The period of organization, brief as it was, had been valuable to the regiments, and it had been of the utmost importance to secure the re-enlistment of those which had received some instruction. It had been, in the condition of the statute law, from necessity and not from choice that the Administration had called out the state militia for ninety days. The new term of enrolment was for "three years or the war," and the forces were now designated as United States Volunteers. It would have been well if the period of apprenticeship could have been prolonged; but events would not wait. All recognized the necessity, and thankful as we should have been for a longer preparation and more thorough instruction, we were eager to be ordered away. McClellan had been made a major-general in the regular army, and a department had been placed under his command which included the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to which was added a little later West Virginia north of the Great Kanawha. [Footnote: McClellan's Report and Campaigns (New York, 1864), p. 8. McClellan's Own Story, p. 44. Official Records, vol. ii. p. 633.] Rosecrans was also appointed a brigadier-general in the regulars, and there was much debate at the time whether the Administration had intended this. Many insisted that he was nominated for the volunteer service, and that the regular appointment was a clerical mistake in the bureaus at Washington. There was no solid foundation for this gossip. A considerable increase of the regular army was authorized by law, and corresponding appointments were made, from major-general downward. It was at this time that Sherman was made colonel of one of the new regiments of regulars. It would perhaps have been wiser to treat the regular commissions as prizes to be won only by conspicuous and successful service in the field, as was done later; but this policy was not then adopted, and the newly created offices were filled in all grades. They were, of course, given to men from whom great services could reasonably be expected; but when none had been tested in the great operations of war, every appointment was at the risk that the officer might not show the special talent for command which makes a general. It was something of a lottery, at best; but the system would have been improved if a method of retiring inefficient officers had been adopted at once. The ostensible reason for the different organization of volunteers and regulars was that the former, as a temporary force to meet an exigency, might be wholly disbanded when the war should end, without affecting the permanent army, which was measured in size by the needs of the country in its normal condition. CHAPTER III MCCLELLAN IN WEST VIRGINIA.