The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-08 00:00:00

INDIAN BRAN CII (LIMITED).

The half-yearly meeting of this company was held
yesterday at the London Tavern, the Marquis of
Tweeddale in the chair.
The report, an abstract of which has appeared in
7lie Sun, was taken as read.

The C lIAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the re-
port, said it was unnecessary for him to remind them
of the position of their lines in Oude and Rohilcund,
the beautiful climate, the productive soil, and the
dense population of 33,000,000. The proportion
was 450 to the square mile, against 300 in England
to the square mile No doubt, when the country
was opened by railway communication, it would be
followed by an increasing demand for conveyance
to the markets and the seaports. The East Indian
line would be the trunk line for conveying the pro-
duce of their district to Calcutta. The falling off in
the Nulhatee line had arisen from the want of suffi-
cient rolling stock on the East Indian Railway to
forward the goods to their destination. The stations
of that great company were choked with traffic, so
that the merchants of Moorshedabad preferred send-
ing goods by water instead of by railway, in
consequence of the delay that often occurred
in conveying it to its destination. He trusted
that additional rolling stock would soon be
provided, so as to enable the East India Com-
pany to carry the traffic in a satisfactory man-
ner. There were certain modifications required in
the terms offered them by the Government for the
construction of about 800 miles of railway in Oude
and Rohilcund, and considerable delay had arisen,
but they had every reason to expect that those neces-
sary modifications would be conceded. The directors
had in the meantime confined their operations to the
construction of the line from Cawnpore to Lucknow,
45 miles in length. The works were in a forward
state, and it was expected by their chief engineer that
it would be completed for traffic before the end of
March, 1860. It was to that line he (the chairman)
looked for a specimen of what their lines would be
when constructed in that very populous and produe-
k.

tive country. The officers of the company had re-
ported that the traffic on the common roads was
very large, and did not cease night or day. The
Capital received amounted to £215,000, and they
had in hand £70,000 in cash raised on debentures,
and £50,000 in the hands of the secretary and agents
of the company, so that there would be no occa-
sion to make a call of £1 a share, as contemplated
before the issue of the company's debentures. He
believed that everything was going on well with re-
gard to their affairs in India.
Mr. DENT, deputy-chairman, seconded the motion
for the adoption of the report. He explained that
the Nulhatec line was an experimental one, had been
constructed upon a new road, and required a bridge
across the river, to carry the line to Moorshedabad,
and thus be in a position to divert the traffic from
the river to the railway. Their lines were intended
to accommodate the local traffic of productive dis-
tricts, and to form feeders to the main guaranteed
lines of railway in India. The requisite land was to
be given them free of cost, the company were to
have a subsidy of £lOO per mile for twenty years,
in lieu of roads for earthworks and bridges ;
the companytations, was to make the perma-
nent way, stations, and sidings, and pro-
vide
adequate working stock. This they could do at
a cost of about £4,000 a mile, but if the cost should
even amount to £5,000 a mile, the traffic in those
populous districts would amply repay them for the
outlay. The permanent way and rolling stock
would be sufficient to earn £3O or £4O per mile per
k which, allowing 50 per cent. for working
wexepeeilses, would yield from 10 to 15 per cent. on
the outlay. The Government wanted the company
to deposit a large amount of caution money and
the privilege of purchasing the railways at any
time, which would be very unfair. The. directors
considered that the railway and materials on the
land would be sufficient security in lieu of caution
money ; and that if the Government would be satis-
fied to purchase the lines at the end of 25 or 50
years, as in the case of the guaranteed railways,
the company would agree to it. They would also,
in consideration of the subsidy for the earthworks
and bridges, give them up without charge, but
would require to be paid for the construction of
the permanent way, the stations, sidings, and
workshops, and also for the rolling stock. Those
were the chief points of difference between them and

Captain C. C. Chesney, R.E., Professor of Military His-
tory, Royal Military College, Sandhurst, delivered a lecture
yesterday at this institution. His Royal Highness the Duko
of Cambridge was in the chair, and among those present
were Sir E. Cust, Lord Hotham, Lord F. Powlett, Sir F.
Nicolson, and Gen. Hamilton.
The subject of the lecture was " Lessons to be derived
from Gen. Sherman's campaigns."
Capt. CHESNEY commenced by referring to a former lec-
ture delivered by him in which he had pointed out that the
recognised principle of war must be applied to campaigns
in America, as well as those in other countries, with due
allowances for the differences of the country, soldiery, and
means of communication. At that time, now two years
since, the rush of curiosity at the breaking out of the civil
war had died off, and the study of the campaigns of Fede-
rals and Confederates was unpopular, it being generally
supposed that their proceedings were a mere chaos of san-
guinary and indecisive engagements. No one of judgment
asserted this now, and the lecturer observed that it was a
lesson of caution to the public generally, who it could not
be denied, had been misled by a brilliant narrative of the
defeat of Bull's Run into supposing that Federal soldiers
could never be got to fight, forgetting that the early revo-
lutionary armies of France in 1792 and the Prussian sol-
diers in 1806 had been subject to the same kind of panics
which Mr. Russell's pen so keenly described. Such panics
only showed ill discipline and want of confidence in their
officers on the part of the men so behaving, and proved
nothing against the valour of a nation. The military les-
sons insisted on by the lecturer were two—first, the im-
portance of guarding your own communications ; and, se-
condly, the possibility of throwing this rule and others
aside on the part of a man of genius (for such Capt. Ches-
ney declared General Sherman to be) under peculiar and
favourable conditions. Little men, observed the lecturer,
could not in these matters distinguish the difficult from the
impossible ; it required a genius for war to do so. Capt.
Chesney then described in detail the advance of General
Sherman from Chattanooga to Atlanta from May 6 to July
18, 1865, and observed that the delay of Sherman's advance
by the Confederate General (Johnston) was highly to the
credit of that officer, when it was borne in mind that ho
had been thwarted by two of his own lieutenants ; that his
army was in number barely half of that of his adversary's,
and that he had been ill-supported by President Davis.
Capt. Chesney said that the actual rate of Sherman's ad-
vance was only one mile and a-half a-day, and which was
gained by his continually using his superiority of numbers
by stretching out one flank, and working it in intrench-
meats to threaten the rear of the Confederate General John-
ston. The lecturer spoke of the retreat of Johnston being
in some parts of it a perfect masterpiece of successful cau-
tion, and he observed that President Davis probably yielded
to a fatal impulse of private dislike in superseding Johnston

in July by appointing General Hood to the command. The
disastrous offensive movements before Atlanta by Hood
were then briefly referred to by Capt. Chesney, who showed
that Hood succeeded in maintaining the place a month
after he had lost not less than 15,000 mon, simply by re-
turning to Johnston's defensive policy. The lecturer also
gave a rapid sketch of the arrangements by which Sherman
secured every mile of the railroad from Chattanooga south-
ward, and, guarding it with 30,000 men, marched round
with a temporary supply of provisions to the south of
Atlanta, and forced the Confederate General Hood, who
was then too weak to take the field with any hope of suc-
cess, to quit the sought-for prize. Capt. Chesney then
proceeded to speak of General Sherman's subsequent move-
ments, and said that, in carrying out his second design,
Sherman found all the conditions for marching without any
communications--namely, a fertile country teeming with
provisions, tolerable roads, and a total absence of defenders.
It was told how Hood was decoyed away by the hope of
drawing Sherman back into Tennessee, and how Sherman
manceuvred to encourage that hope, and waited till ho saw
Hood well on the way to Nashville before making his
plunge into Georgia. His march on Savannah was briefly
noticed, and the ingenious manner in which he solved the
problem of taking these coast cities was clearly pointed out.
The lecturer commented freely on Hood's errors, and men-
tioned his disaster before Nashville as ono of many in-
stances in which in this war troops had been successfully
attacked in their intren elle(' lines. Special explanations were
given of the means used in these Georgian campaigns for
roughly intrenching, and of the means employed for de-
stroying permanently the railroads. He said the Federals
accomplished this last feat to perfection. Captain Chesney
concluded a most interesting lecture by some striking re-
marks on the demoralising effect of the system of obtaining
supplies for his army which was adopted by Gen. Sherman.
He believed it too probable that the atrocities lately reported
from the Carolinas wore not much, if in any degree, exag-
gerated; and he was afraid that great evils would ensue
from the savage spirit excited in many of those who had
suffered so terribly on both sides. He instanced the case of
an officer of rank who was serving solely for the sake of re-
venge for the death of his only son.
The Duke of CAMBRIDGE expressed the gratification ho
felt at the interesting details which Captain Chesney had
given of the campaigns of General Sherman ; at the same
time he confessed his inability to follow with ease the course
of these American campaigns ; they were so extended in
their operations and so much disconnected with each other.
One thing had struck him very forcibly while listening to
the statements of Captain Chesney, and that was that the
spade would form a great element in all future campaigns.
It was quite clear that no movements could hereafter be
made either in the way of attack or defence without in-
trenchments. This new element in warfare would, no
doubt, be greatly increased by improvements in artillery
and musketry. It had been said that cavalry had be-
come obsolete. He believed that to be a complete
fallacy. He never could understand what was meant
by saying that war could be carried on without

cavalry. Nothing struck him more forcibly of the absolute
necessity of cavalry than what had resulted from their use
in the American campaigns. It might probably be justly
said that the system of heavy cavalry was exploded, but
with regard to light cavalry ho thought it must be apparent
to every ono who had devoted his mind to the subject that
it was an arm of the service which could never by any pos-
sibility be dispensed with.