THE HIGH TIDE OF WAR

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1198, 5 August 1911, Page 6

THE HIGH TIDE OF WAR

AT GETTYSBURG. J _____ v WORLD'S BEST INFANTRY CHARGE ■ ANNIVERSARY SKETCH. ) 1 (No. 3.) ; (By Gyro.) ' Cool heads engaged on the military i history section of the German General , Staff incline to the view that the charge f made by Pickett's division of Long- i street's Army Corps at. Gettysburg is the greatest thing ever done by infan- ; try. Last month is the forty-eighth 1 anniversary, and a number of the par- 1 • tieulars embodied were obtained firsthand from the nephew of the Confederate right-wing commander iLongstreet), from whose front tho charge place, and to whose army corps Pickett's division belonged. Sir. Longstreet—nephew of the famous brother officer of the more famous Stonewall Jackson—was in New Zealand in 1901. A-top of a tombstone in the Gettysburg cemetery, tho enlightened commander of the Northern artillery, watched the beautiful valley through his glasses. There was no' sound in it except tho singing of the birds, and, on that day in a splendid Indian summer, the Blue Mountains, back of Lee's hosts, seemed more softly blue than ever. But Hunt, seeing all this, saw not. He was watching tho Hitting of tho shadows among the copses a mile away, and them only, for they showed where Lee's batteries were massing. The clocks of Gettysburg struck one, two cannon shots were heard, and instantly 150 Southern cannon hit tho stillness. Next instant 200 Northern guns, were hitting back. Tho artillery duel, which was to precede Pickett's charge, had begun. Hunt afterwards stated that the whole thing was music to him. "We were not slow in coming back at him," ho said, "and the grand roar of nearly the whole artillery of both armies burst in, almost as suddenly as the full notes of an organ would fill a church." ' It lasted for two or three hours, but, towards. 3 o'clock, Pickett's onfall had been formed up in short echelon of regiments'behind the pall of the Southern smoke, and, presently,' thero came the command to fix bayonets. - An English colonel (from one of tho flash Household regiments), who was a spectator, stated long afterwards that it was impossible to look on, and not bo moved. "I knew," he says, "that there wero great disagreements" going on between Lee and Longstreet, and also between Longstreet and tho commander of , tho Southern artillery. But to see Pickett's grey regiments sweep out, showing the long line of whito steel, seemed to leave ono less than a man if ho could not realise the heroism that lurked within his brother atoms. ... To the left, the bayonets of Hill's 10,000, who wore to support Pickett, stretched further than tho cyo could seo. Before I could realise things further, Pickett mounted the ridge in perfect drill and onler, passed through .the .batteries, and began tho descent into tho Valley' of Death. Four men out of ever.v fivo wero as good as dead. We did not know at tho moment that Long-

street was to take the timing, of the charge from the artillery commander, and wo certainly did not know that that terrible person, Hi:nt, was gradually switching off his tire to make us suppose that the time was Tipe, and, all the time, running in fresh batteries from the reserve into his front of battle. How the whole thing would have made a German staff ill with laughter!"

"It must hare been rather pathetic, too, for even tho . hardened Longstreet was moved. "That day at Gettysburg," he states, "was one of the saddest of my life, and it was thus that I felt when Pickett marched over the crest of the Seminary ridge, and began his descent of tho slope. As he passed mo he rode gracefully with his cap raked well over his right car. Ho seemed rather a holiday soldier than a general at tho head of a column which was to mako the grandest infantry assault in the world's annals. Armistead, one of the brigadiers, was a veteran of nearly a quarter of a century's' service. His mind seemed absorbed in the men behind, and in the bloody work beforo them. Poor old Dick Garnett, the second brigadier, • was just out of hosnital, and saluted mo as he passed. He was riding wrapped up in a - civilian blue overcoat buttoned to the neck. The other brigadier, Kemper, was younger, but had had experience of many severo battles. Some one caught his stirrup as he went through tho line of the batteries, and shook him by tho hand. The troops wont forward in wellclosed ranks, and with clastic step. their faces lighted with hope " Nothing of consequence , happened at first, for "that terrible person Hunt," still standing on his point of observation in the cemetery,- was -busy directing the reservo artillery to join issues at tho gallop. Pickett had got to within MOO yards before tho first trinl shot from a. Parrott gun tore through the 55th Virginia. The 58th Virginia closed to its left to keep direction, and then met a salvo which wiped it out altogether. The rear regiments marked time in order to give those who were ahead time to clear the corpses. The second and third brigades kent steadily closing on the left all the time, achicvin? the imn"s=iblo~which is to bo ordinary in Hades—to maintain a directing flank under severo tire. 4t 4OA yards, .Pickett's big block of ■rev had grown much thinner, aiul presently it was swallowed up in the smoke altc.f'ether. Out. of all the regimental officers, only one mnior was thrn alive and on his feet. From the Southern side tliey could see. the battle-flags lifted over tho last post and mil fence, nnd then lost to view—with half the Yankee annv closing round them. Pick"tt had neither been beaten nor repulsed—he had simply been annihilated. But a break had b»on madn in the Yankee centre, .and tho question now was: AVhero was Hill to widen that Where indeed was Hill? In boxing parlance Pickett had been the "straiglu right" in Lee's combination, and Hill had been designed to be "the dirty left." And Hill, best of generals, had failed to co-operate. Hud failed to co-operate HF.CAVSE TOE STAFF WOHK HAD OONfl wnoNO. Together, Hill and Pickett would undoubtedly bnve broken the Northern centre. As it was Pickett's Virginians simply perished on the altar of "the free and culiuhtfcuod voter"—on the altar of

democracies which should bo stopped by. the Bov Scouts before thev make war at all. Leo's combination tor the. biggest battle of tho, war had come to nothing. Jlh immediate attention had been demanded by nu unexpected and serious development on another part of the field— for there is no end to the stupidity ot "citizen armies"—and he was just back in time to ride out. at the gallop, his handsome face tlaming with anger, and stop Hill's troops from going further, as their ill-timed advance would then have been only a useless waste of life. A day or so afterwards tho bands in Lee's army wero all playing "Carry me back to ole, \ irginny,'' and the South was practically dono for and doomed. And why? Because "citizen armies are no* good. Mr. Longstreet told the writer of this article that "Old Hob Lee" had supposed that, alter endless blunder?, ho had got the staff work right and, as long as his uncle (General Longstreet) and Stonewall Jackson had been the two corps commanders, it was right. But Stonewall Jackson had been 'mortally wounded at the battle of Chancellorvillo three months. before, and it had then become necessary (once more for" political reasons) to organise Lea's field forco into three army corps instead of two. , "And waal, 1 guess," added Mr. Longstreet, "you can't monkey with an army, and slap' it together like that just before ii big scrimmage." Too true. Enlightened rifle shots, martial rabbiters, bellicose town youths, and all others .serving the sick sentiment of this ago of catch-cries in democratic countries have no relation and no conception to war at all-as understood, say, in Germany. They do not know what it is. Last" week wo,had a war scare, and (lie barbers' shops were agitated. No one who understands the teclinique'of warfare ever supposed' that hostilities were on—for

when it docs conic, it will come like a shot out of a, gun-but there is a great, deal to bo.thankful for, lor the knowledgeable rifle shot, tho blood-thirsty rabbiter, and the truculent town youth' still have tho option of remaining alive. Only, now. that he. is still alive, let him sit calmly ill his chair, and bo thankful that: lie is alive, for lie is tho child of a democracy aud, it tlio .army of a monarchy ever coiues at him, i ho will, t'o use his own typical phrase, "wonder wot has. hit him." To get back,., in conclusion, totho philosophy, of' Mr.' Longstrcet:' You can t ■.monk?y with an army, and slap it together just'before a big scrimmage. No. But the terrible democracy. 10 whom all things are easy (by Act of Parliament) thinks that it can. In our dreadful military..effort in South Africa, ten years ago, there wero always tho Gettysburg mistakes, and not always the Gettysburg courage. Thus, in any general battle in South Africa tho following was moro often tho rule than the exception Message (by lielio or otherwise) from important point on the battlefield to the artillery: "Fire ou the kopje. .The artillery: "Which-kopje." Answer: "Tho little kopje. i Artillery: "Which little kopje? _ . Answer: "The little brown ' kopje. i Artillery (in despair): Which little brown kopj-;?" And then tho artillery would probably fire salvo after salvo at/tho horizon on general principles. Ono would suppose that all such terrible' facts, and what they imply for everyone .of us, would bo sulficiently understood after so many years. Unfortunately it is not so for only this week the following gem fell from Mr. J. P. Luko in the. House: .'lf war should ever come, the event would prove the superiority of British ships, of British guns, and of tho British dogs of war. It would not, unluckily, prove anything of the sort. It would only prove how little Mr. J. P. Luko knows in relation to tho technique of war. If one could conceive his speech being read in places where men do understand what they speak about, it. would provoke a noisy sort of smile that could be heard all the way from Berlin to Stralsund Meanwhile,' until the echo of that loud smilo conies .back from Stralsund, Mr. hike may fill in his spire moments by wondering how the Empire s iron-masters can be so absent-minded as they have occasionally been proved to bo. : It is now known that ro"fewer than 250 cannon had to be imported into England from the Continent [luring the course of the Beer war. because tho original pattern could not sufficiently support tho infantry. '(Concluded.)