I realized how much easier and better it was to have both offices conjoined.
The army then had one constitutional commander-in-chief of both army and navy, and one actual commanding general, bringing all parts into real harmony.

An army to be useful must be a unit, and out of this has grown the saying, attributed to Napoleon, but doubtless spoken before the days of Alexander, that an army with an inefficient commander was better than one with two able heads.

Our political system and methods, however, demanded a separate Secretary of War, and in October President Grant asked me to scan the list of the volunteer generals of good record who had served in the civil war, preferably from the "West." I did so, and submitted to him in writing the names of W.W.Belknap, of Iowa; G.

M.
Dodge, the Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad; and Lucius Fairchild, of Madison, Wisconsin.

I also named General John W.
Sprague, then employed by the Northern Pacific Railroad in Washington Territory.