first battle of Bull
Run. [Footnote: Memoirs, vol. i. p. 220.] The tactical education of
the cadet stopped at the evolutions of the battalion, and for nearly
all of them it was, even in that respect, the education of the
soldier in the ranks and not of the officer, since a very small
proportion became officers in the cadet corps.

This practical drill was, of course, the same as that which was used
in organized militia regiments, and the famous Ellsworth Zouaves of
Chicago, the New York Seventh Regiment, with a number of other
militia regiments in different States, were sufficient proof that
this training could be made as exact outside of the cadet corps as
in it. It certainly was enough for the practical handling of the
company and the regiment under the simplified tactics which not only
prevailed during the war itself, but, with Upton's Manual as a
basis, has been authoritatively adopted as an improvement upon the
older and more complicated methods. It must not be forgotten that
although our militia system had fallen into scandalous neglect, the
voluntary efforts of citizen soldiers had kept many good independent
companies organized everywhere, as well as full regiments in most of
the older States; so that there were in fact more well-drilled
regiments in the militia than there were in the little regular army.
It was the small ratio all these, of both classes, bore to the
demands of the gigantic war that was upon us, which made the problem
so troublesome. The officers of the organized militia regiments,
before the end of the three months' service, did what I have said it
was desirable that those of the regular regiments should have
done,--they scattered from their original commands and were active
in organizing the new volunteer regiments. General De Trobriand, who
went out as Colonel of the Fifty-fifth New York, says that the New
York Seventh Regiment furnished three hundred officers to volunteer
regiments. [Footnote: De Trobriand, Four Years with Potomac Army, p.
64.] In a similar way, though not to the same extent, the other
organized and disciplined militia, in both Eastern and Western
States, furnished the skeletons of numerous new regiments.

The really distinguishing feature in the experience of the regular
officers of the line was their life in garrison at their posts, and
their active work in guarding the frontier. Here they had become
familiar with duty of the limited kind which such posts would
afford.