Quote re Hood: A Coincidence?

elektratig

Sergeant
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
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New York City
I'm reading an essay by T. Harry Williams entitled "The Military Leadership of North and South" (in "Why the North Won the Civil War", edited by David Herbert Donald) in which I ran across the following quote:

"Senator Louis T. Wigfall was exercising his not inconsiderable talent for savage humor, usually reserved for the Davis administration, on the military when he said of John B. Hood: 'That young man had a fine career before him until Davis undertook to make of him what the good Lord had not done -- to make a great general of him.'"

The quote is remarkably similar to one I have seen attributed to Joseph Johnston re Braxton Bragg: "I know Mr. Davis thinks that he can do a great many things that other men would hesitate to attempt. For instance, he tried to do what God had failed to do. He tried to make a soldier out of Braxton Bragg, and you know the results. It couldn't be done."

Wigfall and Joe Johnston were friends and political allies. Assuming that these are in fact two different quotes, does anyone know whether Wigfall borrowed the format from Joe Johnston or vice versa?
 
"Poor Werde, even I could not make a soldier out of him!" Napoleon.
 
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