a singular American ability............

 Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States in the early 1830s and famously proclaimed the emergence of Homo democraticus, a cheeky creature whose passion for equality and self-interest was tempered only by his ability to join fellow citizens in all manner of mutual associations for pragmatic benefit.  He may not have approved, but it was obvious to him that this was something unprecedented. . . . Democratic enthusiasm remained high among those who joined the Army of the West, but these were largely rural young men who had little experience in hierarchical organization, and they were about to enter one that was traditional and intentionally rigid.  Not unexpectedly. sparks would fly.  But the process of mutual accommodation proved unique and remarkable.  Other force structures in the Civil War faced similar challenged, but Sherman and his boys were together longer, faced a broader range of military problems, and were more consistently successful in solving them.

      The key was a new kind of military adaptability.  Change came not only top-down from an innovative commander, but bottom-up from the soldiers themselves.  In the process, Sherman and his men revealed what intellectual historian Joseph Kett has described as a singular 
American ability to reman creatively insubordinate within large organizations and still survive, even thrive.

-Robert L. O'Connell, Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman