ne military
science, published in Berlin in 1862, by Captain Boehn, the most
eminent professor at the military school in Potsdam: "The greatest
losses, during a war, inflicted on an army are by maladies and by
straggling. Such losses are five times greater than those of killed
and wounded; and an _intelligent administration_ takes preparatory
measures to meet the losses and to compensate them. Such measures of
foresight consist in organizing depots for battalions, which depots
ought to equal one sixth of the number of the active army." O,
Halleck, where are the depots?

--"In any ordinary campaign, excepting a winter campaign, the losses
amount (as established by experience) to one half in infantry, one
fourth in cavalry, and to one third in artillery." (Do you know any
thing about it, O, Halleck?)

Let the people be warned, and they may understand the location of
the cause generating further disasters. If the Army of the Potomac
shall win glory, it will win it notwithstanding the West Point
clique of engineers. The disasters have root in the White House,
where the advice of such a Halleck prevails.

--I know very well that the formation of the volunteers in
respective States and by the Governors of such States raises a great
difficulty in organizing and preparing reserves. But talent and
genius reveal themselves by overpowering difficulties considered to
be insurmountable. And Halleck is a man both of genius and talent.

Taking into account the patriotism, the devotion of the governors of
the respective states, [not _a la_ Copperhead Seymour], it would
have been possible, nay, even easy to organize some kind of
reserves. O, Halleck, O, fogies!

_January 17._--Mr. Lincoln loads on his shoulders all kinds of
responsibilities, more so than even Jackson would have dared to
take. Admirable if generated by the boldness of self-consciousness,
of faith, and of convictions. True men measure the danger--and the
means in their grasp to meet the emergency; others play
unconsciously with events, as do children with explosive and
death-dealing matters.

_January 17._--General and astronomer Mitchel's death may be credited
to Halleck. Halleck and Buell's envy--if not worse--paralysed Mitchel
and Turtschin's activity in the West. Mitchel and Turtschin were too
quick, that is, too patriotic. In early summer, 1862, they were sure
to take Chattanooga, a genuine strategic point, one of those principal
knots and nurseries in the l