When the organization of the
United States Volunteers took the place of the state contingents
which formed the "three months' service," the appointments by the
President were usually selections from those acting already under
state appointment. The National Government was more conservative
than the Confederacy in this respect. Our service was always full of
colonels doing duty as brigadiers and brigadiers doing duty as
major-generals, whilst the Southern army usually had a brigadier for
every brigade and a major-general for every division, with
lieutenant-generals and generals for the highest commands. If some
rigid method had been adopted for mustering out all officers whom
the government, after a fair trial, was unwilling to trust with the
command appropriate to their grade, there would have been little to
complain of; but an evil which grew very great was that men in high
rank were kept upon the roster after it was proven that they were
incompetent, and when no army commander would willingly receive them
as his subordinates. Nominal commands at the rear or of a merely
administrative kind were multiplied, and still many passed no small
part of the war "waiting orders.
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