CONFEDERATE ADVANTAGES--THE LEADING GENERAL OFFICERS--GRADUATES OF WEST POINT JOIN THE CONFEDERACY--CAPITAL REMOVED FROM MONTGOMERY--PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CALL FOR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS--SOUTHERN PRIVATEERS--"ON TO RICHMOND!"
Although up to this time no important engagements between the troops had taken place, the war was actually begun. The Sumter affair had been the signal for both sides to throw away subterfuge and disguise, and it became thenceforth an open struggle for military advantage. The South no longer pleaded State rights, but military necessity, for seizing such Government posts and property as were within reach; the North no longer acted under the restraint of hesitation to commit an open breach, for the peace was broken irrevocably, and whatever it was possible to do, in the way of defence or offence, was now become politic.
The two contending powers were entering on the struggle under very different conditions and with unequal advantages. Before taking up the military operations which ensued, it will be interesting to look at these conditions.
On both sides there were many experienced army and navy officers, who had seen service, had been educated at the United States Military and Naval Academies, and had either remained { 48} in the service or, having withdrawn to civil life, were prompt to offer their swords to the side to which they adhered. Assuming the number and quality of these officers to have been equally divided, there were several respects in which the Confederates had the advantage in their preliminary organization, apart from the studied care with which disloyal cabinet officers had scattered the Federal regular army and had stripped Northern posts of supplies and of trustworthy commandants. President Lincoln came on from his Western home without knowledge of war, acquaintance with military men, or familiarity with military matters, and was immediately plunged into emergencies requiring in the Executive an intimate knowledge of all three. He became the titular commander-in-chief of an army already officered, but not only ignorant as to whether he had the right man in the right place, but powerless to make changes even had he known what changes to make, by reason of the law and the traditions governing the _personnel_ of the service, in which promotion and personal relations were fixed and established. He found a military establishment that had been running on a peace footing for more than a decade and was not readily adaptable to war conditions; and officers in high command, who, as their States seceded, followed them out of the Union, carrying with them the latest official secrets and leaving behind them vacancies which red-tape and tradition, and not the free choice of the commander-in-chief, were to fill. His near advisers, particularly those in whose hands were the details of military administration, were scarcely better informed than himself, possessing political shrewdness and undoubted loyalty, but none of the professional knowledge of which he stood so sorely in need.