This in time became a second nature to them, and to the
extent it reached, was, as other men's employments are, their
business. They necessarily had to learn pretty thoroughly the army
regulations, with the methods and forms of making returns and
conducting business with the adjutant-general's office, with the
ordnance office, the quartermaster's and subsistence departments,
etc. In this ready knowledge of the army organization and its
methods their advantage over the new volunteer officers was more
marked, as it seemed to me, than in any and all other things. The
routine of army business and the routine of drill had to be learned
by every army officer. The regular officer of some years' standing
already knew, as a matter of course, what a new volunteer officer
must spend some time in learning. There is something of value also
in the habit of mind formed in actual service, even if the service
is in subaltern grades and on a petty scale. Familiarity with danger
and with the expectation of danger is acquired, both by the Indian
wars of the frontier and by the hunting and field sports which fill
more or less of the leisure of garrison life.

But there were some drawbacks upon the value of the preparation for
war which these officers possessed. There was a marked conservatism
as to military methods and arms, and an almost slavish reverence for
things which were sanctioned by European authority, especially that
of the second French Empire. American invention was never more
fruitful than when applied to military weapons. Repeating and
magazine small arms, breach-loading cannon, and Gatling guns with
other repeating artillery, were brought out or improved with
wonderful variety of form and of demonstrable excellence. The
regular army influence was generally against such innovations. Not
once, but frequently, regular army officers argued to me that the
old smooth-bore musket with "buck and ball" cartridge was the best
weapon our troops could desire. We went through the war with a
muzzle-loading musket, the utmost that any commander could do being
to secure repeating rifles for two or three infantry regiments in a
whole army. Even to the end the "regular" chiefs of artillery
insisted that the Napoleon gun, a light smooth-bore twelve-pounder
cannon, was our best field-piece, and at a time when a great
campaign had reduced our forces so that a reduction of artillery was
advisable, I received an order to send to the rear my three-