depended on alertness and dash.  He was too cautious, and as such, too slow.  The two Georgia brigades, a Mississippi brigade, and a South Carolina brigade, composed mostly of the first volunteers from their respective States, needed as a commander a hotspur like our own J.B.  Kershaw.  While the army watched with sorrow and regret the departure of our old and faithful General, one who had been with us through so many scenes of trials, hardships, and bloodshed, whose name had been so identified with that of our own as to be almost a part of it, still none could deny that the change was better for the service and the Confederacy.

One great trouble with the organization of our army was that too many old and incompetent officers of the old regular army commanded it.  And the one idea that seemed to haunt the President was that none but those who had passed through the great corridors and halls of West Point could command armies or men—­that civilians without military training were unfit for the work at hand—­furthermore, he had favorites, that no failures or want of confidence by the men could shake his faith in as to ability and Generalship.  What the army needed was young blood—­no old army fossils to command the hot-blooded, dashing, enthusiastic volunteers, who could do more in their impetuosity with the bayonet in a few moments than in days and months of manoeuvering, planning, and fighting battles by rules or conducting campaigns by following the precedent of great commanders, but now obsolete.

When the gallant Joe Kershaw took the command and began to feel his way for his Major General’s spurs, the division took on new life.  While the brigade was loath to give him up, still they were proud of their little “Brigadier,” who had yet to carve out a name for himself on the pillars of fame, and write his achievements high up on the pages of history in the campaign that was soon to begin.

It seems from contemporaneous history that President Davis was baiting between two opinions, either to have Longstreet retire by way of the mountains and relieve the pressure against Johnston, now in command of Bragg’s Army, or to unite with Lee and defend the approaches to Richmond.

A counsel of war was held in Richmond between the President, General Bragg as the military advisor of his Excellency, General Lee, and General Longstreet, to form some plan by which Grant might be checked or foiled in the general grand advance he was preparing to make along the whole line.  The Federal armies of Mississippi and Alabama had concentrated in front of General Johnston and were gradually pressing him back into Georgia.

Grant had been made commander in chief of all the armies of the North, with headquarters with General Meade, in front of Lee, and he was bending all his energies, his strategies, and boldness in his preparations to strike Lee a fatal blow.