So I also say that it was quite right to
look for the higher qualities for command in those who had the
technical information and skill. But I reckon patriotic zeal and
devotion so high that I have no hesitation in adding, that our army
as a whole would have been improved if the distinction between
regular and volunteer had been abolished, and, after the first
beginnings, a freer competition for even the highest commands had
been open to all. To keep up the regular army organization was
practically to say that a captaincy in it was equivalent to a
brigade command in the volunteers, and to be a brigadier in it was a
reward which regular officers looked forward to as a result of the
successful conduct of a great campaign as general-in-chief of an
army. The actual command in war was thus ridiculously belittled in
the official scale in comparison with grades of a petty peace
establishment, and the climax of absurdity was reached when, at the
close of hostilities, men who had worthily commanded divisions and
corps found themselves reduced to subordinate places in regiments,
whilst others who had vegetated without important activity in the
great struggle were outranking them by virtue of seniority in the
little army which had existed before the Rebellion!
CHAPTER X
THE MOUNTAIN DEPARTMENT--SPRING CAMPAIGN
Rosecrans's plan of campaign--Approved by McClellan with
modification--Wagons or pack-mules--Final form of plan--Changes in
commands--McClellan limited to Army of the Potomac--Halleck's
Department of the Mississippi--Fremont's Mountain
Department--Rosecrans superseded--Preparations in the Kanawha
District--Batteaux to supplement steamboats--Light wagons for
mountain work--Fremont's plan--East Tennessee as an objective--The
supply question--Banks in the Shenandoah valley--Milroy's
advance--Combat at McDowell--Banks defeated--Fremont's plans
deranged--Operations in the Kanawha valley--Organization of
brigades--Brigade commanders--Advance to Narrows of New River--The
field telegraph--Concentration of the enemy--Affair at
Princeton--Position at Flat-top Mountain.
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