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I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I gave you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.
This lack of nerve is a more common fact in men in all walks of life than is usually recognized. He was unconquerable in defense, he did not know the word aggressive. Had he possessed some of the nerve of Sheridan, Hooker, Sherman, or any one of a hundred others, he would have been one of the four great generals of history. But he could not be persuaded or forced to attack.
The Scots, however, in all their wars, had more occasion for good and cautious generals, than for excitation, whether political or enthusiastic. Their headlong and impatient courage uniformly induced them to rush into action without duly weighing either their own situation, or that of their enemies, and the inevitable consequence was frequent defeat.
The next day he issued a general order which organized the army of the Potomac into corps, and promoted to the rank of corps commanders, those elder generals whose point of view was similar to his own.
This defect he had hoped to remedy in the last three weeks before opening the campaign. The third element in a fatal triad was the temper of his generals, which was restless and insubordinate almost from the outset.
Dick Hazlewood was at this time thirty-four years old, an officer of hard work and distinction, one of the younger men to whom the generals look to provide the brains in the next great war. He had the religion of his type.
Napoleon took possession of it, without at first fixing his abode there, curious to admire its barbarous magnificence, not yet subjected to the influence of French elegance like the houses of the rich merchants already occupied by his generals. The whole army gazed with delight upon this strange and long-anticipated sight.
His talk reminded me somehow of Maurice Baring's books; it had just the same quick, positive understanding. And he had just the same detachment from the war as the French generals. He spoke of it as one might speak of an inundation. And of its difficulties and perplexities.
This idea was suggested by General Knox and was matured in a meeting composed of the generals, and of deputies from the regiments, at which Major-General Steuben presided.
We'll certainly bring on a battle to-morrow, and we ought to have all our army present. I shall send a messenger at once to General Buell with your news. Messengers shall also go to Crittenden, Rousseau, and the other generals. But you recognize, of course, that General Buell is the commander-in-chief, and that it is for him to make the final arrangements."
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