Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian., 1859-06-11
Modern Science I'm the Coming War.

We are apparently on the eve of the most
tremendous armed conflict which the worl.
has seen since the downfall of Napoleon the
Great The wars of Imperial France were
bloody wars, as the worli knows. No slaugh-
tered hecatombs were ever piled so high as
the Great Emperor piled them. The dead
never lay SO thickly on any hattie field, of
which history makes any mention, as they
Law on Eylau and Boridono and Waterloo.
What amount of destruction and misery sci
ence in the hands of genius, could, in given
time, deal out on given number of men was
there amply demonstrated.
But it is not saying too much to say that if
the European powers let their armed hOrdes
loose upon one another this summer ruthless
destroyer as Napoleon was, he will be shown
! before three years are Ovcr to have been a
| mere tvro in the art of destruction. Since
| his dav all the arts have advanced with rapid
strides, but none with strides so rapid as this
one. The weapons with which his soldiers
were armed, with which the bridge of Lodi
was carried and AusteritZ and Marengo were
! won, bear much the same relation to the rifle
of the present day as the matchbox bears to
| the fireock. Death did not in his time flash
from the solid ranks until the foeman stood
two or three hundred yards apart. 1t now
flies in the air nearly three quarters of mile,
so far as the sharpest eye can mark human
figure. His siege artillery would be to day
by no means heavy field pieces. Wellingtons
heaviest preaching guns at Badajos and Sala-
manca were twenty-four Founders. The Rus
slams at Inkerman, and the British at Tcherna-
va brought thirty-two Founders into the field
with ease and effect.
But the advantage which heavy guns have
always had over light ones, hitherto, for the
ordinary purpose of field artillery, has been
rather in the length of the range than in the
size of the ball. A twelve FOUNDER rushing
through column of infantry is full as des-
tructive and almost. as demoralzing as a
cannon ball one treble the weight; but
formerly it could not be projected nearly so
far. Science has, in our day, destroyed the
difference between them.
Recent inventions, some of them those of
them those of our countrymen, some Eng
lishmen, and some of the present Emperor Of
France, have furnished light field d-peces, which
four horses can whirl at the widest gallOp
point to point, with more than the deadly
power which, forty years ago, belonged only
to weapons which sixteen horses could move
, with difficulty, and which were always pieces
de position.
Moreover, facilities nave been created since
Waterloo was fought, for bringing together
masses Of men thus armed, and dashing
them against one another, such as the great
Napoleon in all widest dreams never dreamp
4 Of We all know how the rapidity of his
movement dazzled, how he strobe over Eu
rope like magician, taking armies up, as i
t seemed in those days, in the hollow of hi:
hand, and then hinging them in the twinklint
of an eye where his giant plans needed
, them. We know how the pupils of Turenn'
|, and Monteculli recoled in dismay before lie
J gions which struck like thunderbolt afte
n havin. advanced like the wind. But great a.
: was the perfection to which he carried tn
h art of rapid concentration, it becomes tn
e crawling of a turtle when compared with tn
e power with which railroads have armed tn
IS Generals of our day.
= When Napoleon started on his expeditions
n armies were of necessity divided into columns
which, in order to secure the bare means 9
r subsistence and of transport, were compelle
% either to follow each other at tolerably Ion
IS intervals, or else march on the same point b
of different circuitous routes. And they di
y march-literally marched thought every inc
ys of the way on foot, and the eagle tapped h