Bold scouting was impossible with such
mounted troops as Banks possessed, and throughout the Valley campaign
the Northern general was simply groping in the dark.
But even had his cavalry been more efficient, it is doubtful whether
Banks would have profited. His appointment was political. He was an
ardent Abolitionist, but he knew nothing whatever of soldiering. He
had begun life as a hand in a cotton factory. By dint of energy and
good brains his rise had been rapid; and although, when the war broke
out, he was still a young man, he had been Governor of Massachusetts
and Speaker of the House of Representatives. What the President
expected when he gave him an army corps it is difficult to divine;
what might have been expected any soldier could have told him. To
gratify an individual, or perhaps to conciliate a political faction,
the life of many a private soldier was sacrificed. Lincoln, it is
true, was by no means solitary in the unwisdom of his selections for
command. His rival in Richmond, it is said, had a fatal penchant for
his first wife's relations; his political supporters were constantly
rewarded by appointments in the field, and the worst disasters that
befell the Confederacy were due, in great part, to the blunders of
officers promoted for any other reason than efficiency.
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