discipline cannot be attained without constant
watchfulness on their part. They must attend to the smallest
particulars of detail. Men must be habituated to obey or they cannot
be controlled in battle, and the neglect of the least important order
impairs the proper influence of the officer."* (* Memoirs of General
Robert E. Lee. By A. L. Long, Military Secretary and
Brigadier-General pages 685-6.)

That such a circular was considered necessary after the troops had
been nearly four years under arms establishes beyond all question
that the discipline of the Confederate army was not that of the
regular troops with whom General Lee had served under the Stars and
Stripes; but it is not to be understood that he attributed the
deficiencies of his soldiers to any spirit of resistance on their
part to the demands of subordination. Elsewhere he says: "The
greatest difficulty I find is in causing orders and regulations to be
obeyed. This arises not from a spirit of disobedience, but from
ignorance."* (* Memoirs, etc. page 619. Letter dated March 21, 1863.)
And here, with his usual perspicacity, he goes straight to the root
of the evil. When the men in the ranks understand all that discipline
involves, safety, health, efficiency, victory, it is easily
maintained; and it is because experience and tradition have taught
them this that veteran armies are so amenable to control. "Soldiers,"
says Sir Charles Napier, "must obey in all things. They may and do
laugh at foolish orders, but they nevertheless obey, not because they
are blindly obedient, but because they know that to disobey is to
break the backbone of their profession."

Such knowledge, however, is long in coming, even to the regular, and
it may be questioned whether it ever really came home to the
Confederates.

In fact, the Southern soldier, ignorant, at the outset, of what may
be accomplished by discipline, never quite got rid of the belief that
the enthusiasm of the individual, his goodwill and his native
courage, was a more than sufficient substitute. "The spirit which
animates our soldiers," wrote Lee, "and the natural courage with
which they are so liberally endowed, have led to a reliance upon
those good qualities, to the neglect of measures which would increase
their efficiency and contribute to their safety."* (* Memoirs etc.
page 684. By A. L. Long.) Yet the soldier was hardly to blame.
Neither he nor his regimental officers had any previous knowledge of
war w