n was to be found in any save a few picked regiments
of the volunteer and regular service. The prejudice at first
entertained against the bare idea of service with colored troops
had not entirely disappeared, yet it had so far lost its edge that
it was now possible to select from a number of applicants for
promotion, especially to the higher grades, officers who had already
shown their fitness and their capacity, while holding inferior
commissions or serving in the ranks of the white regiments. Thus
the original source of weakness in the composition of the first
three regiments was avoided, and, small politics and local influence
being of course absent, and Banks's instructions being urgent to
choose only the best men, the colored regiments soon had a fine
corps of officers. To the work now before him Andrews brought an
equipment and a training such as few officers possessed. Experience
had shown him the merit, the capacity, and the defects of the
American volunteer officer. At the very bottom of these defects
was the looseness of his early instruction in the elements of his
duty; once wrongly taught by an instructor, himself careless or
ignorant, he was likely to go on conscientiously making the same
mistake to the end of his term. Realizing his opportunity, Andrews
set about establishing uniformity in all details of drill and duty
by establishing a school of officers. These he himself taught with
the greatest pains and industry, correcting the slovenly, yet
encouraging the willing, until the whole corps was brought up to
a uniform standard, and on the whole a high one.

Stone succeeded Andrews as Chief of Staff at department headquarters
on the 25th of July.

Franklin's staff, as commander of the Nineteenth Army Corps in the
field, included Major Wickham Hoffman, Assistant Adjutant-General;
Colonel Edward L. Molineux, Acting Assistant Inspector-General;
Lieutenant-Colonel John G. Chandler, Chief Quartermaster;
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry D. Woodruff, Chief Commissary of Subsistence;
Surgeon John H. Rauch, Medical Director; Captain Henry W. Closson,
Chief of Artillery; Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey, Acting Chief
Engineer; Captain William A. Pigman, Chief Signal Officer.

CHAPTER XXI.
A FOOTHOLD IN TEXAS.

Banks now wished and proposed to move on Mobile, which he rightly
supposed to be defended by about 5,000 men.(1) This had indeed
been among the objects specially contemplated by his first instructions