My experience during the winter begot in me a rooted dislike for the military administration of the border districts, and strengthened my wish to be in the most active work at the front, where the problems were the strictly military ones of attack and defence in the presence of the armed enemy. [Footnote: I did not lack evidence that a steady rule, based on principles frankly avowed and easily understood, was rapidly bringing the people to be content to be in the Union, even those most inclined to secession. This result I am gratified to find attested by General Lee and General Floyd, who in dispatches very lately printed confessed the effect my administration had in quieting the valley during the first months of my occupation. Official Records, vol. li. pt. ii. pp. 220, 225.] Not that the winter was without compensating pleasures, for we were recipients of much social attention of a very kindly and agreeable sort, and carried away cherished memories of refined family circles in which the collision of opinions and the chafing of official relations were forgotten in hearty efforts to please. With the unconditionally loyal people our sympathies were very deep, for we found them greatly torn and disturbed in the conflict of duties and divided affections, where scarce a single household stood as a unit in devotion to the cause, and where the triumph of either side must necessarily bring affliction to some of them.
VOLUNTEERS AND REGULARS
High quality of first volunteers--Discipline milder than that of the regulars--Reasons for the difference--Practical efficiency of the men--Necessity for sifting the officers--Analysis of their defects--What is military aptitude?--Diminution of number in ascending scale--Effect of age--Of former life and occupation--Embarrassments of a new business--Quick progress of the right class of young men--Political appointments--Professional men--Political leaders naturally prominent in a civil war--"Cutting and trying"--Dishonest methods--An excellent army at the end of a year--The regulars in 1861--Entrance examinations for West Point--The curriculum there--Drill and experience--Its limitations--Problems peculiar to the vast increase of the army--Ultra-conservatism--Attitude toward the Lincoln administration--"Point de zéle"--Lack of initiative--Civil work of army engineers--What is military art?--Opinions of experts--Military history--European armies in the Crimean War--True generalship--Anomaly of a double army organization.
The work of sifting the material for an army which went on through the winter of 1861-62, naturally suggests an analysis of the classes of men who composed both parts of the military force of the nation,--the volunteers and the regulars. I need add nothing to what I have already said of the unexampled excellence of the rank and file in the regiments raised by the first volunteering. Later in the war, when "bounty jumping" and substitution for conscripts came into play, the character of the material, especially that recruited in the great cities and seaports, was much lower. I think, however, that the volunteers were always better men, man for man, than the average of those recruited for the regular army. The rigidity of discipline did not differ so much between good volunteer regiments and regulars, as the mode of enforcing it. There were plenty of volunteer regiments that could not be excelled in drill, in the performance of camp duty, or in the finish and exactness of all the forms of parades and of routine. But it was generally brought about by much milder methods of discipline. A captain of volunteers was usually followed by his neighbors and relatives. The patriotic zeal of the men of the company as well as their self-respect made them easily amenable to military rule so far as it tended to fit them better to do the noble work they had volunteered for, and on which their hearts were as fully set as the hearts of their colonels or generals. In the regular army, officers and men belonged to different castes, and a practically impassable barrier was between them. Most of the men who had enlisted in the long years of domestic peace were, for one cause or another, outcasts, to whom life had been a failure and who followed the recruiting sergeant as a last desperate resource when every other door to a livelihood was shut. [Footnote: Since inducements to enlist have been increased by offering the chance to win a commission, I believe the quality of the rank and file of the regulars has been much improved, and as a natural consequence the officers have found it easy to enforce discipline by less arbitrary methods.] The war made some change in this, but the habits and methods of the officers had been formed before that time and under the old surroundings. The rule was arbitrary, despotic, often tyrannical, and it was notorious that the official bearing and the language used toward the regular soldiers was out of the question in a volunteer organization. Exceptions could be found in both parts of the service, but there could be no doubt as to the custom and the rule. To know how to command volunteers was explicitly recognized by our leading generals as a quality not found in many regular officers, and worth noting when found. A volunteer regiment might have a "free and easy" look to the eye of a regular drill sergeant, but in every essential for good conduct and ready manoeuvre on the field of battle, or for heroic efforts in the crisis of a desperate engagement, it could not be excelled if its officers had been reasonably competent and faithful. There was inevitable loss of time in the organization and instruction of a new army of volunteers; but after the first year in the field, in every quality which tends to give victory in battle to a popular cause, the volunteer regiment was, in my judgment, unquestionably superior. It is necessary to say this, because there has been a fashion of speaking of regular regiments or brigades in the civil war as though they were capable of accomplishing more in proportion to their numbers or on some occasion of peculiar peril than the volunteers. I did not find it so.
The material in the line, then, was as good as could be; the weakness was in the officers, and it was here that the sifting was necessary. Most of these officers had themselves enlisted as privates, and their patriotic zeal was not to be questioned. They had been chosen to be lieutenants, captains, and even colonels by their men because of faith in their ability to lead, or to recognize their influence in raising the troops. Yet a considerable part of them proved incompetent to command. The disqualifications were various. Some lacked physical strength and stamina. Some had or quickly developed intemperate habits. Some lacked the education and intelligence needful for official responsibility. Some were too indolent to apply themselves to the work of disciplining themselves or their men. Fitness for command is a very general term, yet it implies a set of qualities which intelligent people easily understand and attach to the phrase. Self-command is proverbially one of the chief. Courage and presence of mind are indispensable. Ability to decide and firmness to stick to a decision are necessary. Intelligence enough to understand the duties demanded of him and to instruct his subordinates in theirs is another requisite. But beside all these, there is a constitution of body and mind for which we can find no better name than military aptitude. For lack of it many estimable, intelligent, and brave men failed as officers. Again, not every good captain made a good colonel, and not every good brigade commander was fit for a division or a larger command. There was a constantly widening test of capacity, and a rapid thinning of the numbers found fit for great responsibilities until the command of great armies was reached, when two or three names are all that we can enumerate as having been proven during the four years of our civil strife to be fully equal to the task.
Besides the indications of unfitness for the subordinate commands which I have mentioned, another classification may be made. In an agricultural community (and the greater part of our population was and is agricultural), a middle-aged farmer who had been thrifty in business and had been a country magistrate or a representative in the legislature, would be the natural leader in his town or county, and if his patriotism prompted him to set the example of enlisting, he would probably be chosen to a company office, and perhaps to a field office in the regiment. Absolutely ignorant of tactics, he would find that his habits of mind and body were too fixed, and that he could not learn the new business into which he had plunged. He would be abashed at the very thought of standing before a company and shouting the word of command. The tactical lessons conned in his tent would vanish in a sort of stage-fright when he tried to practise them in public. Some would overcome the difficulty by perseverance, others would give it up in despair and resign, still others would hold on from pride or shame, until some pressure from above or below would force them to retire. Some men of this stamp had personal fighting qualities which kept them in the service in spite of their tactical ignorance, like brave old Wolford of Kentucky, of whom it used to be jocosely said, that the command by which he rallied his cavalry regiment was "Huddle on the Hill, boys!"
A man wholly without business training would always be in embarrassment, though his other qualifications for military life were good. Even a company has a good deal of administrative business to do. Accounts are to be kept, rations, clothing, arms, accoutrements, and ammunition are to be receipted and accounted for. Returns of various kinds are to be made, applications for furlough, musters, rolls, and the like make a good deal of clerical work, and though most of it may fall on the first sergeant, the captain and commissioned officers must know how it should be done and when it is well done, or they are sure to get into trouble. It was a very rare thing for a man of middle age to make a good company officer. A good many who tried it at the beginning had to be eliminated from the service in one way or another. In a less degree the same was found to hold true of the regimental field officers. Some men retain flexibility of mind and body longer than others, and could more easily adapt themselves to new circumstances and a new occupation. Of course such would succeed best. But it is also true that in the larger and broader commands solidity of judgment and weight of character were more essential than in the company, and the experience of older men was a more valuable quality. Such reasons will account for the fact that youth seemed to be an almost essential requisite for a company officer, whilst it was not so in the same degree in the higher positions.
It was astonishing to see the rapidity with which well-educated and earnest young men progressed as officers. They were alert in both mind and body. They quickly grasped the principles of their new profession, and with very little instruction made themselves masters of tactics and of administrative routine. Add to this, bravery of the highest type and a burning zeal in the cause they were fighting for, and a campaign or two made them the peers of any officers of their grade in our own or any other army.