THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 71 extremely critical condition. Unfortunately everything dragged with us. The roads were long in drying, the bridges were long in building. “Never have we seen so rainy a season,” said the oldest inhabitant. “Never did we see bridges so difficult to build,” said the engineers. The abominable river laughed at all their efforts. Too narrow for a bridge of boats, too deep and too muddy for piers, here a simple brook some ten yards wide, flowing betwen two plains of quicksand in which the horses sank up to the girths and which offered no bearings—there divided into a thousand tiny rivulets spread over a surface of three hundred yards and traversing one of those 'wooded morasses which are peculiar to tropical countries, changing its level and its bed from day to day, the river in its capricious and uncertain sway annulled and undid to-day the labors of^festerday, carried on under a burning sun and often under the lire of the enemy. And so went by days upon days, precious irrecoverable days I Perhaps, let us frankly say it, the army was not so eager to act as it ought to have been. To advance and meet the enemy upon his own ground was an adventurous enterprise somewhat foreign to an American army. In that country men affect the slow, circumspect, methodical kind of war which leaves nothing to chance. This delay, as we have already remarked, is part of the national character; it is, also, to a certain extent, imposed upon the generals by the nature of their troops. These troops are very brave, but as we have attempted to show, it follows from the weakness of the hierarchical bond among them that one can never be sure that they will do exactly what they are ordered to do. Individual wills, as capricious as popular majorities, play too great a part among them. The leader has to turn his head to see if his men are following him. Ue is not certain that his subordinates are attached to him by the ties of discipline and duty. Hence, hesitation, and with it conditions un-
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