One of the worst features of the method of appointment by "slate"
made up between congressmen and the executive was that it filled up
every place allowed by law, and left nothing to be used as a
recognition for future services in the field, except as vacancies
occurred, and these were few and far between. The political
influences which determined the appointment were usually powerful
enough to prevent dismissal. Whoever will trace the employment of
officers of the highest grades in the last half of the war, will
find large numbers of these on unimportant and nominal duty, whilst
their work in the active armies was done by men of lower grade, to
whom the appropriate rank had to be refused. The system was about as
bad as could be, but victory was won in spite of it. It was
fortunate, on the whole, that we did not have the grades of
lieutenant-general and general during the war, as the Confederates
had. They made the one the regular rank of a corps commander and the
other of the commander of an army in the field. With us the
assignment of a major-general by the President to command a corps
gave him a temporary precedence over other major-generals not so
assigned, and in like manner for the commander of an army.
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