in a campaign. Wondering at delay, I rode forward
and found the general officer I was to support. I told him I was
ordered to support him in doing what we both saw was needing to be
done; but he had no explicit orders to begin the movement. I said
that my orders to support him were sufficient to authorize his
action, and it was plain that it would be unfortunate if the thing
were not done at once. He answered cynically, "If you had been in
the army as long as I have, you would be content to do the things
that are ordered, without hunting up others." The English regulars,
also, have a saying, "Volunteering brings bad luck."

There was altogether too much of this spirit in the army, and one
who can read between the lines will see it in the history of many a
campaign. It did not necessarily mean wavering loyalty. It was
sometimes the mental indecision or timidity which shrinks from
responsibility. It was sometimes also the result of education in an
army on the peace establishment, where any spontaneity was snubbed
as an impertinence or tyrannically crushed as a breach of
discipline. I would not be understood to make more of these things
than is necessary to a just estimate of the situation, but it seems
to me an entirely fair conclusion that with us in 1861 as with the
first French republic, the infusion of the patriotic enthusiasm of a
volunteer organization was a necessity, and that this fully made up
for lack of instruction at the start. This hasty analysis of what
the actual preparation for war was in the case of the average line
officer of the regular army will show, to some extent, the basis of
my judgment that there was nothing in it which a new volunteer
officer, having what I have called military aptitude, should not
learn in his first campaign.

How far the officers of the engineers and of the staff corps applied
themselves to general military study, would depend upon their taste
and their leisure. Their opportunities for doing so were much better
than those of line officers, but there was also a tendency to
immerse themselves in the studies of their special department of
work. Very eminent officers of engineers have told me since the war
that the pressure of their special professional work was such that
they had found no time to read even the more noteworthy publications
concerning the history of our own great struggle. The surveys of the
great lakes and the coast, the engineering problems of our great
rivers