The organization of the vast numbers enrolled was excellent
whenever experts were given a free hand. But this free hand was
rare. One vital point only needs special notice here: the
wastefulness of raising new regiments when the old ones were
withering away for want of reinforcements. A new local regiment
made a better "story" in the press; and new and superfluous
regiments meant new and superfluous colonels, mostly of the
speechifying kind. So it often happened that the State
authorities felt obliged to humor zealots set on raising those
brand-new regiments which doubled their own difficulties by
having to learn their lesson alone, halved the efficiency of the
old regiments they should have reinforced, and harassed the
commanders and staff by increasing the number of units that were
of different and ever-changing efficiency and strength. It was a
system of making and breaking all through.


The end came when Northern sea-power had strangled the Southern
resources and the unified Northern armies had worn out the
fighting force. Of the single million soldiers raised by the
South only two hundred thousand remained in arms, half starved,
half clad, with the scantiest of munitions, and without reserves
of any kind. Meanwhile the Northern hosts had risen to a million
in the field, well fed, well clothed, well armed, abundantly
provided with munitions, and at last well disciplined under the
unified command of that great leader, Grant. Moreover, behind
this million stood another million fit to bear arms and
obtainable at will from the two millions of enrolled reserves.

The cost of the war was stupendous. But the losses of war are not