officers from those in the state militia, or from former officers of
the army retired to civil life. In one sense, therefore, the whole
organization of the volunteer force might be said to be political,
though we heard more of "political generals" than we did of
political captains or lieutenants. When the organization of the
United States Volunteers took the place of the state contingents
which formed the "three months' service," the appointments by the
President were usually selections from those acting already under
state appointment. The National Government was more conservative
than the Confederacy in this respect. Our service was always full of
colonels doing duty as brigadiers and brigadiers doing duty as
major-generals, whilst the Southern army usually had a brigadier for
every brigade and a major-general for every division, with
lieutenant-generals and generals for the highest commands. If some
rigid method had been adopted for mustering out all officers whom
the government, after a fair trial, was unwilling to trust with the
command appropriate to their grade, there would have been little to
complain of; but an evil which grew very great was that men in high
rank were kept upon the roster after it was proven that they were
incompetent, and when no army commander would willingly receive them
as his subordinates. Nominal commands at the rear or of a merely
administrative kind were multiplied, and still many passed no small
part of the war "waiting orders." As the total number of general
officers was limited by law, it followed, of course, that promotion
had to be withheld from many who had won it by service in the field.
This evil, however, was not peculiar to the class of appointments
from civil life. The faults in the first appointments were such as
were almost necessarily connected with the sudden creation of a vast
army. The failure to provide for a thorough test and sifting of the
material was a governmental error. It was palliated by the necessity