[Footnote: Our system was essentially that of the first French
Republic and the Consulate, under which any general of division was
assignable to an army command in chief.] If these were relieved,
they lost the precedence, and thus there was a sort of temporary
rank created, giving a flexibility to the grade of major-general,
without which we should have been greatly embarrassed. Grant's rank
of lieutenant-general was an exceptional grade, made for him alone,
when, after the battle of Missionary Ridge, he was assigned to the
command of all the armies.
These opinions of mine are not judgments formed after the fact. The
weak points in our army organization were felt at the time, and I
took every means in my power to bring them to the attention of the
proper authorities, State and National. At the close of 1862 a
commission was appointed by the Secretary of War to revise the
articles of war and army regulations. Of this commission
Major-General Hitchcock was chairman. They issued a circular calling
for suggestions as to alterations supposed to be desirable, and a
copy was sent to me among others. I took occasion to report the
results of my own experience, and to trace the evils which existed
to their sources in our military system.
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