of conciliating influential men, and of avoiding antagonisms when
the fate of the nation trembled in the balance; but this was a
political motive, and the evil was probably endured in spite of its
well-known tendency to weaken the military service.

A few months' campaigning in the field got us rid of most of the
"town-meeting style" of conducting military affairs in the army
itself, though nothing could cure the practice on the part of
unscrupulous men of seeking reputation with the general public by
dishonest means. The newspapers were used to give fictitious credit
to some and to injure others. If the regular correspondents of the
press had been excluded from the camps, there would no doubt have
been surreptitious correspondence which would have found its way
into print through private and roundabout channels. But this again
was not a vice peculiar to officers appointed from civil life. It
should be always remembered that honorable conduct and devoted
patriotism was the rule, and self-seeking vanity and ambition the
exception; yet a few exceptions would be enough to disturb the
comfort of a large command. To sum up, the only fair way to estimate
the volunteer army is by its work and its fitness for work after the
formative period was passed, and when the inevitable mistakes and
the necessary faults of its first organization had been measurably
cured. My settled judgment is that it took the field in the spring
of 1862 as well fitted for its work as any army in the world, its
superior excellences in the most essential points fully balancing
the defects which were incident to its composition.

This opinion is not the offspring of partiality toward the volunteer
army on the part of one himself a volunteer. It was shared by the
most active officers in the field who came from the regular service.