a member of the Friends of the Kreitzberg Library (501(c)3 charity): https://guides.norwich.edu/about/friends

In the Militia, a captain is an officer, who commands the smallest body of men, to wit,- the Company. This term seems to have been first made use of to express the chief of any troop or body of men. It is derived from the Latin caput (head) and the person so denominated is both to march and fight at the head of his company. Acting, as he is required to, in all cases as leader, he must not only know well what is to be done, and how to accomplish it, but be able to impart his knowledge to others. He should possess firmness and intrepidity of character, a tact to command, and a power to infuse a spirit of courage and noble emulation into the breasts of his men. Without these qualities he must ever fail of making the successful commander.

On no class of officers is more depending than Captains. A failure here is ever after remediless. No efforts of higher grades of officers can atone for the injury committed. When all the component parts are diseased, the whole body is no; and if the elements of the Militia, the companies, are, through the neglect, or other means, of captains, improperly instructed or not instructed at all, the Militia itself will be disordered and ineffective.

We hold it to be imperatively binding on Captains, (and the same on other officers,) to qualify themselves thoroughly for their office. Any one, who is not so qualified or who accepts office without the intention of being so, can be regarded as none other than a traitor to the trusts reposed in him, and should be held strictly accountable for his misdeeds, by the people. Does he receive a commission merely for the pleasure of honor of commanding, or for the unworthy and base purpose of thereby becoming an exempt, nay, if with any other view than to profit the Militia; he is acting the part of a hypocrite, and taking the most effectual means to render his country defenseless, or reduce it to necessity of relying for protection, on a mercenary army. Let captains, let companies, let the people, look well to this matter.