“It will take too long to explain, but I can tell you how to cure it.  Give Parker [the Indian Chief] a tomahawk, a supply of commissary whiskey and a scalping knife and send him out with orders to bring in the scalps of general officers.”

During this same visit and frequently afterwards Rawlins, in a white rage, inveighed against the desperate practice of blindly assaulting fortified lines, and denounced in unmeasured terms all who favored them or failed to make adequate preparation for success, where any just excuse could be found for resorting to them.  It is worthy of remark, without reference to the origin of the practice, or to the persons who were responsible for it, that General Grant alone had the power to stop it, and that later there was a noticeable change in the Army of the Potomac in regard to that practice, although it should be noted that Sherman followed it as an example in his desperate, but unsuccessful assault of the enemy’s impregnable fortifications on Kenesaw Mountain, for the purpose, as he frankly explained, of showing that his army could also assault strongly fortified lines.

That such a costly practice could spring up and obtain imitation in our army is a striking commentary upon the lack of intelligent supervision over the essential details of its daily operations.  It affords ample justification for again calling attention to the fact that in this respect the Confederate Army was much better off and more fortunate than the Union Army.  Its generals, although not without fault, were much more careful in the management of their military details than ours were.  Jefferson Davis was himself an educated soldier of great capacity, and selected none but educated and experienced military men for high command.  While Lee’s staff was far from faultless in organization, he had supreme authority in the field, with no army or independent corps commanders between him and the troops.  His army corps were led by generals of the first rank, who took their orders directly from him, and no unnecessary time was lost in their transmission or execution, nor was there any uncertainty as to whose duty it was to work out and superintend the details of attack and defence.  But whatever may be said in further elucidation of this important subject, I cannot help expressing regret that General Smith, who had shown such rare talents in another field, for planning and executing the most complicated movements, should not have had in this an opportunity to add to his fame, instead of being sent out as a subordinate to a general who, however great his talents as a lawyer and a militiaman, had developed no special aptitude as an army commander.  In this connection the important fact should he recalled that Generals Barnard and Meigs, officers of the highest training and distinction, at the request of General Grant, shortly after the fiasco of Bermuda Hundred, had been sent by the Washington authorities to make an investigation of General Butler’s fitness