William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac

[17] People it was decreed there should arise no imperial presence to become the central figure and cynosure of men's eyes Napoleon, in an outburst of haughty eloquence, exclaims that in the great armies of history the Commander was every thing. ‘It was not,’ says he, ‘the Roman army that conquered Gaul, but Caesar; it was not the Carthaginian army that made Rome tremble at her gates, but Hannibal; it was not the Macedonian army that marched to the Indus, but Alexander; it was not the Prussian army that defended Prussia for seven years against the three most powerful States of Europe, but Frederick.’ This proud apotheosis has no application for the Army of the Potomac. And one must think —seeing it never had a great, and generally had mediocre commanders—it was that it might be said, that whatever it won it owed not to genius, but bought with its blood.

I must now add, that it would be to fail to draw some of the most important lessons furnished by the history of the army whose deeds form the subject-matter of this volume, if I should fail to set forth the relations of that army with the central authority at Washington. The conduct of a war under a popular government introduces new conditions into the established military system and traditions, and greatly complicates the duties of the commander. Now the history of the American war affords a new and enlarged exhibition of the behavior of a democratical Executive, suddenly plunged into the governance of great military affairs. While a sense of justice will suggest the exercise of much lenience in the judgment of an Administration called to a difficult task, it is none the less incumbent on the historian to point out errors and follies that cost much.

In the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac there is presented a remarkable unity, both as regards the theatre of operations and the objective of operations. The theatre was Virginia; the objective, Richmond. The first military aspiration of the North expressed itself in the vehement cry, ‘On to Richmond:’ and when, after many battles and campaigns,