of the
picturesque incidents of many battles, may easily be made dreary. Till
far on in the lengthy process of subjecting the South, we might easily
become immersed in some futile story of how General X. was superseded
by General Y. in a command, for which neither discovered any purpose
but that of not co-operating with General Z. And this impression is
not merely due to our failure to understand the difficulties which
confronted these gallant officers. The dearth of trained military
faculty, which was felt at the outset, could only be made good by the
training which the war itself supplied. Such commanders as Grant and
Sherman and Sheridan not only could not have been recognised at the
beginning of the war; they were not then the soldiers that they
afterwards became. And the want was necessarily very serious in the
case of the higher commands which required the movement of large
forces, the control of subordinates each of whom must have a wide
discretion, and the energy of intellect and will necessary for
resolving the more complex problems of strategy. We are called upon to
admire upon both sides the devotion of forgotten thousands, and to
admire upon the side of the South the brilliant and daring operations
by which in so many battles Lee and Jackson defeated superior forces.
On the Northern side, later on, great generals came to view, but it is
in the main a different sort of achievement which we are called upon to
appreciate. An Administration appointed to direct a stupendous
operation of conquest was itself of necessity ill prepared for such a
task; behind it were a Legislature and a public opinion equally ill
prepared to support and to assist it. There were in its military
service many intelligent and many enterprising men, but none, at first,
so combining intelligence and enterprise that he could grapple with any
great responsibility or that the civil power would have been warranted
in reposing complete confidence in him. The history of the war has to
be recounted in this volume chiefly with a view to these difficulties
of the Administration.

One of the most interesting features of the war would, in any military
study of it, be seen to be the character of the troops on both sides.
On both sides their individual quality was high; on both, circumstances
and the disposition of the people combined to make discipline weak.
This character, common to the two armies, was conspicuous in many
battles of the war