ufficiently conversant
with military history to tell you that. I think it very doubtful
whether more guns were ever used in any one battle before. I do not
believe Napoleon ever had a worse artillery fire." Testimony of
General John Gibbon, Committee on Conduct of the War, vol. iv. p.
444. At Gettysburg the whole number of cannon employed was about two
hundred. Compare this with Leipzig, for instance, the "battle of the
giants," where _two thousand_ were employed! Thiers says, "de
Leipzig a Schoenfeld au nord, de Schoenfeld a Probstheyda a l'est, de
Probstheyda a Connewitz au sud, une cannonade de deux mille bouches
a feu termina cette bataille dit des geants, et jusqu'ici la plus
grande, certainement, de tous les siecles." Thiers, Consulat et
l'Empire, vol. xvi. p. 607.]

If then the officers of the regular army, as a body, were not in
fact deeply read in what, as we have seen, Jomini calls "the science
of generals," their advantage over equally well-educated civilians
is reduced to a practical knowledge of the duties of the company and
the petty post, and in comparison with the officers of well-drilled
militia companies it amounted to little more than a better knowledge
of the army regulations and the administrative processes. It is no
reproach to them that this was so, for it resulted from the
operation of law in the course of education at the Military Academy
and the insignificant size of our army in times of peace. It had
been the peculiar blessing of our country that a great standing army
was unnecessary, and it would be foolish to regret that our little
army could not have the experience with great bodies of troops and
the advantages of theoretical instruction which are part of the life
of officers in the immense establishments of Continental Europe. My
only purpose is to make an approximately true balance sheet of the
actual advantages of the two parts of our National army in 1861.
Whilst on the subject, however, I will go a little further and say
that prior to our Civil War, the history of European conflicts
proves that there also the theoretic preparation of military men had
not, up to that time, saved them from the necessity of learning both
generalship and army administration in the terrible school of
experience, during their first year in the field when a new war
broke out after a long interval of peace.

The first volume of Kinglake's "Crimean War" appeared in 1863, and I
immediately and eagerly devoure