In the immediate line of his vision lay the sanitary camp. There, beside his own regulars, lay sanitary troops of the State militia that had come into camp without ambulance companies, without field hospitals, without medical supplies. He thought of one regiment (a regiment on paper, seven companies in reality) that had appeared without even its service outfit of shoes and overcoats. Two whole State divisions, had they gone into action on their own strength, would have had no ambulances at all to carry off their wounded. One division, formed from a State that had done better than most with its militia, arrived for war with two field hospitals short and lacking seven full ambulance companies. Even the richest State of the sea-board groups had left its organized force short, both a field hospital and an ambulance company. Not one of all the militia forces from all the States had ambulances enough.[20] The soldier looked up at the sky. “Lord! Lord!” he muttered, not impiously. “An extravagant land. As extravagant with its lives as with everything else.” _The One Thing in Which Our Army Would Be Perfect_ There was only one thing in which that army was preëminent and perfect. It was in the matter of transport. Even that had been made only since war was declared; but it had been made swiftly, thoroughly, because it demanded only an efficient, swift gathering of vast resources. Within an hour of the declaration, the army had swept the coast States from New Jersey to Maine clear of everything serviceable that had wheels. Piled on miles of sidings beside the magnificent railroad system lay the rolling stock of a dozen great commercial States. Like mammoth trains along the sides of all the highways, north, south, east and west from the camp, were the requisitioned automobiles and trucks. This army was going to be able not only to fight on its stomach, as Napoleon said, but it was going to be able to fight on flying feet, too. So great were its resources in motive power, that although there were motor vehicles making a double line miles long on each of half a dozen roads leading from the camp, there still were thousands of swift cars free to patrol the American coast from the end of Maine to the Virginia Capes. The army might not be able to withstand a blow; but it could dodge. It could know, too, in time to dodge. Its own trained intelligence department was supplemented by ten thousand and more untrained observers and watchers, who tried to make up for their lack of technical skill by keen intelligence, alertness, adventurous daring and--unlimited private means. Queer enough were their reports, often incomprehensible, frequently absurd to the point of tragedy. In a measure, they made a confused trouble for army headquarters; yet on the whole they were invaluable in that time, when the United States was so wofully short of scouts. _The First American to See the Enemy’s Troop Ships_