What
Lincoln did not see was that to divide the Federal army into three
portions, working on three separate lines, was to run a far greater
risk than would be incurred by leaving Washington weakly garrisoned.
I cannot bring myself to believe that he in the least realised all
that was involved in changing a plan of operations so vast as
McClellan's.
Again, look at the folly of which Mr. Benjamin, the Confederate
Secretary of War, was guilty at the same period. The reader should
carefully study the chapter in which Colonel Henderson describes
Stonewall Jackson's resignation of his command when his arrangements
in the field were altered, without his cognizance, by the Secretary
of War.
I should like to emphasise his words: "That the soldier," he says,
"is but the servant of the statesman, as war is but an instrument of
diplomacy, no educated soldier will deny. Politics must always
exercise a supreme influence on strategy; yet it cannot be gainsaid
that interference with the commander in the field is fraught with the
gravest danger."* (* Volume 1 chapter 7.)
The absolute truth of this remark is proved, not only by many
instances in his own volumes, but by the history of war in all ages,
and the principle for which Jackson contended when he sent in his
resignation would seem too well founded to be open to the slightest
question.
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