seen that he had in an eminent degree many of the highest and most
necessary qualities of the General.

An even cursory study of Morgan's record will convince the military
reader, that the character he bore with those who served with him was
deserved.

That while circumspect and neglectful of no precaution to insure success
or avert disaster, he was extremely bold in thought and action. That
using every means to obtain extensive and accurate information
(attempting no enterprise of importance without it), and careful in the
consideration of every contingency, he was yet marvelously quick to
combine and to revolve, and so rapid and sudden in execution, as
frequently to confound both friends and enemies.

And above all, once convinced, he never hesitated to act; he would back
his judgment against every hazard, and with every resource at his
command.

Whatever merit be allowed or denied General Morgan, he is beyond all
question entitled to the credit of having discovered uses for cavalry,
or rather mounted infantry, to which that arm was never applied before.
While other cavalry officers were adhering to the traditions of former
wars, and the systems of the schools, however inapplicable to the
demands of their day and the nature of the struggle, he originated and
perfected, not only a system of tactics, a method of fighting and
handling men in the presence of the enemy, but also a strategy as
effective as it was novel.

Totally ignorant of the art of war as learned from the books and in the
academies; an imitator in nothing; self taught in all that he knew and
did, his success was not more marked than his genius.

The creator and organizer of his own little army--with a force which at
no time reached four thousand--he _killed and wounded_ nearly as many of
the enemy, and captured more than fifteen thousand. The author of the
far-reaching "raid," so different from the mere cavalry dash, he
accomplished with his handful of men results which would otherwise have
required armies and the costly preparations of regular and extensive
campaigns.

I shall endeavor to show the intimate connection between his operations
and those of the main army in each department where he served, and the
strategic importance of even his apparently rashest and most purposeless
raids, when considered with reference to their bearing upon the grand
campaigns of the West. When the means at his disposal, the difficulties
with which he had to c