Army Discipline Quotes

When it was reported to General Washington that the army was frequently indulging in swearing, he immediately sent out the following order: The general is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing - a vice little known heretofore in the American army - is growing into fashion. Let the men and officers reflect "that we can not hope for the blessing of heaven on our army if we insult it by our impiety and folly."

I have heard several officers who have served under General Gates compare his army to a well regulated family. The same gentlemen have compared General Washington's imitation of an army to an unformed mob. Look at the characters of both! The one on the pinnacle of military glory--exulting in the success of schemes planned with wisdom, & executed with vigor and bravery--and above all see a country saved by their exertions. See the other outgeneraled and twice beaten--obliged to witness the march of a body of men only half their number thro' 140 miles of a thick settled country--forced to give up a city the capitol of a state & after all outwitted by the same army in a retreat.

Everyone follows the chief. This is a very disciplined army we have.

Soldiers who had been in the army long enough to know what a bloody swindle war really is would begin to feel that army life was really kind of fun, as long as [General Philip] Sheridan was up front.

Now, at that juncture, and, in fact, up to the present moment, there was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was this to be wondered at; for when before, in all history, do we find a general in command of half a million of men, and in presence of an enemy inferior in numbers and no better disciplined than his own troops, leaving it still debatable, after the better part of a year, whether he is a soldier or no? The question would seem to answer itself in the very asking.

Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.

The popular masses are like water, and the army is like a fish. How then can it be said that when there is water, a fish will have difficulty in preserving its existence? An army which fails to maintain good discipline gets into opposition with the popular masses, and thus by its own action dries up the water.

My father had risen in the British Army under the revolutionary aegis of General Montgomery, who was mad about training for battle, not muddling into disaster.

An Army cannot preserve good order unless its soldiers have meat in their bellies, coats on their backs and shoes on their feet.

An Army is still a crowd, though a highly organized one. It is governed by the same laws, and under the stress of war is ever tending to revert to its crowd form. Our object in peace is so to train it that the reversion will become very slow.

An army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every enactment, every change of rule which impairs this principle weakens the army, impairs its value, and defeats the very object of its existence.

They are pretty good officers now, and after a while they will make excellent soldiers too. They only need reducing to the ranks.

There are things about guys who are in the army. They're very particular, they have to be.

Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress?