Weakness of the Military Policy
In the regular army in 1861 there were, exclusive of those who went South, at least 600 officers who, after graduating at West Point, had served several years with their regiments, and were well qualified to drill a regiment and command it in battle. A large proportion of them were fitted to command brigades, and some of them divisions, and even army corps. The three years’ volunteers first called out could have been fully supplied with brigade, division, and corps commanders from graduates of West Point who were thoroughly qualified by theoretical education and established character, and many of them by practical experience in the Mexican war and Indian campaigns, for the instruction, discipline, and command of troops, still leaving a sufficient number with the regulars for efficient service. The old sergeants of the army in 1861 were relatively competent company commanders. One commissioned officer to four companies of these veteran Indian-fighters made as reliable a battalion as any general could wish for in the conditions then existing.
Experience demonstrated that a volunteer regiment could in a very few weeks be converted into an efficient and thoroughly reliable force in battle by a single young officer of the regular army. In other words, by a judicious use of the small body of officers whom the country had educated at so great an expense, a fine army of 500,000 men, or more, could have been called into service, organizied, disciplined, and put into the field by August 1, 1861; and that without interfering in any way with the three months’ militia called out to meet the first emergency, which militia ought, of course, to have acted strictly on the defensive until the more permanent force could take the field. In a few months more, certainly by the spring of 1862, the instruction, discipline, and field experience of the first levy would have given good officers enough to organize and command a million more men. It required, in short, only a wise use of the national resources to overwhelm the South before the spring of 1863.
The supply of arms, it is true, was deplorably deficient in 1861. But the South was only a little better off than the North in that regard. Besides, the National Government had command of all the markets of the world, and of the means of ocean transportation. It could have bought at once all the available arms everywhere, and thus fully equipped its own troops, while preventing the South from doing the same. Hence the excuse given at the time—namely, want of muskets—was no excuse whatever for delay in the organization of armies.
The rebellion made some progress at first, and offered effective resistance for a long time, simply because the Southern authorities manifested greater military wisdom than the Northern. The difference in preparations and in military training in advance was quite insignificant. The North had many more educated and competent military men than the South. The difference was that the South used the few they had to the best advantage, while the North so used only a very few of their many.
The lesson next in importance taught by our experience is the necessity of general military education in a country having popular government. No man can be fully qualified for the duties of a statesman until he has made a thorough study of the science of war in its broadest sense. He need not go to a military school, much less serve in the army or in the militia. But unless he makes himself thoroughly acquainted with the methods and conditions requisite to success in war, he is liable to do almost infinite damage to his country. For instance, the very first success of the Union armies—the capture of Fort Donelson—was quickly followed by a proclamation of thanksgiving and an order to stop recruiting. That one act of “statesmanship” cost the country untold millions of dollars and many thousands of lives. It was necessary only to take the ordinary military advantage of the popular enthusiasm throughout the country after Grant’s first victory to have made the Union armies absolutely irresistible by any force the South could raise and arm at that time.