GENERALS IN ACTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1649, 1 April 1884, Page 2

GENERALS IN ACTION.

; A curious article jraight ; be written on the immunity from wounds in action of some generals, and the ill-fortitne of others in becoming the billifc' for a bullet, No commander was ever more forward iu the fighting lino than was Sheridan, yet he never got a scratch. Skobeleff, who many a time went at it with his own good sword, and in his white coat and on his white chargeiyheaded every charge with a recklessness that men called'madness, had as. complete an immunity as if he. carried the charmed life that his soldiers ascribed, and was wounded only in the quiet trenches by a chance bullet fired iu the air a mile- away. Wellington was_ but once hit; the bullet; that carried away his 'hoot-heel 'scarce gave him a contusion. Grant was 'never struck; no more was Napoleon. Of Sir Neville Chamberlain again, one.of the most distinguished officers of our Indian array, tho saying goes that he never went into action without receiving a wound, and the gallant old man has, been lighting pretty steady ever since the first Afghan war. Bazaine, was a nun Fortune favored in the matter of wounds. At Borny there caino to him the leaden reminder that he was mortal, though this time it was but a gentle hint. The fragment of a shell hit him on the left shoulder, butit was well spent, and because of the protection of the,epaulette .gave him but a contusion, from which he had pain for several days, especially when on horseback. Yet Bazaine 1 saw all' the fighting that there was to be seen in his time, and was generally to bo seen wherever the fight was hottest, Not V very grand soldier, in thai physical sense, this man who in forty years of steady purposeful duty had raised himself from out the very ranks to the position of Mar-i shal of France. He was short, some-; what fat, long in the body, short find bulgy about the legs, and "with a puffy, rather pasty face. But there were physical features that were to be marked favorably., Ho had a good, straight, manly eye; his' mouth had a habit of setting itself firmly; his voice, rather hoarse in its lower notes, had: a clear sounding ring when raised, as it many a time and oft had been raised to bid men follow him in tho charge. He could be silent, and he "could sit still—two rare virtues in the Imperialist soldiery.—Archibald Forbes in the 'Englidi Magazine.'