Answer: The General wouldn't have realized he was the Drummer boy, he would have played the drum slowly and the soldiers would have lost the war.
Explanation: When the General heard the drum he realized that the boy was "the heart of the army". He told the boy that if he played his drum rapidly, the soldiers would feel less pain and be braver, because the sound would be like "their armor". If the General hadn't stopped to talk to him that night, the boy would have played slowly, he was scared and demotivated, and the battle would have been lost.
