lions.

It was not mere natural ability that had triumphed. Lee, in this
respect, was assuredly not more highly gifted than Lincoln, or
Jackson than McClellan. But, whether by accident or design, Davis had
selected for command of the Confederate army, and had retained in the
Valley, two past masters in the art of strategy. If it was accident
he was singularly favoured by fortune. He might have selected many
soldiers of high rank and long service, who would have been as
innocent of strategical skill as Lincoln himself. His choice might
have fallen on the most dashing leader, the strictest disciplinarian,
the best drill, in the Confederate army; and yet the man who united
all these qualities might have been altogether ignorant of the higher
art of war. Mr. Davis himself had been a soldier. He was a graduate
of West Point, and in the Mexican campaign he had commanded a
volunteer regiment with much distinction. But as a director of
military operations he was a greater marplot than even Stanton. It by
no means follows that because a man has lived his life in camp and
barrack, has long experience of command, and even long experience of
war, that he can apply the rules of strategy before the enemy. In the
first place he may lack the character, the inflexible resolution, the
broad grasp, the vivid imagination, the power of patient thought, the
cool head, and, above all, the moral courage. In the second place,
there are few schools where strategy may be learned, and, in any
case, a long and laborious course of study is the only means of
acquiring the capacity to handle armies and outwit an equal
adversary. The light of common-sense alone is insufficient; nor will
a few months' reading give more than a smattering of knowledge.

"Read and RE-READ," said Napoleon, "the eighty-eight campaigns of
Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene, and
Frederick. Take them as your models, for it is the only means of
becoming a great leader, and of mastering the secrets of the art of
war. Your intelligence, enlightened by such study, will then reject
methods contrary to those adopted by these great men."

In America, as elsewhere, it had not been recognised before the Civil
War, even by the military authorities, that if armies are to be
handled with success they must be directed by trained strategists. No
Kriegsakademie or its equivalent existed in the United States, and
the officers whom common-sense induced to follow the advic