The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-06-16
GENERALSHIP.
MILITARY Regulations SOMETIMES
DEPEND ON 1.-THE CHANCES"
The Leading Commanders of the Late
Civil War-When 1t Was Safe to
Reckon on Errors and When
It Was Not.
[san Francisco ChronicIe.l

History only records the fame Of two gen
erals who made their reputation after they
were so; one was John Churchill duke Of
Marlborough, who made his fame at Ramil-
lies when he was So, and crowned it at
Bouchain when he was 81; the other is Won
Moltke, who was &c at Sado6a and 20 at
Sedan. His merit was so little suspected
that when he sought permission TO leave the
Danish service to join the German army his
application was sarcasticaI~ indoTssd:
Capt. Won Moltke will not be much missed"
Somewhere in his conversations Gen Grant
gives il as his opinion that a general should
not be over 40 or 45. He ought in order 10
do his duty, to be able to sleep under a tree,
to dispense with more than one meal day,
TO do his own accommodating, and for all this
a man of 50 is unfit. Grant said that in the
campaign before Vicksburg he slept
wherever he happened to be when he could
catch spare hour, and he was satisfied with
one meel day. Sherman did the same.
Neither Of them took off his boots for weeks.
Napoleon wrote to Joseph from Eylau: ave
have not had our clothes off for two months,
and have been living in snow and mud,
without bread, wine, or brandy, subsisting
on potatoes and a little meat" The EN-
peror always maintained that the battle of
Busaco was lost because -Massena had neg
lected to make a personal reconnaissance of tbar
ground. Won Moltke made no personal re-
connoisances but he had to studied the
country in which he had to meet the French
in 1870 that he knew every stream and hill
and road, and almost every tree.
Military regulations are curious things.
If you ask any well-educated foreigner who
was the greatest general of our war, ten to
one he will answer Gen. Lee. Yet soldiers
know that Lee was a mere desk general,
without plan or dash. Before the war old
Gen Scott, who loved him, used to say that,
\. ~ - Ty-L
the only man in this country who could
handle 80, 900 men. He took this reputation
into the southern army, and he was idolized.
He a courteous, dignided man, who
made himself up after Washington. His
soldiers trusted him implicitly, and he had
the inner lines, so that it rec1oned he
had won victory every time he escaped
humiliation.
President Davis was deferential to him, and
the corps commanders regarded him ON
niscient and invincible. But, in point of
fact, there is not one of his battles which
military students will hereafter be required
to study. So with Stonewall jackson. He
was known at West Point as a religious
fanatic. In the southern army he was enter
prising, audaciOus, swift in action, but a
man might easily make reputation when
he has only commanders like Banks and
Fremont and Mcclellan to encounter. If
meet such men as Sherman and Sheridan
his fame might not have stood as high as it
does
When our war broke out, the eyes of sol
diers were fixed upon Mcclellan, Rosecrans,
Stone, Mcdowell and Buell. These were to
be the coming men. They all proved failures.
Grant cut no figure in Mexico Sherman
was said to be crank. Sheridan was
known. 1t required circumstances to de-
velop them. Grant showed from the first
the intuitive capacity of the born soldier.
After the fall of Fort Donelson, a brother-in-
arms took the liberty of drawing his atten-
ton to the awful risk he had run by deviat-
ing from the rules Of war. The general re-
piled: eyes know all that but knew the
men on the other side and took the chances.
You do not suppose l would have acted so if
Lee had been in command of the fort!" So
when he resolved on his march round Vicks-
burg by way of the river, he knew that he
acting contrary to the rules of war, but
he took the risks, and for fear of interference
from Washington, he would not let Gen.
Halleck know what he was doing till he was
past recall Sure enough, as soon as tele-
grams could reach him, Halleck counter
manded the movement; but it was too late,
and in due course VIcksburg fell.
Toward the close Of the war the generals
on both sides began to understand their
business and it was not safe to reckon on
errors escaping notice. The north it must
be admitted, had good deal of good luck
If Lee had had the enterprise to break
through Meade's line and join Johnston in
North Carolina after the surrender of Rich
mond, the war might have been indefinitely
prolonged. If Hood had had common sense
enough to give Nashville the go-by and
march through Kentucky into Ohio, there
is no saying what the results might not have
been. He could probably have cut the
~
But he was not enough of general to see
the opportunity which Thomas inertia
offered him.
I A truly great general must know when to
obey the laws of war and when TO violate
them. This is just what Grant and Sher-
man knew. Napoleon, in his compendium
of military instructions to his brother
Joseph when he went to Spain, enjoined
upon him: "The art of war is an art which
is founded on principles that must not be
violated To lose ones line of operation is
q performance dangerous that to be
guilty of it is a crime" Yet this is just
what Sherman did in Georgia, with the
happiest results. So with the French them
selves in Algeria The first rule of war is
that an army must consist of due proper
tions of cavalry, infantry, and artillery,
yet the first order of the day issued by
Bugeaud when he took command of the
French army directed nine-tenths Of the
artillery to be shipped back to France. He
wanted to train his troops to fighting at
short range, and TO lure the enemy into
close quarters. The result was the battle of
Isly. When history comes to be deliber-
ately written and men are measured not by
what people said of them at the time, but
by what they actually did, the southern
generals who will stand highest in the ranks
of fame-side by side with Grant and Nc
or1H ShariHan-W-in
be Gems. Joe Johnston and Albert Sidney
Johnston.
What Killed the Doctor.