Page:The parallel between the English and American civil wars.djvu/30

THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN and a model. In America there was a regular army of about 16,000 men, and about 1,200 officers who had received a scientific military training at West Point were available for service. About a fifth of these 1,200 officers sided with their States against the Federal government, while the North had four-fifths of them at its disposal, as well as all the privates. But in organising its armies the North did not make as good use of these regular regiments as it might have done; they remained distinct from the new forces instead of being employed to leaven and discipline them.

In the main therefore the military problem in the English and American Civil Wars was identical; that problem was how to turn a vast mass of untrained men into soldiers with just a handful of trained officers to do it. "I have not really one thorough soldier in my whole army," wrote Sherman in May 1862, "they are all equally green and raw." Some generals forgot that their opponents were in the same position. When General 22