I was a participant in many of the earlier battles fought by the army of the Potomac; but my opportunities for acquiring accurate information touching the general aspects of the field were necessarily limited to that part of it within my own immediate range of vision, and even here—so rigidly did our commanders aim to reduce us to mere automatons—we were often in the dark as to the meaning of this or that movement. I strove hard to master the situation, but not until the war closed and the reports of commanders were given to the public, did I have other than a very indefinite conception of much that transpired about me. Why we made this or that change of front; why we were kept for hours in line of battle beneath a broiling sun with no enemy in sight; why we were rushed from one point to another in an apparently hap-hazard manner, enduring fatigue and hunger and subsisting upon wormy “hardtack;” why we were pushed against impregnable positions, when a flank movement seemed to our inexperienced eyes the proper thing to do—now fighting, now building corduroy roads, digging rifle-pits or supporting batteries in our rear, which did more execution upon us, by reason of defective ammunition, than upon the enemy—concerning all these points, and many more we were anxious to be informed, but not one atom of information could we get. “Ours not to inquire why, Ours but to do and die.” Was this reticence in pursuance of the mistaken theory that machine soldiers are best? Or was it because “some one had blundered,” and ignorance or incapacity, or something still worse, could be the more easily concealed? Whatever the reason, the fact remains that to the rank and file much of the campaigning done up to 1863–64 seemed to them worse than needless;—and looking back over that period with the light of history thrown upon it, I am not prepared to say the rank and file were mistaken in their estimate. I was impressed then, and the impression has never been effaced, that the reticence observed toward the men in the ranks touching what was going on about them, was a grievous error on the part of our commanders. It is a question, certainly, whether it would not have been better to have kept the “boys” informed of the real military situation and of what they were expected to achieve. The belief that much of the hardship endured was the result of blundering generals, or, worse, of criminal indifference, did much to unman our soldiers and cause them to lose faith and hope. Our volunteers were not machine soldiers, as some of the West Pointers seemed to presume, but patriotic, thinking and observing men who could fight best when they fought understandingly. I am told that the rebel commanders pursued a different policy, and although their soldiers were mentally inferior to ours, kept them apprized of the general situation and of what they must do to accomplish the end sought. Who shall say how many of the confederate