Of Reconnoissances and other Means of gaining Correct Information of the Movements of the Enemy.
One of the surest ways of forming good combinations in war would be to order movements only after obtaining perfect information of the enemy's proceedings. In fact, how can any man say what he should do himself, if he is ignorant what his adversary is about? As it is unquestionably of the highest importance to gain this information, so it is a thing of the utmost difficulty, not to say impossibility; and this is one of the chief causes of the great difference between the theory and the practice of war.
From this cause arise the mistakes of those generals who are simply learned men without a natural talent for war, and who have not acquired that practical coup-d'oeil which is imparted by long experience in the direction of military operations. It is a very easy matter for a school-man to make a plan for outflanking a wing or threatening a line of communications upon a map, where he can regulate the positions of both parties to suit himself; but when he has opposed to him a skillful, active, and enterprising adversary, whose movements are a perfect riddle, then his difficulties begin, and we see an exhibition of the incapacity of an ordinary general with none of the resources of genius.
I have seen so many proofs of this truth in my long life, that, if I had to put a general to the test, I should have a much higher regard for the man who could form sound conclusions as to the movements of the enemy than for him who could make a grand display of theories,—things so difficult to put in practice, but so easily understood when once exemplified.