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By Root 1900 0

had proven them no match for the British army’s hardened veterans of the Napoleonic campaigns. But the Founding Fathers’ old vision of a United States without standing armies, in which citizen-soldiers were the first line of defense, still beckoned. In both cities and towns, men formed military companies that stood ready—at least in theory—to answer their country’s call in case of emergency. In practice, most of these units were scarcely trained and haphazardly equipped; some marched with sticks or cornstalks instead of muskets. Members paraded on the village green every Fourth of July, unfurling tattered banners that had been stitched by local maidens who were now wrinkled grandmothers. The last serious mobilization had been the one back in 1812. Each month or two throughout the year, the boys gathered for “drills” that were often simply excuses to get away from home and do some hard drinking.14 Larger towns and cities had rival companies: one militia for the Democrats and another for the Whigs; one for the Methodists and another for the Presbyterians; one for the Irishmen and another for the Germans. New York City even had several all-Jewish units.15

In the 1850s, however, Americans started becoming a bit more serious about their militias, marching in drills and parades with fresh ardor, and even making sporadic attempts at professionalism. The Mexican War, the nation’s most dramatic military victory since the Revolution, had just been fought and won. From Europe came reports of the glorious charges and sieges of the Crimean War, and of the nationalist struggles for independence. And closer to home, some Americans were sensing the approach of civil war and beginning to sharpen their swords—in both the North and the South.

Elmer Ellsworth does not appear to have been one of these. None of his surviving writings suggests much thought about slavery and abolitionism, about the bloody struggles in Kansas or the wild-eyed prophecies of John Brown. He seems, rather, to have approached military drills with the enthusiasm and relentless discipline of an athlete pushing himself toward the big leagues.

And, like a basketball genius from the mean streets of the Bronx, or a home-run hitter sprouting amid the cornfields of Iowa, the oyster peddler’s son from upstate New York turned out to be a natural. Quite soon—by the time he was nineteen, if not earlier—the Cadets had elected him their major. What was more, he quickly found himself in demand to serve as drillmaster for regiments throughout Chicago’s environs. A photograph probably dating to around this time shows him in the resplendent but queerly antiquated garb of a militia officer, a remnant of the previous century: plumed cocked hat, tight breeches, and swallowtail coat with white facings.16

It is easy to picture this confident young man putting the even younger privates through their paces, lifting his sword to bark the commands: Attention! Squad forward! Double quick—march!17 More difficult is imagining the splendid major returning each night to his hard lodgings and meager supper. Ellsworth hid his poverty from all but his closest friends; he would later tell of sitting in a restaurant with acquaintances and watching them feast on oyster stew, as he pretended that he had just dined so he could avoid buying a meal.18 Such reticence fed the aura of mystery around him. His Hudson Valley origins and military prowess fueled whispers that he had attended West Point and been expelled for some mysterious infraction, rumors that Ellsworth may or may not have disclaimed.19

Sometime in the late 1850s, however, Ellsworth had an encounter that rivaled any romantic tale he might have dreamt up. It happened, improbably enough, in a Chicago gymnasium. There he met one Charles DeVilliers, a French fencing instructor recently arrived in the city. Back in Europe, DeVilliers had served as an officer in the Zouaves, an elite fighting force named for a band of Algerian tribesmen renowned for their ferocity in battle. The French Zouaves copied the North Africans’ uniform—fez, baggy pants, and