Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 130.djvu/595

Rh  companies or batteries, each commanded by a captain; thus the volunteer artillery was not burdened, as was the infantry, with a staff of untrained field-officers; and the regular artillery officers, as far as available, fell naturally into the vacant higher posts.

The greatest difficulty by far lay with the cavalry. Their regiments arrived strong in the numbers and zeal of their men, but wholly lacking all else that was needful for efficiency. Their equipments and chargers had to be supplied them by the Federal government, and when these were found the men had to be taught the art of riding, a new one to nearly all; for, as the comte observes, the Northern American has lost in this respect the traditional skill of the Anglo-Saxon race. It took several campaigns, therefore, to teach them the first elements of their business; and it may be added from other sources that in this they invariably aimed too high or too low for practical utility, whilst the necessary care of their horses was so neglected that a few days of service often left large detachments dismounted. In fact the want of steady exertions in this every-day duty for a long time paralyzed the cavalry of the Federal service; yet where good chiefs were forth-coming for certain regiments, the growth in aptitude for field duties was more marked and rapid than in the infantry, and gave special opportunities for distinction to the commanders.

As to the engineer branch, the difficulties at the commencement of the organization might have seemed in the abstract as great as with the horse, for the few trained officers belonging to this arm were scarcely enough to carry out the necessary works, far less to instruct the men enrolled. But a powerful aid was here at hand in the large class of civil engineers who were serving in the volunteers, men not highly taught in theory, but accustomed to deal with all the rude exigencies of a new country; and very soon some special regiments were trained effectively for the service, whilst the rougher works so abundantly used throughout the war were left to the infantry, who had always a share of skilled laborers among their ranks, and supplied the rest of what was needed from their general intelligence. In fact this constructive faculty of the volunteers was at first often greatly abused, as will be shown when we speak of the opening of MacClellan's operations; and round Washington it prevailed largely to the neglect of the necessary parade training. But on the other hand, the skill thus acquired proved of vast service afterwards, when movements became extended; and miles of solid intrenchments, thoroughly united by the favorite "corduroy" roads, made each great position after a short time impregnable; whilst huge bridges of simple but solid construction spanned great streams with a celerity that European armies could not, even with the same abundant material, have imitated. To such perfection was this branch of the art of war carried, that in Sherman's Atlantic campaign a solid trestlework bridge, half a mile long, was constructed in five days across the Chattahoochie, carrying the Federal line of operations forward firmly into the heart of Georgia, and ensuring the final success of the invasion.

Of the staff of these Federal armies, the comte tells us little except as to its insufficiency, which no doubt in the army of the Potomac he personally felt keenly. MacClellan, at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men, had but four officers for his topographical duties, and eight for all his personal services. But it should be added that as the war grew more and more absorbing to the national mind, the old democratic jealousy of this necessary adjunct to military command faded away, and the two aides-de-camp assigned to MacDowell before Bull Run were represented in the best independent army corps formed in the war, that raised for the invasion of Alabama, by some thirty officers attached to General Wilson, the demands being probably then limited chiefly to the number of men qualified for the duties.

It is time that we should follow the Federal troops into the field, and see how the inherent peculiarities indicated were developed or modified by its trials. We take by natural preference of the many campaigns described in these volumes with a precision and yet richness of detail that deserve all praise, the great operation on the Richmond peninsula, which was conducted by MacClellan himself as soon as he believed his army of the Potomac to be in working order, and which was witnessed, and actively shared in, by the Comte de Paris. This first illustrated the slow but giant power of the North. This first displayed the admirable military skill of her greatest adversary. This too, closing in defeat and adversity for the Federals, gave their general and soldiers in the very crisis of that disaster the opportunity of showing how formidable was the leader's skill, how great the tenacity 