94

WAR PREPARATIONS IN THE NORTH.

their services to the governor of their native State. General Scott hadplanted himself firmly on the theory that the regular army must he the prin-cipal reliance for severe work, and that the volunteers could only be auxilia-ries around this solid nucleus which would show them the way to performtheir duty, and take the brunt of every encounter. The young regulars whoasked leave to accept commissions in State regiments were therefore refused,and were ordered to their own subaltern positions and posts. There can beno doubt that the true policy would have been to encourage the whole of thisyounger class to enter at once the volunteer service. They would have beenfield-officers in the new regiments, and would have impressed discipline andsystem upon the organization from the beginning. The Confederates reallyprofited by having no regular army. They gave to the officers who left ourservice, it is true, commissions in their so-called “provisional” army, toencourage them to expect permanent military positions if the war should endin the independence of the South; but this was only a nominal organization,and their real army was made up (as ours turned out practically to be) from theregiments of State volunteers. Less than a year afterward we changed our pol-icy, but it was then too late to induce many of the regular officers to take regi-mental positions in the volunteer troops. I hesitate to declare that this wasnot, after all, for the best; for, although the organization of our army wouldhave been more rapidly perfected, there are other considerations which havemuch weight. The army would not have been the popular thing it was, itsclose identification with the people’s movement would have been weakened,and it, perhaps, would not so readily have melted again into the mass of thenation at the close of the war.

On the 29th of Api'il I was ordered by McClellan to proceed next morningto Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati , where he had fixed the site for a per-manent camp of instruction. I took with me one full regiment and half ofanother. The day was a fair one, and when about noon our railway trainreached the camping ground, it seemed an excellent place for our work. Thedrawback was that the land was planted in wheat and corn, instead of beingmeadow or pasture land. Captain Rosecrans (later the well-known general)met us as McClellan’s engineer officer, coming from Cincinnati with a train-load of lumber. With his compass and chain, and by the help of a smalldetail of men, he soon laid off the two regimental camps, and the generallines of the whole encampment for a dozen regiments. The men of theregiments shouldered the pine boards, and carried them up to the lines of thecompany streets which were close to the hills skirting the valley, and whichopened into the parade and drill ground along the railway. Vigorous workhoused all the men before night, and it was well that it did so, for the weatherchanged in the evening, a cold rain came on, and the next morning was a chilland dreary one. My own headquarters were in a little brick school-house of onestory, and with a single aide (my only staff-officer) we bestowed ourselves forthe night in the little spaces between the pupils’ desks and the teacher’s pulpit.The windy, cheerless night was a long one, but gave place at last to a fickle,changeable day of drifting showers and occasional sunshine, and we were