first applied to men like Banks, Butler, Baker, Logan, and Blair,
most of whom left seats in Congress to serve in the army. If they
had not done so, it would have been easy for critics to say that the
prominent politicians took care to keep their own bodies out of
harm's way. Most of them won hard-earned and well-deserved fame as
able soldiers before the war was over. In an armed struggle which
grew out of a great political contest, it was inevitable that eager
political partisans should be among the most active in the new
volunteer organizations. They called meetings, addressed the people
to rouse their enthusiasm, urged enlistments, and often set the
example by enrolling their own names first. It must be kept
constantly in mind that we had no militia organization that bore any
appreciable proportion to the greatness of the country's need, and
that at any rate the policy of relying upon volunteering at the
beginning was adopted by the government. It was a foregone
conclusion that popular leaders of all grades must largely officer
the new troops. Such men might be national leaders or leaders of
country neighborhoods; but big or little, they were the necessity of
the time. It was the application of the old Yankee story, "If the
Lord _will_ have a church in Paxton, he must take _sech as ther' be_
for deacons."

I have, in a former chapter, given my opinion that the government
made a mistake in following General Scott's advice to keep its
regular army intact and forbid its officers from joining volunteer
regiments; but good or bad, that advice was followed at the
beginning, and the only possible thing to do next was to let popular
selection and natural leadership of any sort determine the company
organizations. The governors of States generally followed a similar
rule in the choice of field officers, and selected the general