L A nm:> and wa t e r . 
March 2, 1916. 
remind?; one of those armies of seventeenth-century 
Scotland whicii were directed by the General Assembly 
or the Scottish Parhament and were terribly harried by 
Montrose. In Macaulay's phrase, an army is not likely 
to succeed if it is commanded by a debating society. 
Lincoln showed his greatness by hving through this 
dismal period and not losing his courage. Gradually 
he brought Congress to heel. Gradually lie established 
a dominance over his colleagues, and even the impossible 
Stanton fell under his spell. Gradually he purged the 
army of politiccd influence. Above all, as the war ad- 
vanced, he made a zealous inquest for military capacity, 
and he began to discover leaders on whom he could rely. 
He has been much blamed for interfering with his com- 
manders during the earUer campaigns, and the charge is 
just. But he was in an almost hopeless position. He had 
the howling politicians beliind him and before him 
generals who showed no real grasp of the situation. He 
conceived it his duty to interfere, and he often interfered 
foolishly, for he was still learning his job. But by and 
by he discovered the true soldiers— men who had fought 
their way up by sheer ability — men like Hancock and 
Thomas, Sherman and Sheridan. And above all he 
discovered Grant. 
Grant. 
There is surely no romance in all military history 
raore striking than the rise of Grant. At the beginning 
the North had cried out for brilliant generals, people who 
made " silver-tongued " speeches, people who could 
be hailed as young Napoleons. But the Napoleons and 
the silver-tongues vanished into obscurity, and the North 
found its salvation in a little rugged homely man from 
the West, who had done well in the Mexican war, but had 
failed since in every business he had undertaken and had 
become a byword in his family for unsuccess. He never 
spoke a word more than was necessary, he was unpre- 
possessing in appearance and uncouth in manner, but 
he was a true leader of men, ■ His habits had not always 
been regular, and the Pharisees of the North cried out 
against his appointment, declaring that no blessing could 
go with such a man. Lincoln replied by asking what 
was Grant's favourite brand of whiskey that he might 
send a cask of it to his other generals. 
If Grant can hardly stand in the first rank of the 
world's soldiers he was the very man for the task before 
him. He had iron nerve, iron patience, and an iron 
grip of the fundamentals of the case. Lincoln inter- 
fered with his earlier generals, but he never interfered 
with Grant. He knew a man when he saw him. There 
is a pleasant story in Grant's Memoirs of his first inter- 
view with the President after he took supreme command. 
" The President told me that he did not want to know 
what I proposed to do. But he submitted a plan of 
campaign of his own which he wanted me to hear and 
then do as I pleased about it. He brought out a map 
of Virginia and pointed out on that map two streams 
which empty into the Potomac, and suggested that the 
army might be moved in boats and landed between the 
mouths of these streams. We would then have the 
Potomac to bring our suppUes, and the tributaries would 
protect our flanks while we moved out. I listened 
respectfully, but did not suggest that the same streams 
would protect Lee's flanks while he was shutting us up." 
Lincoln made no more suggestions. He supported 
Grant during the terrible days in the Wilderness when 
the whole North was crying out against what seemed 
to be needless slaughter. The President had learned the 
truth of a favourite saying of Scharnhorst's : — " In war 
it is not so niuch what one does that matters, but that 
whatever action is agreed upon shall be carried out with 
unity and energy." 
Staff Work. 
The confusion in the leadership was reproduced in 
the very general dislocation of the Staff work. The 
problem of the North was very much our own problem. 
The original regular officers had been excellent. One 
French critic considers that the West-Pointers were better 
trained than any other officers in the world at the time. 
But they were too fcft to go round. The large new armies 
soon outgrew the supply of competent Staff oflicers, 
and a trained Staff is the one thing most difficult to im- 
provise. 
• We are all too apt to ask from the Staff an impossible 
perfection. Even the great Berthier nodded, and a 
volume could be filled with the mistakes of Napoleon's 
Staff officers. Efiicient Staff work in the modern sense 
really dates from Moltke, and it was efficient simply 
because his whole Staff had been organised and trained 
before the war. In a struggle of improvised armies 
the Staffs will rarely show anything like a high average 
of competence. There will be some officers of the first 
quality and very many hopelessly bad. Both North and 
South suffered in this respect. Hooker's Staff work at 
Chancellorsvillc was little worse than Longstreet's at 
Gettysburg. At the beginning of the war the North 
made the mistake of ranking Staff duties too low, and it 
was only much rough handling which drove out this 
heresy. 
'Towards the end of the war the Staffs on both sides 
had enormously improved, and remain to this day ex- 
amples of what can be done towards training Staff officers 
in the stress of a campaign. Lee's amazing stand in the 
Wilderness and Grant's ultimate victory would alike 
have been impossible with the Staff organisation of the 
first two years. 
Light and most interesting are the " Priixstan Memories 
1864 — 1914," of Mr. Poultncy Bigelow, which Messrs. (i. 
P. Putnam's Sons have just published. These memories 
go back to the time of the Franco- Prussian War, and they 
throw many vivid sidelights 01. Prussian character Iwth iu 
comparatively humble and exceedingly exalted quarters. 
The Kaiser and Prince Henry were playfellows of Mr. Bigelow 
in his boyhood ; they were Red Indians together, and it is 
evident that the author has a liking for Wilhelm II. Bismarck 
he particularly disliked, and the whole atmosphere of tiie 
Prussian Court seems to have jarred on him. It is a book 
to be read by all who wish to gain insight into German 
character. The experiences described are all first hand ; 
and the general effect which they leave on the mind of the 
reader is the extraordinary ignorance that has prevailed and 
that still to some degree does prevail in this country on 
the true nature of the German people. 
The latest addition to' Messrs. Duckworth's admirable 
half-crown Readers' Library is Life's Great Adi'cntme, a 
book of essays by Francis Stopford, which was originally 
published in 1912. These essays deal Ughtly with the deeper 
problems of life — problems which nowadays occupy the minds 
of so many more persons than they did four years ago. It 
may be remembered that a favourite topic four or five years 
ago was England's decadence, mainly the result, as we know 
now, of German inspiration. The writer would have none 
of it. " Neitlier' you nor anyone else," he obsei'ves to his 
friend Epicurus, '•will convince me that the day of our 
decline has dawned." The following brief passage reads 
e\en more to the point to-day than when it was written. " The 
true test of right living is not death in the odour of sanctity, 
but readiness to so fight, to so suffer, and last of all, if need be, 
to so die, that whatever calamity confronts us, the noblest 
traditions of our race shall continue vigorous through our 
actions. This may appear so small a matter, regarded from 
a personal point of view, that it can well be left to chance ; 
yet the life of the nation must hang on it one day — whether 
in this decade, or a century lience, who can tell ? " 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
AND AFTER 
MAnCH. 
Tho Reoraanisation of the Empire: Couiiaeh of Pprffictlon. 
liv SiK FRASris I'locoTi (late Cilicf Justioe of FIoiic Konc). 
One Conilition of Vktorv. Hy Cai-tain V^am. Battink. 
Vox PoiMili. By tiie KT. Hon. the Kap.l of Cromer, (i.e. I!.. o.M. 
The Cry for Authority in' Fraiiep. lly the Abui; ¥.v.\R»t DliiNET. 
• In Oremio Deonim "': a Kuper-Hiiitorical Pliantaisy (Berlin, 19- ?). 
By SIR Thomas Barci.av. 
Er.isinns. the VAacnioT of Kiirope. By PROP. Fosrnir Watson. H.l.lt. 
La Itataille .!e I'Vuer: Imprcssjons d'un T(-nioin. By KMILE Vakuervei.uk. 
I his Worhl's PLioe in the Universe. By A. P. Sivsttt. 
Infant Mortality; a I'rohlem of the Land. By WlUIAM A. BRENn. M.D., B.Sc. 
The Chilflren's Fowl. Bv Consihnoe K. JlAin. 
'The Riime Tongue hut not the Same Langnage': some Impressions in tlie 
Tnitejl States, 1914-15. By Gertride Kincstox. 
' Holy Uus.<.ia.' By the III. IlEV. BISHOP BURI (Bishop for Xorth and 
Central Kurope). 
Tile Return of Rouiseau: a Reply to Mr. Mallock. By CECii. Chesterton. 
Wilful Wuote, Woful Want. By F.DiTH Sellers. 
The Forests of Kussia and their Present Importanc* to the Allies. By E. P. 
STCBBiKd (Head of the Forestry Department, Edinburgh University). 
Lord Hardirigc's Viceroyalty. By A. TCBUP ALL 
London : Spott'iswoode & Co., Ltd., 5 New Street Square. 
