know. GENERAL SHERMAN has expressed the opinion that no man can effectually handle more than 70,000 men, in battle, in a wooded country like ours. THOMAS was right in declining to command the Army of the Ohio in 1862. A year later he had tested himself, and was ready to bear greater responsibility.

His career was not only great and complete, but, what is more signficant, it was, in an eminent degree, the work of his own hands. It was not the result of accident or happy chance. I do not deny that in all human pursuits, and especially in war, results are often determined by what men call fortune "that name for the unknown combinations of Infinite power." But this is almost always a modifying rather than an initial force. Only a weak, a vain, or a desperate man will rely upon it for success.

THOMAS' life is a notable illustration of the virtue and power of hard work; and in the last analysis the power to do hard work is only another name for talent. PROFESSOR CHURCH, one of his instructors at West Point, says, of his student life, that "he never allowed anything to escape a thorough examination, and left nothing behind that he did not fully comprehend." And so it was in the army. To him a battle was neither an earthquake, nor a volcano, nor a chaos of brave men and frantic horses, involved in vast explosions of gunpowder. It was rather a calm, rational concentration of force against force. It was a question of lines and positions; of weight of metal, and strength of battalions. He knew that the elements and forces which bring victory are not created on the battle field, but must be patiently elaborated in the quiet of the camp, by the perfect organization and outfit of his army. His remark to a captain of artillery while inspecting a battery, is worth remembering, for it exhibits his theory of success: "Keep everything in order, for the fate of a battle

may turn on a buckle or a linch-pin." He understood so thoroughly the condition of his army, and its equipment, that when the hour of trial came, he knew how great a pressure it could stand, and how hard a blow it could strike.

His character was as grand and as simple as a colossal pillar of chiseled granite. Every step of his career as a soldier, was marked by the most loyal and unhesitating obedience to law--to the laws of his Government, and to the commands of his superiors. The obedience which he rendered to those above him he rigidly required of those under his command.

His influence over his troops grew steadily and constantly. He won his ascendancy over them, neither by artifice, nor by any one act of special daring, but he gradually filled them with his own spirit, until their confidence in him knew no bounds.

His power as a commander was developed slowly and silently; not like volcanic land lifted from the sea by sudden. and violent upheaval, but rather like a coral island, where each increment is a growth--an act of life and work.

Power exhibits itself under two distinct forms-strength and force—each possessing peculiar qualities, and each perfect in its own sphere. Strength is typified by the oak, the rock, the mountain. Force embodies itself in the cataract, the tempest, the thunderbolt.

The great tragic poet of Greece, in describing the punishment of Prometheus for rebellion against Jupiter, represented Vulcan descending from heaven, attended by two mighty spirits, Strength and Force, by whose aid he held and bound Prometheus to the rock.

In subduing our great rebellion, the Republic called to its aid men who represented many forms of great excellence and power. A very few of our commanders possessed more force

than THOMAS-more genius for planning and executing bold and daring enterprises; but, in my judgment, no other was so complete an embodiment and incarnation of strength--the strength that resists, maintains, and endures. His power was not that of the cataract, which leaps in fury down the chasm, but rather that of the river, broad and deep, whose current is steady, silent, irresistible.

It was most natural that such a man should be placed in the center of movements. The work to be accomplished on the great line of the center, was admirably adapted to the military character of THOMAS. To advance steadily, and to stay-to occupy, and to hold-was the business of the Army of the Cumberland from first to last. It is a significant fact that, from the autumn of 1862, till the autumn of 1864—from Bowling Green to Atlanta--whether commanding a division, a corps, or an army, his position on the march, and his post in battle was the center. And he was placed there because it was found that when his command occupied the center, that center could not be broken. It never was broken.

At Stone River he was the unmoved and immovable pivot, around which swung our routed right wing. As the eye of ROSECRANS, our daring and brilliant commander, swept over that bloody field, it always rested on THOMAS, as the center of his hope. For five days THOMAS' command stood fighting in its bloody tracks, until twenty per cent. of its members were killed or wounded, and the enemy had retreated.

But it was reserved for the last day at Chickamauga to exhibit, in one supreme example, the vast resources of his prodigious strength. After a day of heavy fighting and a night of anxious preparation, GENERAL ROSECRANS had established his lines for the purpose of holding the road to Chattanooga. This road was to be the prize of that day's battle. If our army

failed to hold it, not only was our campaign a failure, but inevitable destruction awaited the army itself.

ROSECRANS had crossed the Tennessee, and had successfully maneuvered the enemy out of Chattanooga. The greater work remained to march his own army into that place, in the face of BRAGG's army, heavily reinforced, and greatly outnumbering his own.

The Rossville road-the road to Chattanooga-was the great prize to be won or lost at Chickamauga. If the enemy failed to gain it, their campaign would be an unmitigated disaster; for the gateway of the mountains would be irretrievably lost. If our army failed to hold it, not only would our campaign be a failure, but almost inevitable destruction awaited the army itself. The first day's battle (September 19), which lasted far into the night, left us in possession of the road; but all knew that next day would bring the final decision. Late at night, surrounded by his commanders assembled in the rude cabin known as the Widow Glen House, ROSECRANS gave his orders for the coming morning. The substance of his order to THOMAS was this: "Your line lies across the road to Chattanooga. That is the pivot of the battle. Hold it at all hazards; and I will reinforce you, if necessary, with the whole army."

During the whole night, the reinforcements of the enemy were coming in. Early next morning, we were attacked along the whole line. THOMAS commanded the left and center of our army. From early morning, he withstood the furious and repeated attacks of the enemy who constantly reinforced his assaults on our left. About noon, our whole right wing was broken, and driven in hopeless confusion from the field. ROSECRANS was himself swept away in the tide of retreat. forces of LONGSTREET, which had broken our right, desisted from the pursuit, and forming in heavy columns assaulted the

The

right flank of THOMAS with unexampled fury. Seeing the approaching danger, he threw back his exposed flank toward the base of the mountain and met the new peril.

While men shall read the history of battles, they will never fail to study and admire the work of THOMAS during that afternoon. With but twenty-five thousand men, formed in a semi-circle of which he himself was the center and soul, he successfully resisted, for more than five hours, the repeated assaults of an army of sixty-five thousand men, flushed with victory, and bent on his annihilation.

Toward the close of the day, his ammunition began to fail. One by one his division commanders reported but ten rounds, five rounds, or two rounds left. The calm, quiet answer was returned: "Save your fire for close quarters, and when your last shot is fired, give them the bayonet.” On a portion of his line, the last assault was repelled by the bayonet, and several hundred rebels were captured. When night had closed over the combatants, the last sound of battle was the booming of THOMAS' shells bursting among his baffled and retreating assailants.

He was, indeed, the "Rock of Chickamauga," against which the wild waves of battle dashed in vain. It will stand written forever in the annals of his country, that there he saved from destruction the Army of the Cumberland. He held the road to Chattanooga. The campaign was successful. The gate of the mountains was ours.

Time would fail me to notice other illustrations of his qualities, as exhibited at the storming of Mission Ridge, and during the "hundred days under fire" in the great march from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Later in the war, there awaited him a test, in some respects tried him.

more searching than any that

On the 27th of September, 1864, he was ordered by GEN