Again, not every good captain made a good colonel, and not every good brigade commander was fit for a division or a larger command.

There was a constantly widening test of capacity, and a rapid thinning of the numbers found fit for great responsibilities until the command of great armies was reached, when two or three names are all that we can enumerate as having been proven during the four years of our civil strife to be fully equal to the task.
Besides the indications of unfitness for the subordinate commands which I have mentioned, another classification may be made.

In an agricultural community (and the greater part of our population was and is agricultural), a middle-aged farmer who had been thrifty in business and had been a country magistrate or a representative in the legislature, would be the natural leader in his town or county, and if his patriotism prompted him to set the example of enlisting, he would probably be chosen to a company office, and perhaps to a field office in the regiment.

Absolutely ignorant of tactics, he would find that his habits of mind and body were too fixed, and that he could not learn the new business into which he had plunged.

He would be abashed at the very thought of standing before a company and shouting the word of command.