Of all the men who had been trained by previous army experience, the War Department could not call on one unless he chose to volunteer. If those men--invaluable to the country at this moment--offered themselves, they offered themselves one by one, here and there and everywhere, scattered through a land of three and a quarter million square miles. Enlisted thus, they were futile individuals lost in hordes [Illustration] [Illustration: “The efficient, prepared, resourceful invader was landing his army, not only without losing a man, but without getting a man’s feet wet.”] of raw recruits. Could they have been called together by their government, they would have formed perfect regiments, ready for instant, efficient, priceless service. While the United States, civilian and military, was working hopelessly to make up in desperate hours for long years of waste, the efficient, prepared, resourceful invader was landing his army, not only without losing a man, but without getting a man’s feet wet. So perfect were the dispositions of this expedition that the commander had been able to order, “Our troops must land perfectly dry,” and the order was carried out.[46] Every transport had three broad gangways to a side. Never for a moment were these gangways bare of equipped men, moving file after file into the enormous flat-bottomed landing barges. Never for a moment was the sea without long tows of them, each bearing two hundred men to shore with their rifles between their knees, ready.[47] _Preparedness Versus Unpreparedness_ In the camp of the United States Army at that moment men were breaking green horses for cavalry and artillery purposes. On the coast, the enemy’s four-decked horse transports were sending trained mounts into broad floats with derricks and slings, lowering away with head and tail lines to prevent struggling, with nose lines to bridles to prevent them from turning in the air, with men standing by below to put little bags of salt into each horse’s mouth to quiet it as soon as it touched the floats.[48] Nothing had been forgotten, nothing left to be improvised. The horse-floats had hinged sterns. Backed into the beach, these hinged boards dropped down and formed gang-planks. Sailors threw collision mats on them to prevent slipping. It required less than a minute to lower a horse from the ships to the floats. In less than half a minute each horse was unloaded from them and set ashore. To empty each float of its cargo of twenty horses, and to have each craft off the beach and under tow again for another load, was a matter of less than forty minutes.