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Basil Wilson Duke
Published by Good Press, 2019
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This peculiar faculty and habit of thought enabled him to plan with a rapidity almost inconceivable. Apparently his combinations were instantaneously commenced and perfected, and, if provided with the necessary information, he matured on enterprise almost as soon as he conceived it. His language and manner were often very expressive of this peculiar constitution of mind. In consultation with those whom he admitted to his confidence, he never cared to hear arguments, he would listen only to opinions. In stating his plans, he entered into no explanations, and his expressions of his views and declaration of his purposes sounded like predictions. At such times his speech would become hurried and vehement, and his manner excited but remarkably impressive.
He evidently felt the most thorough and intense conviction himself, and he seldom failed to convince his hearers. Advice volunteered, even by those he most liked and relied on, was never well received, and when he asked counsel of them he required that it should be concise and definite, and resented hesitation or evasion. Without being in the ordinary sense of the term an excellent judge of character, he possessed, in a greater degree than any of his military associates, the faculty of judging how various circumstances (especially the events and vicissitudes of war) would affect other men, and of anticipating in all contingencies their thoughts and action. He seemed, if I may use such expressions, capable of imagining himself exactly in the situations of other men, of identifying his own mind with theirs, and thinking what they thought. He could certainly, with more accuracy than any one, divine the plans and wishes of an enemy. This was universally remarked, and he exhibited it, not only in correctly surmising the intentions of his own immediate opponents, but also in the opinions which he gave regarding the movements of the grand armies. He sought all the information which could however remotely affect his interests and designs with untiring avidity, and the novel and ingenious expedients he sometimes resorted to in order to obtain it, would perhaps furnish materials for the most interesting chapter of his history. It was a common saying among his men, that "no lawyer can cross-examine like General Morgan," and indeed the skill with which he could elicit intelligence from the evasive or treacherous answers of men unwilling to aid, or seeking to deceive him, was only less astonishing than the confidence with which he would act upon information so acquired. In army phrase, he was a capital "judge of information," that is, he could almost infallibly detect the true from the false, and determine the precise value of all that he heard. His quickness and accuracy, in this respect, amounted almost to another sense; reports, which to others appeared meager and unsatisfactory, and circumstances devoid of meaning to all but himself, frequently afforded him a significant and lively understanding of the matters which he wished to know.
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