Sketch of the Late General S. Cooper.
By General Fitz. Lee.
[We cannot, as a rule, publish obituary notices or biographical sketches of even our most distinguished men; but we are sure all will recognize the propriety of giving the following sketch of our Senior General, whose death has been so widely lamented.]
Students of military history cannot fail to be impressed, when war is au fait accompli, with the great advantage possessed by those nations who have justly placed a value upon system and organization in the preparation of their armies.
The military genius implanted by nature in a Cæsar, a Hannibal, a Wellington, or a Napoleon, might never have burst forth with such overpowering light as to dazzle with its rays a wondering world, had not the human tools with which they worked been so formed, so fashioned, as to be perfectly flexible when placed in their hands by some almost hidden but powerful agent, who, grasping the subject with a master's mind, adapted the various departments of war in such a way as to work harmoniously together, and to be most effective. Strategy and grand tactics are indeed a powerful machine, but to be used to full working strength, requires an exact adjustment of all component parts.
To "set a squadron in the field," there must be arms, subsistence stores, transportation and shelters, clothing and medical supplies. The quartermaster's, commissary, ordnance and medical departments, though separate and distinct in their several spheres, must be made conformable with each other, with scrupulous care, by the constitutional commander-in-chief and his war secretary; and their chief counsellor is the soldier at the head of the adjutant-general's department, through whom all official orders are promulgated. An efficient executive leader in that department is felt from an army corps to a corporal's guard.
Chronicles of the important events in the rise and fall of nations are filled with instructive instances that might be drawn upon in illustration of this fact, whilst the pages of history, where results are summed up and explanatory reasons given for them, abound in examples. To keep this paper within proper limits, I shall only briefly refer to one, viz: the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.
The French Emperor, it is recollected, declared war because the King of Prussia would not promise that the head of the Catholic
