precedent to ending the
war,--whether, in sooth, the "last ditch" was not actually reached when
Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

In the West, merit had by this time brought to the surface the generals
who later led us to successful victories. Their distance from the
central controlling power resulted in their being let alone to work out
their own salvation. Opposed to them had been some excellent but not the
best of the Confederate leaders; while Virginia boasted the elite of the
Southern troops, the strongest of the captains, and the most daring of
the lieutenants, developed by the war.

Since the Russian campaign of Bonaparte, no such vast forces had been
under arms. To command these required not only the divine military
spark, but hardly-acquired experience. And the mimic war which the
elements of European army life always affords had been wanting to
educate our generals. It is not wonderful, then, that two years of
fruitless campaigning was needed to teach our leaders how to utilize on
such difficult terrain material equally vast in extent and uncouth in
quality. For, however apt the American to learn the trade of war,--or
any other,--it is a moot-point whether his independence of character
is compatible with the perfect soldier, as typified in Friedrich's
regiments, or the Old Guard.

But ability, native or acquired, forced its way to the front; and the
requisite experience was gradually gained, for the school was one where
the trade was quickly taught. Said Gen. Meade on one occasion, "The art
of war must be acquired like any other. Either an officer must learn it
at the academy, or he must learn it by experience in the field. Provided
he has learned it, I don't care whether he is a West-Pointer, or not."

In the East, then, the army had been led by McDowell, McClellan,
Pope, and Burnside, to victory and defeat equally fruitless. The one
experiment so far tried, of giving the Army of the Potomac a leader from
the West, culminating in the disaster of the second Bull Run, was not
apt to be repeated within the year. That soldier of equal merit and
modesty, whom the Army of the Potomac had been gradually educating as
its future and permanent leader, was still unpretentiously commanding a
corps, and learning by the successes and failures of his superiors. And
who shall say that the results accomplished by Grant, Sherman, Thomas,
Sheridan, and Meade, were not largely due to their good fortune in not
being too early