Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[398] methodical mind in organizing the army, whose strength increased daily. He began by restoring order in the streets of Washington, where were a disorderly crowd of recruits who had not rejoined their regiments, soldiers who had left theirs, and wagons of every description, which indifferently performed the service of supplytrains. Almost alone at the beginning to superintend everything, he sought everywhere for special officers capable of assisting him; his zeal was imparted to all his subordinates, and a fruitful diligence succeeded the fruitless agitation which had prevailed before his coming.

The instruction of recruits is nearly the same in every country. In America it was the more difficult because the ignorance of the officers equalled that of the soldiers. The new regiments on their arrival were encamped in the immediate vicinity of the city, and they were only formed into brigades after a certain period of preparation. The general-in-chief took care to assign them, as much as possible, to corps where the new comers found comrades already better instructed than themselves. The brigades, consisting of four regiments or battalions averaging eight hundred men each, were about three thousand two hundred strong. They were united, by threes, to form divisions of ten thousand men, to each of which was added a regiment of cavalry, three batteries of volunteer artillery, and one from the regular army. All the branches of the administrative service were reorganized, and so constituted as to meet the wants of the large army which was thus being formed of all three parts. The materiel which reached Washington from the ports and manufacturing cities of the Union was so classified as to simplify matters more and more. Constant inspections by the general himself and his aides-de-camp ensured a strict performance of his orders and hastened the completion of the work he had imposed upon each individual.

Three months were thus spent. The active operations which took place during that period were so trifling that a few words will suffice to describe them, but the country which was their theatre plays so important a part in the course of this history, that it is proper to give once for all a description of it. The confluence of the Shenandoah and the Potomac at Harper's Ferry doubles the volume of the latter river, whose deep and rapid waters form, in a