[331] our disadvantage, as training was more necessary to make soldiers of the Northern people than of our own; further, because of their larger population, as well as their greater facility in obtaining recruits from foreign countries, the administration continued assiduously to exert every faculty to increase the efficiency of the army by addition to its numbers, by improving its organization, and by supplying the needful munitions and equipments. Inactivity is the prolific source of evil to an army, especially if composed of new levies who, like ours, had hurried from their homes at their country's call. For these, and other reasons more readily appreciated, it was thought desirable that all our available forces should be employed as actively as might be practicable. On August 1, 1861, I wrote to General J. E. Johnston, at Manassas, as follows:
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[331] our disadvantage, as training was more necessary to make soldiers of the Northern people than of our own; further, because of their larger population, as well as their greater facility in obtaining recruits from foreign countries, the administration continued assiduously to exert every faculty to increase the efficiency of the army by addition to its numbers, by improving its organization, and by supplying the needful munitions and equipments. Inactivity is the prolific source of evil to an army, especially if composed of new levies who, like ours, had hurried from their homes at their country's call. For these, and other reasons more readily appreciated, it was thought desirable that all our available forces should be employed as actively as might be practicable. On August 1, 1861, I wrote to General J. E. Johnston, at Manassas, as follows:
1881.
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