Editing Union army (section)

===Regulars vs. volunteers===
[[File:Currier & Ives - The champions of the Union 1861.jpg|thumb|''The champions of the Union'', an 1861 lithograph by [[Currier and Ives]]]]
During the course of the Civil War, the vast majority of soldiers fighting to preserve the Union were in the [[United States Volunteers|volunteer units]].  The pre-war regular army numbered approximately 16,400 soldiers, but by the end while the Union army had grown to over a million soldiers, the number of regular personnel was still approximately 21,699, of whom several were serving with volunteer forces. Only 62,000 commissions and enlistments in total were issued for the regular army during the war as most new personnel preferred volunteer service.<ref>Eicher, p. 46</ref><ref name="Newell76">Newell & Shrader, p. 76</ref>

Since before the Civil War, the American public had a generally negative view of the nation's armed forces, attributable to a [[Jeffersonian democracy|Jeffersonian]] ideal which saw [[standing armies]] as a threat to democracy and instead valorized the "[[citizen soldier]]" as being more in keeping with American ideals of equality and [[rugged individualism]].<ref name="Newell3">Newell & Shrader, p. 1-3</ref>  This attitude remained unchanged during the Civil War, and afterwards many would attribute the Union's victory to the volunteers rather than the leadership and staff work provided by the regular army.<ref name="Newell312">Newell & Shrader, p. 308-312</ref>  In return, officers of the regular army despised the militia and saw them as having dubious value.  Commentators such as [[Emory Upton]] would later argue that the reliance on militia for the nation's defense was responsible for prolonging conflicts and making them more expensive in both money and lives spent.<ref name="Newell3"/><ref name="Newell312" />

Despite these attitudes towards the regulars, they would serve as an important foundation around which the Union army was built.  In the disastrous [[First Battle of Bull Run]], it was the regulars who acted as rearguard during the retreat while the volunteers fled, and when George McClellan was put in charge of what became the Army of the Potomac he used regular officers and non-commissioned officers to train the volunteers.<ref>Newell & Shrader, p. 210</ref>  Training the volunteers, especially in regards to critical administrative and logistical matters, remained an important function of the regulars during the war.<ref name="Newell308">Newell & Shrader, p. 306-308</ref>  This was particularly the case with regular army artillery, as they were more widely dispersed than the infantry and cavalry (making them more visible to the volunteers) and were assigned to specific units to train their volunteer counterparts.<ref name="Newell285">Newell & Shrader, p. 283-285</ref>

In battle, the regulars' performance could impress even the most battle-hardened volunteers.<ref name="Newell218">Newell & Shrader, p. 215-218</ref>   At [[The Wheatfield]] during the [[Battle of Gettysburg]], the regulars' fighting skill and orderly retirement under fire drew the admiration of many observers, including [[Prince Philippe, Count of Paris]].  As one volunteer put it, "For two years the U.S. Regulars taught us how to be soldiers [;] in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg, they taught us how to die like soldiers."<ref>Newell & Shrader, p. 235</ref>  The regulars became the standard by which the Volunteers were measured, and to be described as being as good or better than them was considered the highest compliment.<ref>Newell & Shrader, p. 312</ref>