arrangements made by him for the control and co-operation of the forces
in Virginia, are now generally regarded by military critics as having
been nearly as faulty as they could have been. It will he remembered
that Meade, with a competent staff had immediate command of the Army of
the Potomac, but was followed closely wherever he went by General Grant
and his staff. At the same time Burnside, with the Ninth Corps, having
an older commission than Meade, and having been once in command of the
Army of the Potomac, was for reasons which must be regarded as largely
sentimental, permitted to report directly to and receive his orders
directly from Grant, while Butler with two army corps operating at
first at a considerable distance and later in a semi-detached and less
independent manner, made his reports to and received his instructions
directly from Grant's headquarters.

This arrangement, as might have been foreseen, was fatal to coherent
and prompt co-operative action, and the result was properly described
by Grant himself as comparable only to the work of a "balky team." It
was in the nature of things impossible to make either the armies or the
separate army-corps work harmoniously and effectively together. The
orders issued from the different headquarters were necessarily lacking
in uniformity of style and expression, and failed to secure that prompt
and unfailing obedience that in operations extending over so wide and
difficult a field was absolutely essential, and this was entirely
independent of the merits of the different generals or the
peculiarities of their Chiefs of Staff and Adjutants General. The
forces were too great; they were scattered too widely over the field of
operations; the conditions of the roads, the width of the streams and
the broken and wooded features of the battle fields were too various,
and the means of transport and supply were too inadequate to permit of
simultaneous and synchronous movements, even if they had been