ABSTRACT
Command, and a proper sense of the duties that belong to the commander, are central to the conduct of war. Without a central directing brain, armies degenerate into violent mobs or apathetic hosts, and are unable to achieve the political and military objectives set for them. This chapter, therefore, concentrates on the structures and systems of command during the American Civil War, rather than on the personal qualities needed to be an effective commander, although these are hardly unimportant. The emperor Napoleon, who inspired a cult in the United States in the years before 1865, was of the opinion that centralization of command in war was essential and that one bad general was better than two good ones. In war, he repeated, it is the man who counts. The experience of the Napoleonic Wars was to cast a spell over the American imagination before 1861, the full consequences of which have yet to be investigated by historians. The simple, dramatic, and rather glamorous appeal of the great individual in battle-the great captain-overlooked the important fact that Napoleon waged war before the full effects of the industrial revolution had made themselves felt in Continental Europe.
