then encamped on open ground in the close vicinity of the town. Of
Wisconsin I had heard before--and have heard the same opinion
repeated since--that it was more backward in its volunteering than
its neighbor States in the West. Wisconsin has 760,000
inhabitants, and its tenth thousand of volunteers was not then made
up; whereas Indiana, with less than double its number, had already
sent out thirty-six thousand. Iowa, with a hundred thousand less
of inhabitants, had then made up fifteen thousand. But nevertheless
to me it seemed that Wisconsin was quite alive to its presumed duty
in that respect. Wisconsin, with its three-quarters of a million
of people, is as large as England. Every acre of it may be made
productive, but as yet it is not half cleared. Of such a country
its young men are its heart's blood. Ten thousand men, fit to bear
arms, carried away from such a land to the horrors of civil war, is
a sight as full of sadness as any on which the eye can rest. Ah
me, when will they return, and with what altered hopes! It is, I
fear, easier to turn the sickle into the sword than to recast the
sword back again into the sickle!

We found a completed regiment at Wisconsin consisting entirely of
Germans. A thousand Germans had been collected in that State and
brought together in one regiment, and I was informed by an officer
on the ground that there are many Germans in sundry other of the
Wisconsin regiments. It may be well to mention here that the
number of Germans through all these Western States is very great.
Their number and well-being were to me astonishing. That they form
a great portion of the population of New York, making the German
quarter of that city the third largest German town in the world, I
have long known; but I had no previous idea of their expansion
westward. In Detroit nearly every third shop bore a German name,
and the same remark was to be made at Milwaukee; and on all hands I
heard praises of their morals, of their thrift, and of their new
patriotism. I was continually told how far they exceeded the Irish
settlers. To me in all parts of the world an Irishman is dear.
When handled tenderly he becomes a creature most lovable. But with
all my judgment in the Irishman's favor, and with my prejudices
leaning the same way, I feel myself bound to state what I heard and
what I saw as to the Germans.

But this regiment of Germans, and another not completed regiment,
called from the State generally, were as yet without arms,
accouterments, or clothing. There was the raw material of the
regiment, but there was nothing else. Winter was coming on--winter
in which the mercury is commonly twenty degrees below zero--and the
men were in tents with no provision against the cold. These tents
held each two men, and were just large enough for two to lie. The
canvas of which they were made seemed to me to be thin, but was, I
think, always double. At this camp there was a house in which the
men took their meals, but I visited other camps in which there was
no such accommodation. I saw the German regiment called to its
supper by tuck of drum, and the men marched in gallantly, armed
each with a knife and spoon. I managed to make my way in at the
door after them, and can testify to the excellence of the
provisions of which their supper consisted. A poor diet never
enters into any combination of circumstances contemplated by an
American. Let him be where he will, animal food is with him the
first necessary of life, and he is always provided accordingly. As
to those Wisconsin men whom I saw, it was probable that they might
be marched off, down South to Washington, or to the doubtful
glories of the Western campaign under Fremont, before the winter
commenced. The same might have been said of any special regiment.
But taking the whole mass of men who were collected under canvas at
the end of the autumn of 1861, and who were so collected without
arms or military clothing, and without protection from the weather,
it did seem that the task taken in hand by the Commissariat of the
Northern army was one not devoid of difficulty.

The view from Milwaukee over Lake Michigan is very pleasing. One
looks upon a vast expanse of water to which the eye finds no
bounds, and therefore there are none of the common attributes of
lake beauty; but the color of the lake is bright, and within a walk
of the city the traveler comes to the bluffs or low round-topped
hills, from which we can look down upon the shores. These bluffs
form the beauty of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and relieve the eye
after the flat level of Michigan. Round Detroit there is no rising
ground, and therefore, perhaps, it is that Detroit is
uninteresting.

I have said that those who are called on to labor in these States
have their own hardships, and I have endeavored to explain what are
the sufferings to which the town laborer is subject. To escape
from this is the laborer's great ambition, and his mode of doing so
consists almost universally in the purchase of land. He saves up
money in order that he may buy a section of an allotment, and thus
become his own master. All his savings are made with a view to
this independence. Seated on his own land he will have to work
probably harder than ever, but he will work for himself. No task-
master can then stand over him and wound his pride with harsh
words. He will be his own master; will eat the food which he
himself has grown, and live in the cabin which his own hands have
built. This is the object of his life; and to secure this position
he is content to work late and early and to undergo the indignities
of previous servitude. The government price for land is about five
shillings an acre--one dollar and a quarter--and the settler may
get it for this price if he be contented to take it not only
untouched as regards clearing, but also far removed from any
completed road. The traffic in these lands has been the great
speculating business of Western men. Five or six years ago, when
the rage for such purchases was at its height, land was becoming a
scarce article in the market. Individuals or companies bought it


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