by voluntary enlistment for a short period of service with the
colours. England has always very great difficulty in filling the
ranks even with undeveloped youths. The United States obtain as many
full-grown men as they require, because they have the wisdom to pay
their men well, on a scale corresponding to the market rate of wages.
Here they are fortunate; but men are not everything, and I will still
draw the moral that a nation is more than blind when it deliberately
elects to entrust its defence to an army that is not as perfect as
training and discipline can make it, that is not led by practised
officers, staff and regimental, and that is not provided with a
powerful and efficient artillery. Overwhelming disaster is in store
for such nation if it be attacked by a large regular army; and when
it falls there will be none to pity. To hang the ministers who led
them astray, and who believed they knew better than any soldier how
the army should be administered, will be but poor consolation to an
angry and deluded people.

Let me now dwell briefly upon the second of the two great national
lessons taught by the Secession War. I shall say nothing here upon
civilian meddling with army organisation and with the selection of
officers for command, but I wish particularly to point out the result
of interference on the part of a legislative assembly or minister
with the plans and dispositions of the generals commanding in the
field. Take first the notorious instance of Mr. Lincoln's
interference with McClellan in the spring of 1862. McClellan, who was
selected to command the army which was to capture Richmond and end
the war, was a soldier of known ability, and, in my opinion, if he
had not been interfered with by the Cabinet in Washington, he would
probably have succeeded. It is true, as Colonel Henderson has said,
that he made a mistake in not playing up to Lincoln's