the South possessed over the North at the beginning of the rebellion.  They had from thirty to forty per cent. of the educated soldiers of the Nation.  They had no standing army and, consequently, these trained soldiers had to find employment with the troops from their own States.  In this way what there was of military education and training was distributed throughout their whole army.  The whole loaf was leavened.

The North had a great number of educated and trained soldiers, but the bulk of them were still in the army and were retained, generally with their old commands and rank, until the war had lasted many months.  In the Army of the Potomac there was what was known as the “regular brigade,” in which, from the commanding officer down to the youngest second lieutenant, every one was educated to his profession.  So, too, with many of the batteries; all the officers, generally four in number to each, were men educated for their profession.  Some of these went into battle at the beginning under division commanders who were entirely without military training.  This state of affairs gave me an idea which I expressed while at Cairo; that the government ought to disband the regular army, with the exception of the staff corps, and notify the disbanded officers that they would receive no compensation while the war lasted except as volunteers.  The register should be kept up, but the names of all officers who were not in the volunteer service at the close, should be stricken from it.

On the 9th of November, two days after the battle of Belmont, Major-General H. W. Halleck superseded General Fremont in command of the Department of the Missouri.  The limits of his command took in Arkansas and west Kentucky east to the Cumberland River.  From the battle of Belmont until early in February, 1862, the troops under my command did little except prepare for the long struggle which proved to be before them.

The enemy at this time occupied a line running from the Mississippi River at Columbus to Bowling Green and Mill Springs, Kentucky.  Each of these positions was strongly fortified, as were also points on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers near the Tennessee state line.  The works on the Tennessee were called Fort Heiman and Fort Henry, and that on the Cumberland was Fort Donelson.  At these points the two rivers approached within eleven miles of each other.  The lines of rifle pits at each place extended back from the water at least two miles, so that the garrisons were in reality only seven miles apart.  These positions were of immense importance to the enemy; and of course correspondingly important for us to possess ourselves of.  With Fort Henry in our hands we had a navigable stream open to us up to Muscle Shoals, in Alabama.  The Memphis and Charleston Railroad strikes the Tennessee at Eastport, Mississippi, and follows close to the banks of the river up to the shoals.  This road, of vast importance to the enemy, would cease to be of use to them for