as approved by General
McClellan. The Green Mountain men had won great renown in the Colonial
and Revolutionary Wars by virtue of their state organization and
services and the marked individuality which characterized them. It was
a happy thought to keep them together during the Civil War. The sequel
showed that it was not only highly beneficial to the national cause,
but that it added greatly to the fame of the Vermont men.

As the war was a sectional one in its origin, many of our best officers
believed that the volunteer regiments should be formed into brigades
and divisions, without reference to the States from which they came.
They held that an army organized in this way would more rapidly develop
the national spirit and become a more efficient military machine than
one formed on state or sectional lines, and the general practice to the
end of the war, in the Union army, was in accordance with this idea.

The Vermont brigade, composed of the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and
Sixth Vermont Regiments, was the one notable exception to this practice
and the result was in every way satisfactory. It preserved its identity
till the end of the war and became famous as one of the best and most
distinctive organizations that ever upheld the Union cause. It was
composed almost entirely of native Vermont men, racy of the soil,
hardy, self-reliant and courageous, and always ready for the serious
business of warfare. It owned its early and enduring discipline to
Smith, who was appointed Brigadier General on the 13th of August, and
from that time forth it never ceased to have a place in his affections.
From the first he took a special pride in his regiment, and devoted
himself earnestly to its instruction and discipline, for the perfection
of which it soon became noted, but in those days of rapid changes, when
the loyal states were sending forth their volunteers by the hundred
thousand, brigades soon grew into divisions, and divisions into
army-corps and armies.

General Smith was then at exactly the right age, and had already
achieved such a high reputation as a scientific and competent soldier,
that he was called upon after only a few weeks' service as a brigade
commander to take charge of a division of three brigades. Looking about
him with anxious care for a suitable successor, he assigned the Vermont
Brigade to the command of Brigadier General William T.H. Brooks, a
graduate of West Point from Ohio, but a grandson of Vermont