And yet this army thus congratulated was the weakest in organization of any great army that ever existed. It was not imperfect in its details; on the contrary, it was very admirable in that respect, but certainly no army was ever so weak in its corps commanders--McCook, Crittenden, and Gilbert. Circumstances took the organization out of Buell's hand. On the arrival of the army at Louisville in pursuit of Bragg, in September, 1862, General Halleck, then commander-in-chief, concluded that Buell ought to be removed. Halleck was one of those men who, instead of arguing himself from an array of facts into a correct position, would first conclude that affairs were in the condition that he wished or feared, and would then argue himself into the belief that they undoubtedly were so. He would wish his enemy to occupy a certain position, and actually bring himself to the belief that he had done so. Too good a lawyer ever to be a good soldier, he depended for success on tricks in war as he had on quibbles in the law. He concluded, in 1862, that Buell's army was demoralized through want of confidence in its commander, and decided upon his removal. The command was tendered to General George H. Thomas, who not only declined, but promptly urged the retention of General Buell. The other corps commanders then joined in this request, and Buell was retained. He was forced to hastily organize his army in order to continue the pursuit of Bragg, and, consolidating Nelson's army, decided upon three corps, with Nelson, McCook, and Crittenden in command, while General Thomas acted as second under Buell. This last arrangement was very faulty. Thomas was the best man in the army, and this arrangement virtually deprived the army of his services, and made him merely an inspector general. Before the campaign had opened, Nelson, who was a very superior soldier, was assassinated, and his place was supplied--it is really ridiculous to say so, however--by General C. C. Gilbert. Never did a single army possess three such weak corps commanders as Alexander McDowell McCook, C. C. Gilbert, and Thomas L. Crittenden. They were doubtless brave and gallant--every soldier is supposed to be that; they doubtless did their duty to their full ability--every soldier does that, and expects no particular commendation for it; but these men were not capacitated by nature or education for the positions they held. Not one of them had any iron in his nature--neither were deep reasoners or positive characters. They were of that class of men who "intended to do well," but who, without any fixed and unswerving principle to guide them, vacillated and procrastinated until the great motive and the propitious time for action had passed, and left them the doers only of positive evil or negative good, which is just as bad. McCook was an overgrown school-boy, without dignity (Sherman, once alluding to him, called him "a juvenile"); Crittenden was a country lawyer with little legal and no