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[67] what went before, and what came after it—it is manifest that what gives it significance is that it represents science displacing sciolism, the untutored enthusiasm of a nation unused to war, taught by a bitter experience to yield itself to the cunning hand of discipline—that power which Carnot calls ‘the glory of the soldier and the strength of armies.’1 If the Army of the Potomac afterwards performed deeds worthy to live in history, it is in no small degree due to the fact that the groundwork of victory was laid deep and broad in that early period of stern tutelage, when it learnt the apprenticeship of war. If other generals, the successors of McClellan, were able to achieve more decisive results than he, it was, again, in no small degree, because they had the perfect instrument he had fashioned to work withal.2
1 ‘It is military discipline that is the glory of the soldier and the strength of armies, for it is the foremost act of its devotion, and the most assured pledge of victory (le plus grand acte de son devouenment et le gage le plus assure de la victoire.) It is by it that all wills unite in one, and all partial forces conspire towards one end.’ Carnot: De la Defense des Places Fortes, p. 505.
2 ‘Had there been no McClellan,’ I have often heard General Meade say, ‘there could have been no Grant; for the army made no essential improvement under any of his successors.’ It was common throughout the war to ascribe a high degree of discipline to the Confederate army—even higher than that of the Army of the Potomac. But the revelations of the actual condition of that army since the close of the war do not justify this assertion. On the contrary, they show that the discipline of the Army of Northern Virginia was never equal to that of the Army of the Potomac, though in fire and elan it was superior. ‘I could always rely on my army,’ said General Lee, at the time he surrendered its remnant at Appomattox Courthouse—‘I could always rely on my army for fighting; but its discipline was poor.’ At the time of the Maryland invasion, Lee lost above twenty-five thousand men from his effective strength by straggling, and he exclaimed with tears, ‘My army is ruined by straggling!’ Nothing could better illustrate the high state of discipline of the Army of the Potomac, than its conduct in such retreats as that on the Peninsula and in the Pope campaign, and in such incessant fighting as the Rapidan campaign of 1864.
1866.
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