FitzJohn Porter Fiat justitia Author:Joseph Wheeler Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The commanding general cannot be everywhere, and cannot know the continually changing condition of the opposing army. To act with intelligence his army is div... more »ided into corps, each of which is under the orders of a man who is and ought to be equal in many respects to the army commander. H is a man whose reputati in and renown is national. While he is primarily responsible to his commander, he is also re- tpoimiblr to the country find to the government he has sworn to serve. Such chief uf corps 1ms not performed his duty unless he has kept himself fully advised regarding the enemy, which information he should transmit frequently and rapidly to the general of the army. All orders he receives should be obeyed with promptness and intelligence, aud an INTELLIGENT OBEU1ENCE OF OltUERS comprehends an obedience which will carry out the purposes of the commanding general. A literal coiHidiuuce with an order which it is evident would defeat the designs of the general, and which it is evident, was written with erroneous imure-isiou regarding the situation, would be base and criminal disobalienve. To win ban Irs yon do not want subordinates who with the acumen of a lawyer will justify blunders and unskillful mauueavers by strained, critical construction of words or phrases. Victories are attained by simpler principles than these. Every corps commarder knows the position of the enemy's troops. He knows the general plan of battle; he knows the point of attack proposed for the othercorps; he knows the general principles which govern operations on tlie Held, and the officer who keeps these views uppermost in his mind will generally construe orders as his commander inteuded he should. If a chief of corps receives a written order which he knows to be based upon a ...« less