Many fail through over-caution. A course duly weighed, venture all.
In a more recent number of Robert L. Taylor’s magazine, a
leading article speaks of Admiral Farragut, at Mobile. The
_Brooklyn_ hesitated to go forward. “What’s the matter?”
asked the Admiral. “Torpedoes,” replied the captain. “D----n
the torpedoes,--full speed against the enemy!” He meant no
profanity, but it was a time for action of the most pronounced
sort. The best protection against the enemy’s fire is a
well-directed fire from our own guns.
General Grant in the civil war of 1861–65 said, “The best
defense of Washington is an army before Richmond.” These
epigrammatic maxims are the best accepted fighting rules known
to warfare to this day.
(53)
* * * * *
Colonel Henderson, of the British Army, says in the _Science of War_:
The Federal strategy in the last year of the war, with Grant
in command and Sherman his lieutenant, stands out in marked
relief to the disjointed, partial, and complicated operations
of the previous years.... Grant seems to have been the first to
recognize that, as von Moltke puts it, the true objective of
a campaign is the defeat of the enemy’s main army.... General
Sheridan’s summing up of the handling of the Army of the
Potomac, before Grant took command, is to the point: “The army
was all right; the trouble was that the commanders never went
out to lick anybody, but always thought first of keeping from
getting licked.” Grant, like Moltke, was always ready to try
conclusions.
(54)
=Agitation=--See QUIET, STUDY TO BE.