The pike is the Weap on of the brave.
The country is engaged in the task of defending itself against a most gigantic invasion.
The enemy have deliberately gathered vast armies on our borders, and now they are being buried against us. The storm has mustered its rage, and now the thunderbolt is being discharged at us. Yet, not more than a third, certainly not more than half the military population of the
Confederate States is under arms.
The apology for this neglect, this wasting away the interval between the
battle of Manassas and the present hour, is that the
Government cannot command arms to place in the hands of the reserve.
Of
Enfield muskets, or even of fire-arms of any description, this may be true; but why not call out our whole military population, and after putting them in camps of instruction, to arm them with the ‘"bowie-knife pike"’--a terrible weapon in the hands of resolute men. An
auxiliary force thus composed and attached to each one of our armies would always be decisive of a hard fought battle.
Certain it is that our country would be in a condition more formidable to the invader, if the reserve of our military population were thus armed and thus disciplined, than scattered, as at present, through the towns and rural districts.
We invoke the attention of our public authorities to the necessity of adopting some such expedient.
If it be true, as a military principle, that ‘"the bayonet is the weapon of the brave,"’ and that every closely contested fight must be determined by it, why will not a pike, barbed with a bowie-knife, do to defend the altars of freedom, and the homes of innocence and love?
Fifty thousand men, armed with the ‘"bowie-knife pike,"’ and disciplined to the manœuvres of an army, would, in addition to the troops demanded by the
President, be decisive of this war. Every man might not have the courage to rely upon this primitive weapon, but volunteers could be obtained to enroll themselves in this, as a corps of honor.
A determination, thus to place our whole military population in the field, and make the land bristle with pikes, if not with bayonets, would give confidence to many a doubting and anxious heart.
The invention of gunpowder, to be employed in the open field is not, after all, an invention so decisive of the result of battles.
The veteran legions of Cæsar, rushing to hand-to hand conflict, with the short Roman sword, would be as formidable now on the battlefield as they were when they overcame all opposing forces.
