It was a foregone
conclusion that popular leaders of all grades must largely officer
the new troops. Such men might be national leaders or leaders of
country neighborhoods; but big or little, they were the necessity of
the time. It was the application of the old Yankee story, "If the
Lord _will_ have a church in Paxton, he must take _sech as ther' be_
for deacons."
I have, in a former chapter, given my opinion that the government
made a mistake in following General Scott's advice to keep its
regular army intact and forbid its officers from joining volunteer
regiments; but good or bad, that advice was followed at the
beginning, and the only possible thing to do next was to let popular
selection and natural leadership of any sort determine the company
organizations. The governors of States generally followed a similar
rule in the choice of field officers, and selected the general
officers from those in the state militia, or from former officers of
the army retired to civil life. In one sense, therefore, the whole
organization of the volunteer force might be said to be political,
though we heard more of "political generals" than we did of
political captains or lieutenants.
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