stantine, then thirty-three,--generals who, at the heads of
their corps, and under the young emperor and his able staff of young
officers, in the two succeeding campaigns, rolled back the waves of
French conquest, and finally overthrew the French empire. Wellington,
who led the English in these campaigns, was of the same age as Napoleon,
and had been educated at the same time with him in the military schools
of France. The Austrians were led by Schwartzenburg, then only about
thirty, and the Prussians by Yorck, Bulow, and Bluecher. The last of
these was then well advanced in life, but all his movements being
directed by younger men,--Scharnhorst and Gneisenau,--his operations
partook of the energy of his able chiefs of staff.

In the campaign of 1815, Napoleon was opposed by the combinations of
Wellington and Gneisenau, both younger men than most of his own
generals, who, it is well known, exhibited, in this campaign, less than
in former ones, the ardent energy and restless activity which had
characterized their younger days. Never were Napoleon's, plans better
conceived, never did his troops fight with greater bravery; but the
dilatory movements of his generals enabled his active enemies to parry
the blow intended for their destruction.

In the American war of 1812, we pursued the same course as Austria,
Prussia, and Russia, in their earlier contests with Napoleon, _i.e._, to
supply our armies with generals, we dug up the Beaulieus, the Wurmsers,
the Alvinzis, the Melases, the Macks, the Brunswicks, and the Kamenskis
of our revolutionary war; but after we had suffered sufficiently from
the Hulls, the Armstrongs, the Winchesters, the Dearborns, the
Wilkinsons, the Hamptons, and other veterans of the Revolution, we also
changed our policy, and permitted younger men--the Jacksons, the
Harrisons, the Browns, the McReas, the Scotts,[49] the Ripleys, the
Woods, the McCombs, the Wools, and the Millers--to lead our forces to
victory and to glory. In the event of another war, with any nation
capable of opposing to us any thing like a powerful resistance, shall we
again exhume the veterans of former days, and again place at the head of
our armies respectable and aged inefficiency; or shall we seek out
youthful enterprise and activity combined with military science and
instruction? The results of the war, the honor of the country, the glory
of our arms, depend, in a great measure, upon the answer that will be
given to this quest