ch to the Sea nearly completed the
traverse of the whole Confederacy. His victorious army was close in
rear of Petersburg when Richmond was finally won. Now that we have
got rid of the fiction that the Confederate government gave to Lee
an enormously larger army than it gave to Bragg or to Joseph
Johnston, we have to account for the fact that with much less odds
in their favor our Western army accomplished so much more. As a
military objective Richmond was in easier reach from the Potomac
than Nashville from the Ohio. From Nashville to Chattanooga was
fully as difficult a task. The vulnerable lines of communication
multiplied in length as we went southward, and made the campaign of
Atlanta more difficult still. Vicksburg was a harder nut to crack
than Richmond. We must put away our _esprit de corps_, and squarely
face the problem as one of military art with the Official Records
and returns before us. Our Western army was of essentially the same
material as the Eastern. Regiments from nearly all the States were
mingled in both. Wisconsin men fought beside those from Maine in the
Army of the Potomac, as men who had fought at Antietam and at
Gettysburg followed Sherman through the Carolinas. The difference
was not in the rank and file, it was not in the subordinates. It was
the difference in leadership and in the education of the armies
under their leaders during their first campaigns. That mysterious
thing, the morale of an army, grows out of its belief as to what it
can do. If it is systematically taught that it is hopelessly
inferior to its adversary, it will be held in check by a fraction of
its own force. The general who indoctrinates his army with the
belief that it is required by its government to do the impossible,
may preserve his popularity with the troops and be received with
cheers as he rides down the line, but he has put any great military
success far beyond his reach. In this study of military morale, its
causes and its effects, the history of the Army of the Potomac is
one of the most important and one of the gravest lessons the world
has ever seen.

I have to confess that at Antietam I shared, more or less fully, the
opinions of those among whom I was. I accepted McClellan as the best
authority in regard to the enemy's numbers, and, assuming that he
was approximately right in that, the reasonable prudence of waiting
for reinforcements could not be denied. I saw that he had lost
valuable time in the movem