MISS NIGHTINGALE ON THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XVII, Issue 967, 15 February 1862, Page 5

MISS NIGHTINGALE ON THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.

(FROM THE 'DUBLIN DAILY EXPRESS,' OCT. 15.)

On Thursday evening the Winslow and Buckingham Corps of Volunteers proceeded to Clayton House, the magnificent residence of Sir H. Verncy, M.P., who had invited them to partake of his hospitality. In the course of the evening Sir Harry read the two following letters from Miss Nightingale :— " Hampstead, October 8. "My dear Sir Harry,—l like to hear of your volunteers. I wish I could be with you. But my heart is with you all. At the beginning of this year we had 150,000 volunteers—and already we hear, from the best military authorities, that they are capable of maneuvering and executing movements with regular troops. To one who knows the stuff of which the Anglo-Saxon is made (no man knows him better than I do), this is not surprising. These volunteers are of the same race with that handful of men who defended their trenches at Sebastopol—as the Greeks held the position of Thermopylae—and who, when dying of slow torture in hospital, drew their blankets over their heads, and died without a word, like the heroes of old. Thank God, our volunteers have not to undergo these slow agonies in the defence of their country. But I for one (and I speak notwithstanding an experience of the horrors of war which no man has had) was not at all sorry to see the spirit of war- brought home to our people's lives in the glorious rising of the volunteers. A country needs, retempering sometimes England, from her grand mercantile and commercial successes, has been called sordid ; God knows she is not. The simple courage, the enduring patience, the good sense, the strength to suffer in silence— ■what nation shows more of this in war than is shown by her commonest soldier ? I have seen men dying of dysentery, but scorning to report themselves sick lest they should thereby throw more labour on their comrades, go down to the trenches and make the trenches their deathbed. There is nothing in history to compare with it; other nations may do it for glory, but we for duty, as the Duke of Wellington said. I say no one has seen the horrors of war as I have, yet I was glad to see the spirit of war arising in a our Volunteers. If both French and English statesmen have recorded, upon their own observation, that the most intelligent, the most well doing, tlie most respectable, in the best sense of that word, in any French village or district are always those returned from serving out their time on conscription, and if'this is the case with those who have given a compulsory service for a Government which the EngliHh cannot respect, what ought not the men to become who give a free service for a free country like our Volunteers ? Say what men will, there is something more truly Christian in the u.r.n who gives his time, his strength, his life, if need be, for something not himself, whether he call it his queen, his country, or his colours, than in all the asceticism, the fasts, the humiliations, and confessions whichhave ever been made; and this spirit of giving one's life, without calling it a sacrifice, is found no-where so truly as in England. This is a spirit which, animates our armies and our volunteers. But there must be more drill, more discipline, in the sense of teaching how orders are to be obeyed, more acting in concert, to make our volunteers perfect—and our volunteers mean to be quite perfect. It is wonderful how much they have done already in precision. On the saddest night of all my life, two months ago, ■when my dear chief, Sidney Herbert, lay dying, and I knew that with him died much of the welfare of the •British army—he was, too, so proud, so justly proud, of liis volunteers—on that night I lay listening to the hands of the volunteers as they came marching in successively, it had been a reviewday, and I said to myself the nation can never go back which is capable of such a movement as this, not the spirit of an hour. j liese are men who have all something to give up ; all men whose time is valuable for money, which is not their god, as other nations sometimes say of us. One of the best appointments my dear chief made was Colonel M'Murdo, the Inspector-General of Volunteers. I knew him in the Crimea, where he executed the most difficult service, that of organising. the Land Transjiort, with the utmost success; no doubt the Volunteers have full confidence in him. Jt was whispered to me in Sidney Herbert's time, that Buckinghamshire had been behindhand in her tribute of Volunteers. Is that the case now? I ■ope not. But if so, it makes those who have volunteered all the more worthy. If I might venture t" do so, I would gladly ask you to offer them from r "e a-pair of colours, probably, however, they have %m. If go, I can only offer them, from the bottom 01 my heart, the best wishes of one who has ♦ fought the good fight' for the army seven years this very Jaojitli, without the intermission of one single waking hour. " If JiOitKNCK Nightingale." . "October 9.—1 should lia|githought it a presumption to write to the Volunteers if not desired by you. My point, if there was one, was to tell them that f"ie who has seen more than any man what a horrible thing war is, yet feels more than any man that the "'Hilary spirit in a good cause, 'that of one's country,' is tlie finest leaven winch exists for the national Kllir»t. I have known intimately the Sardinian soldier, the French soldier, the British soldier. The •Jurdinian was much better appointed than we were; tlie French were both more numerous and more accustomed to war than we were'; yet I have no hesitation in saying that we had the better military spirit, tlie true volunteer spirit to endure hardship ""• our countrys sake. I remember a. sergeant, }'ho, on picket, the rest of the picket killed and "imself battered about tjie head, stumbled back to <-'u"ip, and on his way picked "up a wounded man, and •"'ought him in on liis shoulders to the lines, when he Ml down insensible. When, after many hours, he his senses, I believe, after trepanning, his II rstwords were to ask after his comrade, 'Is he

alive i < Comrade, indeed ! yes, he's alive—it is the General. At that moment the General, though badly wounded, appeared al the bedside. < Oh ! General, its you, is it, 1 brought in ? I aiu so glad, I! didn't know your honor. Hut, -, if I'd known it, was you, I'd have saved you all the same.' This is the true soldier's spirit;. Lastly, 1 would impress on the Volunteers the necessity of drill, practice, exorcise, and brigade movements. Garibaldi's volunteers did excellently in guerilla movements ; they failed before a fourth-rate regular army. We trust that our Volunteers will never know what real war is ; but they must make themselves a reputation to be feared by the enemy, in order not to see that enemy ever at their own hearthstones.

" Florence Nightingale."