placed a junior at the head of the Second Corps,but whomsoever he did place over the corps be-came thereby invested with the whole undimin-ished substance, and with all the proper andordinary incidents of command.
So much for the question of authority. On thequestion of policy there is only to be said that adifference of opinion appears between two highlymeritorious officers —one, the best artillerist ofthe army, the other, one of the best, if not thebest, commander of troops in the army— as towhat was most expedient in a given emergency.Unquestionably it would have been a strong pointfor us if, other things being equal, the limber chestsof the artillery had been full when Pickett’s andPettigrew’s divisions began their great charge.But would other things have been equal? Wouldthe advantage so obtained have compensated forthe loss of morale in the infantry which mighthave resulted from allowing them to be scourged,at will, by the hostile artillery? Every soldierknows how trying and often how demoralizing itis to endure artillery fire without reply.
Now, on the question thus raised, who was thebetter judge, General Hunt or General Hancock ?Had Henry .T. Hunt taken command of a brigade
of infantry in 1861, had he for nearly two yearslived with the infantry, marching with them,camping among them, commanding them in nu-merous actions, keeping close watch of theirtemper and spirit, observing their behavior undervarying conditions and trials, I believe that bythe 3d of July, 1863, he would have become oneof the most capable and judicious corps com-manders of the army. But in so doing he wouldnecessarily have forfeited nearly all of that specialexperience which combined with his high intelli-gence and great spirit to make him one of thebest artillerists whom the history of war hasknown. Certainly a service almost wholly in theartillery could not yield that intimate knowledgeof the temper of troops which should qualifyhim, equally with Hancock, to judge what wasrequired to keep them in heart and courage underthe Confederate cannonade at Gettysburg , and tobring them up to the final struggle, prepared inspirit to meet the fearful ordeal of Longstreet’scharge. Hancock had full authority over thatline of battle; he used that authority accordingto his own best judgment, and he beat off theenemy. That is the substance of it.
General F. A. Walker, of General Hancock’sstaff, comments on my expressed belief that, hadmy instructions for the cannonade of July 3d beencarried out by Captain Hazard, commander of theartillery of the Second Corps, the Confederateassault would not have reached our lines, andconsiders this “a very severe impeachment” ofGeneral Hancock’s conduct of his artillery. Ifully appreciate and honor the motive of GeneralWalker’s courteous criticism, and his very kindreferences to myself, but he writes under misap-prehensions which are widespread and misleading,and which, as they place me in a false position, Ibeg leave to explain.
General Hancock’s claim that he commandedall the troops of every description posted on hispart of Cemetery Ridge is perfectly valid. It can-not be disputed, and I never questioned it; butall commands must be exercised subject to theestablished principles for the government ofarmies. Under these, commanders of specialarms issue their own orders direct to their subor-dinates serving with army corps, who must submitthem to the corps commanders with whom theyserve. The latter, being supreme on their ownlines, can modify or countermand these orders,but by doing so they make themselves responsiblefor the result. Thus all conflicts or theories asto authority are avoided. Our “Regulations”(Scott’s), adopted in 1821, read:
“The superior officer of the corps of engineers, or ofthe artillery, serving with one of the army corps . . .will receive the orders of the commandant thereof, towhom the said superior officer of engineers or of artil-lery will communicate any orders he may receive fromhis own particular commandant-in-chief, attached togeneral headquarters.”
Separate paragraphs provided rules for themilitary “staff” and administration,—the latterincluding the supply departments. “ Staff-offi-cers ” are forbidden to give orders except in thenames of their generals. From this rule admin-istrative officers are specially exempted, theirchiefs directing their respective departments intheir own names, but subject to the control ofthe generals under whom they serve.
All these regulations are essential to the man-agement of a large army, but are only partlyapplicable to a two-company post, the school inwhich most of our officers, both of the war officeand of the regiments, were trained. So in the“Regulations” of 1801-3, they were all con-densed into one short paragraph:
“Staff-officers and commanders of artillery, engineers,and ordnance, report to tlioir immediate commandersthe state of the suppllos and whatever concerns theservice under their direction, and receive tlioir orders,and communicatotothem tlie orders they receive fromtlioir superiors in tlioir own corps.”
Closely examined, this is correct, but it is ob-scure and misleading. It lumps together officersof the staff and of administration as “ staff-officers,” and so connects them with those of thespecial arms as seemingly to confirm the errone-ous idea that engineer officers are staff-officers,and of course that artillery officers must be thesame. It is an odd notion, which could not fina lodgment in any other army than our own,an artillery commandant-in-chief, himself a “ corpscommander,” and provided with a staff of h iaown, is “one of the staff-officers” who runs aboua battle-field carrying “the actual and authenticorders ” of the goneral-in-eliiof to other corps com-