Still it may reasonably be assumed that officers of the classes mentioned have usually made themselves somewhat familiar with the best writings on military art.

If we had in the country in 1861 a class of men who could be called educated soldiers in the scientific sense, we certainly should find them in the several corps just referred to.
Here, however, we have to meet the question What is military art as applied to the problem of winning battles or campaigns?
We are obliged to answer that outside of the business administration and supply of an army, and apart from the technical knowledge of engineering and the construction of fire-arms and ammunition, it consists in the tactical handling of bodies of men in accordance with very few and very simple principles of strategy.

The literature of the subject is found in the history of wars analyzed by competent men like Napoleon, Jomini, the Archduke Charles, Sir William Napier, Clausewitz, Moltke, Hamley, and others; but it may be broadly said that the principles of this criticism and analysis may be so briefly stated as to be printed on the back of a visiting-card.

[Footnote: Prince Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, in his admirable "Letters on Strategy," states them in five brief primary axioms.

Letters on Strategy, vol.i.pp.