THE HIGH TIDE OF WAR

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1186, 22 July 1911, Page 6

THE HIGH TIDE OF WAR

AT GETTYSBURG. WORLD'S BEST INFANTRY CHARGE. ANNIA'EBSABY SKETCn. (Xo. 1.) (By Gyro. , ) Cool heads encased nn tho military history (section of tho German General Staff incline to the view that, the charEo made by Pickett's division of LoiiEstrcct's Army Corps at Gettysburg i-s tlio greatest, thiiiß ever done by infantry. This lnontli is this forty-seventh aimivcrt'ary. ami a number of the particulars embodied were obtained firsthand from the nephew of tlio Confederate rißht-winE commander (LonEStreet). from whose front the charge took place, and to whose army corns Piekctts division belonged. Mr. Ijousstreet— jiephcw of tho famous brother officer of tho more famous Stonewall Jackson— was in New Zealand iu 1901. Bathed in beautiful moonlight, the little white i'ennsylvanian village- of Gettysburg, all dabbled in blood as it was, sought what' rest it could. There were few lights in tho citizens' houses. It was the first night of three days of au Inferno which even Dante could not have imaged. And what it had been on that first [ day was as nothing to what' it would bo ou tho third. For then, it was to seo the greatest effort ever made by infantry in the history of war. Gentlest and kindliest of men as was Leo in private life, t'ho glint of battlo always kindled to life the combative, dauntless, nether spirit in him. And hero he wns with his old enemy —t'ho Army of the Potomac—in front of him once more. In ■tho evening he had ridden up to tho crest of Seminary Kidgo ovcrloojcing tho battlefield, and gazed through his glasses. No one was quicker at picking up the thread of a tangled action than he, and no one was quicker at making up his mind what to do. By and by ho shut his glasses, and turned to the commander of his ' first Army Corps who was beside him, and said: "Well?" "I do not like it at all," replied Longstreet. "Ho has over 100,000 men up on that ridge if he has a man, and I tniuk that wo should not try the bloody experiment of fighting him out of it. Uβ should break oil' the battlo here and now, anil •manoeuvre by our right—my. corps in front." Leo put up his glasses again, shut them, and said: "ao. We've started iu. Either I am going to whip him, or he is going to whip me. i'our corps up? "Two divisions—Hood and aM'Laws—have arrived, and l'ickett's division, has been marching thirty-live miles a. day- to get here."

".Right," said Lee. "I've tried their right flank with 50,000 men to-day, and found it strong. To-morrow I'll try their left with Hood and M ! Laws and, if ire fail, I'll turn our 150 guns hard on 'em and then put Pickett in to break their centre."

So poor Pickett approached that ghastly held fo "break their centre." Mr. Longstreet told mo that tho troops, marching in the moonlight, could not get tho road for the trains of other army corps had blocked it', and so they divided to right and left, and trudged along the paddocks, the 9th Virginia leading. The ranks were i ?l up nni ?> as the'division stepped out, the men continued singing a popular war eflort of the l;ime-"Maryland! My. Maryland! .-The .supper, that night was merely earsof-conv,. pulled in the field crushed between roadside stones and roasted in the camp lire on ram-rods. Xot one man in ten had a respectable'pair of trousers and the majority had merely bark, stripped from the trees and tied round their feeC, for boots. Mr. Longstreet added that his famous undo loved music, and encouraged tho singin".' helped. Ihere wasn't much to it perhaps, but I toll youthen Boh L.ep. K qt back over the fPoßniad!'. after tho ela"h you would never ha' known them 'Kebs 5 was beaten. It was jes' as cheerful as sparrow crack. All the bands were plovniß Carry me back to Ole Virginny'" ' tarry mo back! And where to? Well out of the line of the narrative • alto-gether-out of a childish pen picture of bloodshed and into a serious analysis of the majesty ot tho white races, once stripped ti'om tho corroding influences of prolonged peace-oncc stripped of all the enervating babble of Socialists, political jumping- , jacks, extreme religionism, and all tho Jterry Andrews" and sociological clowns who leap through our panorama to-dav Bonio up, as we are on the silvern literature -of the Victorian Aecsplendidly enhanced myths-there has never . yet been" . a ' serious '.' effort, in England to analyse the question of pluck in battle.;,. But the ■ Continental microscope has been on it, and, though n used to be the maxim that "one Britisher was good enough for any twenty foreigners, it is not so now, and, indeed, if tho whole truth of the Boer War were sufficiently disclosed, it never could have been so any time these last ten years. The old fashion in the story books regarding which wo yoiing'-colonials ouce folded our bands behind our pinnies, and stood up, and repeated (o our teachers,', and called it "history," is now very-much in disgrace. Always in those prattling narratives, there niarclied the same huge falsehood—the mortgage and monopoly

check trousers, and the beard, and ungainly habit of body, does not seem prom-i.-iiiif, but many like him gazed hard, and, without a tremor, into the steely, mesmeric eyes of Death when Pickntt led his division out from Ijuiiiiid the Gettysburg copsos, and showed the long, white line of bayonets. The points raised in tho Continental analv.-is are so extensive and far-reaching that it is not proposed to follow them tar in this series of three Gettysburg sketches, but the losses in a foot charge, extending over a mile, aud lasting 35 minutes, are given. Aud, if anyone thinks that they are not sisllieiently striking, let him rellecl: that nearly all onr childish pictures of "heroes who advanced through hails of bullets" are merely romances by women in the Victorian age—"Ouida" for example—and the fatuous pen-pictures uf the war correspondents:— Carnctt's Brigade. Armistead's Brigade-ling.-Gen. Richard Ilris.-Gen. Lewis A. I). Ciarnett (killed); Armistead (lulled); Major Charles S. staff, Col. \V. R. AyPeyton, staff (killed); lett (wounded); 9th Btli Virginia. liegi- Virginia, liesimcnt, meut, Col. Eppa. Jlajor John C. Owens Hunter (mortally (killed); 14th Virginia wounded): ISth Vir- Colonel James 0. ginia, Colonel H. A. Hodges (killed); 38th Uurringlon (killed); Virginia, Colonel E. 19th Virginia, Colonei C. Edmonds (killed); 11. Oautt (mortally 53rd Virginia, Colonel wounded): Lieut-Col. W. R. Aylett, (woundJohn T. Ellis (killed); cd); 57th Virginia, 28th Virginia, Col. Colonel J. B. JtapR. C. Allen (killed): ruder (killed). IM56th Virginia, Col. gadc loss: killed, 238; TV. D. Stuart (mor- wounded, 903. tally wounded); Brigade loss: killed, 278; wounded, 653; 'total, 941. . . Kemper's Brigade. Division Artillery, Brig.-Gen. James h. Fauquier artillery, Kcmper (wounded Major James Dearnn'd captured); staff, ing (mortally woundColonel Joseph Jlayo cd); llampdon artilfbilled): Ist Virginia lery. Captain E. M. Regiment, Colonel Stribling (wounded); Lewis B. Williams Richmond Fayettear(ivounded); 3rd Vir- tillery. Captain TV. ginia, Lieut.-Colonel H. Ca-skie (wounded); A. D. Callcotte (kill- Richmond- battery, cd); 7th Virginia, Captain Joseph J. Colonel TV. T. Patten Bount (killed). Artil(killed); 11th Virginia lery loss: Killed, 98; Jfajor Kirkwood Otey wounded, 117; total, (wounded); 24th Vir- 215. giuia, Colonel William R. Terry (mortally wounded). Brigade loss: killed, 258; wounded, 473; total, 731. It will thus be seen, from the United States official figures, that nearly all the senior officers in the division were struck down in that 35 v minutes. A description of tho chargo and an indication of the causes which seenisd to make it necessary will be given in other articles. (To bo continued.)