In order to act as riflemen and light infantry conjointly with regular troops, volunteers will require the highest possible training as soldiers. Ordinary infantry are put together and kept together, and--unlike those who must act more independently and with greater skill--are always under the eye and hand of the officer who directs the movement. In the confusion of action, and amidst inequalities of ground and varying circumstances, light troops are very much at a loss, until, by practice, they acquire a steadiness which is the result of a thorough knowledge of the business and of active exercise in it. By the term “acting as light infantry and riflemen” is not meant a system of irregular or guerilla warfare, for which it may be readily conceived that a volunteer force of citizens is entirely unfit. It is to be hoped that our volunteers will not listen to their flatterers who would persuade them that they will make efficient irregulars. No one who considers the composition of these bodies, and the habits and pursuits of the classes from which they spring, can seriously suppose that they would make anything of the kind. Neither the nature of this country, nor the occupations of its inhabitants, are favourable for an irregular system of warfare; nor would the rapid field operations consequent upon an invasion afford much opportunity for bringing irregular forces into play, even if we possessed the best in the world. In opposition to these views, it will be said that the universal employment of the rifle has effected a revolution in warfare, and that our riflemen, sheltered at a distance behind hedges and trees, would annihilate the enemy’s artillery and paralyze his operations. To this it may be answered that the enemy will employ riflemen for the same purpose, who will cover his artillery and produce an equal effect upon our own; that new systems of warfare are met with new systems of tactics, and that the advantage is always left with the highest-trained troops. In whatever order numbers of men may be brought into action, success will always attend that party which, _cæteris paribus_, brings the greatest number to bear upon a given point; and this can be effected only by the organization and discipline of regular troops.