In addition to this merely
routine work was the much more delicate and serious duty of deciding the
hundreds of novel questions affecting the constitutional principles and
theories of administration.
The great departments of government, especially those of war and navy,
could not immediately expedite either the supervision or clerical
details of this sudden expansion, and almost every case of resulting
confusion and delay was brought by impatient governors and State
officials to the President for complaint and correction. Volunteers were
coming rapidly enough to the various rendezvous in the different States,
but where were the rations to feed them, money to pay them, tents to
shelter them, uniforms to clothe them, rifles to arm them, officers to
drill and instruct them, or transportation to carry them? In this
carnival of patriotism, this hurly-burly of organization, the weaknesses
as well as the virtues of human nature quickly developed themselves, and
there was manifest not only the inevitable friction of personal rivalry,
but also the disturbing and baneful effects of occasional falsehood and
dishonesty, which could not always be immediately traced to the
responsible culprit. It happened in many instances that there were
alarming discrepancies between the full paper regiments and brigades
reported as ready to start from State capitals, and the actual number of
recruits that railroad trains brought to the Washington camps; and Mr.
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