d
begun to threaten the crossing above. The blunder respecting the
two brigades of Wagner's division came near being disastrous, and
the repulse of the assault in spite of that blunder makes it highly
probable that if the dispositions ordered had been properly made,
the repulse of the enemy would have been easy beyond reasonable
doubt. Yet it would be difficult to find a fairer chance of success
in a direct assault upon troops in position. Our intrenchments
were of the slightest kind, and without any considerable obstructions
in front to interfere seriously with the assault. The attack, no
less than the defense, was characterized by incomparable valor,
and the secret of its failure is to be found in one of the principles
taught by all military experience--the great superiority in strength
of a fresh body of troops in perfect order over another in the
state of disorder which necessarily results from even the most
successful assault. There was really no comparison, in effective
strength, between Opdycke's orderly and compact brigade and the
confused mass of Confederates that were crossing over our parapet.
The result was nothing extraordinary or at all unprecedented. It
was but one of the numerous proofs afforded by military history of
the value of that prudent maxim in the art of war which dictates
the placing of a suitable reserve in close support of that portion
of a defensive line which is liable to heavy assault.

The surprising conduct of the commanders of the two brigades of
Wagner's division which were run over by the enemy, and of the
division commander himself, whatever may be true as to the conflicting
statements published in respect to their action, is one of the
strongest possible illustrations of the necessity of the higher
military education, and of the folly of intrusting high commands
to men without such education, which, fortunately for the country
and the army, is rarely learned by experience, but must be acquired
by laborious study of the rules and principles laid down by standard
authors as derived from the practice and teachings of the great
masters of the art of war in all ages. A well-educated officer,
either as brigade or division commander, would not have needed
orders from any source to tell him what to do in that emergency.
He would have known so surely what his duty was that he would have
retired at the proper time behind the main line, without ever
thinking whether or not he had orde