idity of action in the military service
of any country,--a roll too long to have full justice done to all the
names borne upon it. Indeed, one of the obstacles to widespread
popular fame for many, was in the great number of generals who fairly
earned the laurels due to exalted heroism. In a military establishment
so vast that the major-generals number one hundred and fifty, and the
generals of brigade nearly or quite six hundred, with battles,
engagements, and skirmishes in full proportion to the force which such
a number of commanders implies, it is difficult to give even the names
of all who are worthy of lasting renown. Battles such as established
Scott's fame in the Niagara campaign, or Jackson's at New Orleans, or
Taylor's at Buena Vista, were in magnitude repeated a hundred times
during the civil conflict under commanders whose names are absolutely
forgotten by the public. A single corps of Grant's army at the
Wilderness, or of Sherman's at Atlanta, or of Meade's at Gettysburg, or
of McClellan's on the Peninsula, or of Hooker's at Chancellorsville,
contained a large number of troops than Washington or Scott ever
commanded on the field, a larger number than Taylor or Jackson ever saw
mustered. A more correct conception of the real magnitude of the Union
Army can be reached by measuring the proportions of the several
branches of the service, than by simply stating the aggregate number of
men. There were in all some seventeen hundred regiments of infantry,
over two hundred and seventy regiments of cavalry, and more than nine
hundred batteries of artillery. These numbers are without parallel
in the military history of the world.

There was a very strong and patriotic disposition to engage in the
war, on the part of the sons of the Northern statesmen who had been
prominent during the generation preceding the outbreak of hostilities.
It was no doubt felt by the juniors to be a chivalric duty to defend
on the field what had been advanced by the seniors in Congress and in
Cabinet. A very notable instance was that of the brothers Ewing,--Hugh,
Thomas, and Charles, sons of the eminent Thomas Ewing of Ohio,--each
of which attained through gradual promotion, fairly earned by
meritorious service in the field, the rank of brigadier-general. They
were all young, the eldest not being over thirty-five when he received
his commission, the youngest under thirty. Senator Fessenden of Maine
had two sons who rose to the rank