The failure to provide for a thorough test and sifting of the material was a governmental error.

It was palliated by the necessity of conciliating influential men, and of avoiding antagonisms when the fate of the nation trembled in the balance; but this was a political motive, and the evil was probably endured in spite of its well-known tendency to weaken the military service.
A few months' campaigning in the field got us rid of most of the "town-meeting style" of conducting military affairs in the army itself, though nothing could cure the practice on the part of unscrupulous men of seeking reputation with the general public by dishonest means.

The newspapers were used to give fictitious credit to some and to injure others.

If the regular correspondents of the press had been excluded from the camps, there would no doubt have been surreptitious correspondence which would have found its way into print through private and roundabout channels.

But this again was not a vice peculiar to officers appointed from civil life.