THE HIGH TIDE OF WAR

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1193, 31 July 1911, Page 5

THE HIGH TIDE OF WAR

AT GETTYSBURG. WORLD'S BEST INFANTRY CHARGE ANNIVERSARY SKETCH. ''• (No. 2.) (By Giro.) 000 l heads engaged on the military , history Miction 01 mo German General Stall ineiino to tlie view Unit tile cnargo maue Oy i'iclaut's division of Longsiret't's Army Corps at Gettysburg is the greatest thing ever done uy infantry. 'i'nis montn is the forty-seventh anniversary, auu a number of the particulars embouieu were obtained hrsthana from tne *-iphew of the Confederate rignt-wing commander Ujongstrcet), from whose front tne charge t-ooK place, and t-o wnose aruiy corps ±*icliCU's division belonged, Air. Longstreet—nephew of the lumous brother onieer of the more faiiuus btunewall Jackson—was in New Zealand in 19vl.

Technique in o charge catches the interest jusc as much as tho dash of the valiant little mort-els who compose it. Without it the most ferocious oniall may alignt with a rattle like hail on a tiu root, and, like hail, leave the roof unhariueU. What was the technique? What dm L,ee mean to do? Wo do not know quite. Lee, himself, had been gathered to his fathers belore the time came when men had seriously begun to collect and collate the history of Gettysburg, and thus tne principal witness is suent tor ever. Au that we do know is that there was a somewhat violent disagreement between Lee and Longstretc on the cvuaing of the second day, and Longstreet, who was a splendid tactician and an educated soldier, said:— "You are going to put Pickett in with 5000. Ho has to charge over a mile, and take tho fire of nearly 200 cannon all the way. ,• Ho approaches their line, and then conies under the blast of 20,000 rifles-maybe more. Then you will throw 10,000 men from Hill's - Corps in on top of I'ickett, and that will give me 15,000 men altogether. I may point out to yon that I have been a soldier right from tho ranks up to the position I' now hold as coriimander of your right wing. I have been in pretty much all kiuds of skirmishes, from thoso of two or three soldiers up to thoso of on rirmy corps, and I can safelv say there never was a body of 15,000 men who could make that attack successfully. . . . Tne General seemed a little impatient fit my remarks, so 1 said nothing more. It seems to be a blighting catastrophe— ever since the building of Babel it has fallen on poor humans—that we can never get the.rights and wrongs of anything lor sure. .Talking in a >«ew Zealand hotel, Mr: Longstreet (old me that, years after Gettysburg, thoiisands of people in the South could have shot his undo dead for' that disagreement with Lee, which was overheard by all the staff omcers standing in tho garden round the little stone-house, where Lee s headquarters were. Longstreet, as it turned out, was right, but was Leo wrong? No ono can say so, for there* were few things which Lee did on which the finger -of criticism can seriously.be laid, and many and good judges in'all countries continue to esteem him the greatest General that tho world has ever seen." What may reasonably be supposed was tho intention of a master architect in war, who understood the breaking strain of liis materiel, was that " Pickett's 5000 should receive a certain amount of fire, that perhaps 800 of them would Teach their objective, that a small break would then be made in the Federal line and, into this, 10,000 more men from Hill s Rrmy corps would instantly be thrown. For Pickett there could, of course, only be tears whichever way it went, but then -as no doubt Lee subjectively felt—that Ls the only ultima ratio on which the theory of a soldier rests—"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend'.", _ Paper orders were little in vogue in the ragged Confederate Army, and Lee himself, like' Napoleon, never interfered with detailk arranged., by his subordinates. Having indicated his wish, he left Longstreet to communicate them, and Longstreet took Pickett up I'o tho crest of Seminary ltidge among tho batteries, and pointed out the general line which it was proposed the charge should take. in his own narrative, states: "He seemed to appreciate the severitv of the contest upon which he was about to enter, but .was quite hopeful of success. Upon receipt of notice that a sufficient effect had • been produced by our artillery, he was to march over the crest of the' hill, down the gentle slope in front, and up tho rise opposite tho Federal stronghold." That was the technique as far as "the head of departments" were concerned. The rest was for Pickett, as general commanding a division, to arrange. He walked over to a homestead known as the Spangler House, where his three brigadiers were pacing the yard, and intimated that the division should, when the time for the charge came, be formed up in short echelon of regiments by the left, and that, when gaps were torn in the lines, tho troops should steadily keep closing on t'heir left. Simple ns this may seem it was, .in reality, highly technical and difficult for, no matter what the current story books may say, it has been found by experience that poor shrinking man can move only two ways under fire either forward or backward. But, in finely-tempered army, ndthing. was difficult and, when the brigadiers called up the colonels in the smoke of the guns and intimated that the regiments during the progress of the charge were rr to enui short echelon of regiments by the deavour to keep the formation, anil keep closing on the left/' it was taken' as just an ordinary announcement, and all m the # day's stride. , • . Consider- now the technique of "the other feLow"—the technique of the'Northernarmy, which was to receive" the .shock of licfcett. Moltke described the American Civil War as "a hornet's nest of blunders, but' that was understating ma iui!' S 'i really something only a little better than our present Army, something only a little Cotter than the armies cr all democratic countries, something, in fact, where the police ouWit to have interfered, and arrested half the combatants for being found on the highways with arms illegally in their possession, these arms being calculated to do damage to lifo and limb without effecting any useful purpose. Some lew days before Gettysburg, Jlajorueneral George G. Meade, then serving as a corps commander under Hooker (who, by the way, had been "raised to the purple by sheer democratic roar"), had been awakened at midnight in bis tent, and toid to take the reins out 'of Hooker » incompetent hands, and guide the iWtuurn army to battle. He objected, saif that t.iere were other officers better httcd than he, named those officers; spent a further hour in making everv honest a D d vigorous protest he could think of, and was finally told that "as a professional soldier, he bad no right to attempt to vary what policy of State appeared to make desirable.". Meade then asked the minion of the Administration where Lee's army was (Nobody knew), and was icily told that "his objective" was surely big enough to be readily found by a "professional soldier" anywhere. To be opposed to the world's best strategist. to be awakened out of bed at midnight, and to be told this, must indeed have been cheerful for • poor, honest Mivrie. But if was not all. It was wcllkiiMni r hut I lie General who should beat the ?ontli would have the political ball nt 'ii- feel after the war was over, and so it -eeiiied desirable to wring out ono mure confession. "General Meade," said tho minion, halting at the tenl door, and raising his voico in presence of a dozen witnesses, "you have on intention of contesting the next f,lectern for President?" "None whatever," jerked out Meade, who was, even then, buried in writing orders, which, in a day or two, wero to <>r:tj: on the greatest battle of tho war. But there is no end to the nonsense of ■■sir sis waged bv democracies. Tlfe poli■ians, a a we have seen, threw 110,0(10 in on Meade's hands at a moment's intioe. mid the minion hied back to Washington. and (no doubt) reported every word that Meade had said. And still the question was: Would he, after all, como sailing in as a giaut into their little putrid den of politics? That was momentous, and they resolved not to trust him, and, indeed, to humble him in tho

eyes of the democracy. The villainous intent of the telegram which Meade received, from the Administration, after the frightful ordeal of winning Gettysburg, wns only frustrated by Meade's own honesty, for'there is a terrible power in goodness, and Meade was good. The telegram read:—

First: Halleck (representing Administration) to Meade: I need hardly say to you that the cscapo of Leo's army without another battle has creatcd great dissatisfaction in the mind of tho President, and it will require an-active and energetic pursuit- on your part to remove tho impression that it has not been sufficiently active heretofore. Second: Meade to Hallock; Having performed my duty conscientiously and to tho boit of my ability, the censure of the President conveyed in your dispatch is, in my judgment, so undeserved that- I feel compelled most respectfully to ask to be immediately relieved from tho command of this army. Thiril: Ilalleck (representing Administration and climbing down) to Meade; My telegram stating tho disappointment of the President at the escape of Lee's army wa-s not intended as a censure but as a stimulus to an active pursuit. It is not deemed a, sufficient caiuo for your application to be reLet" us harl; back to the battlefield. On the night of the second flay—after hideous scenes of stjunlid and useless butchery past description, where everv pale upturned face of n man, lying stark in death or agony in the moonlight, was actually Heaven's Crown Prosecutor charging an ignorant democracy with his murder—Meacle did tho weakest thing that an army commander can Go—he called o council of war. In a little shack on the Tancytown Road the council met at midnight. What could come of it? Two or three ofJ the corps commanders were not to be trusted, being well-tarred with the political brush. Tho best tactician among them (Reynolds) was lving- in the paddocks with a through his head. The next best (Warren) came into the room, bleeding profusely from a shell-wound in the neck, and presently sank down on the floor and ■went to sleep, taking no part in the deliberations at all. A'l were impressed with the slaughter which they had seen on their respective fronts, and few had anything really valuable to say. But, m some ditn and blundering way, it was resolved to stand ona tnoro day's hammering from Lee. Meade walked out in the bright radiance of the moonlight. Miles and miles of reserve artillery were standing in the Tancvtown Road with steaming hcrses. Came the last touch of technique when Hunt (commander of the artillery of Meade's army, and possibly at that time the best .artillerist in the world) met Meade. The colloquy between them was so remarkable that it deserves to bo quoted in full, for, in making the proposal, Hunt simply offered himself up on the insatiable altar of the democracy where tho good man suffers for the misfit all the time. t , Said Meade: "Too many guns standing in reserve here, General Hunt! Couldn't vou run some of them into the lino of battle?" Hunt: "General Meade, our front is so restricted that I cannot get another battery in. But I havo- something better to propose. I have an idea that your centro will be assaulted by infantry charge tomorrow." Meade: "So have I." Hunt: "And there will be the usual artillery combat first." Meade: "Undoubtedly." Hunt: "Well, then, after two hours of it, I propose to order all our batteries to cease fire. They (the South) will take it that we are done with, and then their infantry will advance. As soon as that happens I will run in all. these fresh batteries at the gallop. This is, however, a sunken read, and we should have ramps cut to-night." Meade.,(after consideration): "It is a great move, General Hunt, but have you thought of the backwash?" Hunt: "No." Meade: "You will be offered up by tho politicians and the newspapers as an incompetent—leaving the infantry for a certaiu length of time without artillery support." Hunt: "We Wilt- Chance That, Sir!" (To be Continued.)