works at Munfordsville, Kentucky, in September, 1862, when Chalmers had assaulted them without orders. He subsequently got into like difficulties with Forrest, but his readiness to fight and general good qualities brought him safely out of his troubles. In the engagement at Boonesville his readiness to fight was evinced to Sheridan's satisfaction, while Sheridan's superior endurance and enterprise were made apparent to the rebel at the same time. It was this success which made Sheridan a brigadier general. It has always been an unfortunate feature of our army organization that there is no provision for the promotion of the deserving in the branch of the service in which they have won distinction, and for which they have evinced high qualifications. A colonel of cavalry shows himself eminently deserving of promotion by his services in that branch, and he is promoted to be brigadier general of _infantry_, and not only taken from the line of the service for which he is best fitted, but, though promoted in rank, is sent to command an inferior arm of the service. By this fault of organization not only does the army lose the service of the person thus promoted out of his sphere, but often the promotion becomes the ruin of the recipient, who may be totally unfitted for this new line of duty. There are numerous examples of this. Among several of these failures, which have resulted from this cause, two of the most notable were of persons in Sheridan's own class. I have elsewhere already noticed how Terrill, who, as a captain of artillery, gained a great reputation for his successful handling of his battery at Shiloh, and who was promoted to be a brigadier general of infantry, to utterly fail and throw away his young life in his chagrin and desperation. McPherson's success outside of the engineer corps was no greater. He graduated at the head of his class, distinguished himself as an engineer, was promoted rapidly from captain to corps commander, only to find himself totally unfitted for such duty, and in time to waste, by his inadaptation to infantry and his lack of decision, the rich fruits of Sherman's successful strategic march through Snake Creek Gap upon Resaca.