implements must be complete
and ready for service; his maps prepared for distribution to subordinate
commanders. His inspector must have seen that the orders for discipline
and equipment have been complied with. His medical director must have
procured a supply of hospital stores, and organized the ambulance and
hospital departments. His provost marshal must have made adequate
arrangements to prevent straggling, plundering, and other disorders. His
aides must have informed themselves of the positions of the various
commands, and become acquainted with the principal officers, so as to
take orders through night and storm with unerring accuracy. They must be
cool-headed, daring fellows, alert, and well posted, good riders, and
have good horses under them.

All this work cannot be accomplished in a day, a week, or a month. The
full preparations required to render a campaign successful must have
been the result of long, patient, thoughtful consideration and
organization. It is no time to teach sailors seamanship in a hurricane.
They must know where to find the ropes and what to do with them, with
the spray dashing in their eyes and the black clouds scurrying across
the sky. It is no time for staff officers to begin their duties when a
great army is to be moved. Then it is needed that every harness strap,
every gun-carriage wheel, every knapsack, every soldier's shoe should
have been provided and should be in serviceable order; that the men
should have had their regular fare, and have been kept in the healthiest
condition; that clear and explicit information be ready on all details.
Prepared by the assiduous, intelligent labor of a vigilant and faithful
staff, an army becomes a compact, homogeneous mass--without
individuality, but pervaded by one animating will--cohesive by
discipline, but pliant in all its parts--impetuous with enthusiasm, but
controlled easily in the most minute operations.

These remarks, relative to the requirements for an effective staff,
pertain to all grades of organization. The staff officers at the
headquarters of the army organize general arrangements and supervise the
operations of subordinate officers of their department at the
headquarters of corps; these have more detailed duties, and, in their
turn, supervise the staffs of the divisions; the duties of these again
are still more detailed, and they supervise the staffs of brigades;
these finally are charged with the specific details pertaining to