near home.  The Secretary of War, sometimes moved by private reasons, or more likely to oblige the member of Congress, grants the order, of which the commanding general knows nothing till he reads it in the newspapers.  Also, an Indian tribe, goaded by the pressure of white neighbors, breaks out in revolt.  The general-in-chief must reenforce the local garrisons not only with men, but horses, wagons, ammunition, and food.  All the necessary information is in the staff bureaus in Washington, but the general has no right to call for it, and generally finds it more practicable to ask by telegraph of the distant division or department commanders for the information before making the formal orders.  The general in actual command of the army should have a full staff, subject to his own command.  If not, he cannot be held responsible for results.

General Rawlins sank away visibly, rapidly, and died in Washington, September 6,1869, and I was appointed to perform the duties of his office till a successor could be selected.  I realized how much easier and better it was to have both offices conjoined.

The army then had one constitutional commander-in-chief of both army and navy, and one actual commanding general, bringing all parts into real harmony.  An army to be useful must be a unit, and out of this has grown the saying, attributed to Napoleon, but doubtless spoken before the days of Alexander, that an army with an inefficient commander was better than one with two able heads.  Our political system and methods, however, demanded a separate Secretary of War, and in October President Grant asked me to scan the list of the volunteer generals of good record who had served in the civil war, preferably from the “West.”  I did so, and submitted to him in writing the names of W. W. Belknap, of Iowa; G. M. Dodge, the Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad; and Lucius Fairchild, of Madison, Wisconsin.  I also named General John W. Sprague, then employed by the Northern Pacific Railroad in Washington Territory.  General Grant knew them all personally, and said if General Dodge were not connected with the Union Pacific Railroad, with which the Secretary of War must necessarily have large transactions, he would choose him, but as the case stood, and remembering the very excellent speech made by General Belknap at the Chicago reunion of December, 1868, he authorized me to communicate with him to ascertain if he were willing to come to Washington as Secretary of War.  General Belknap was then the collector of internal revenue at Keokuk, Iowa.  I telegraphed him and received a prompt and favorable answer.  His name was sent to the Senate, promptly confirmed, and he entered on his duties October 25,1869.  General Belknap surely had at that date as fair a fame as any officer of volunteers of my personal acquaintance.  He took up the business where it was left off, and gradually fell into the current which led to the command of the army itself as of the legal and financial matters