The general who indoctrinates his army with the
belief that it is required by its government to do the impossible,
may preserve his popularity with the troops and be received with
cheers as he rides down the line, but he has put any great military
success far beyond his reach. In this study of military morale, its
causes and its effects, the history of the Army of the Potomac is
one of the most important and one of the gravest lessons the world
has ever seen.
I have to confess that at Antietam I shared, more or less fully, the
opinions of those among whom I was. I accepted McClellan as the best
authority in regard to the enemy's numbers, and, assuming that he
was approximately right in that, the reasonable prudence of waiting
for reinforcements could not be denied. I saw that he had lost
valuable time in the movements of the campaign, but the general
result seemed successful enough to hide this for the time at least.
My own experience, therefore, supports the conclusion I have already
stated, that an army's enterprise is measured by its commander's,
and, by a necessary law, the army reflects his judgment as to what
it can or cannot accomplish.
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