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.
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