Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1861-06-29
Incompetent Officers.


speak out with clear distinctness in regard
to tho absolute necessity of competent Of
icers in the higher posts in the army
The entire nation is hanging its head over
the shameful affair at Great Bethel. An
expedition Of five regiments sent out to take
a battery without any suitable knowledge
of the work to be done, when it is mill
tary rule always, when it is possible, to
gain such information by scouts. Next,
five regiments sent out to storm a battery
with three or four Insignificant field pieces,
leading to the sacrifice of the life of a
brave officer in the most unnecessary way.
This expedition again, is sent out without
means of crossing narrow stream or ford
ing ditch, when the very thing that q
regularly trained officer would expect to
meet in such case would precisely be a
stream or ditch. Next, a night expedition
with one of the regiments entirely unin-
formed of the signals by which they are
to know each other. Next, surprise cx-
pedition and couple of the Colonels firing
at each others regiments, killing our own
men and announcing their approach to
the enemy. Then We have general some
where in the rear of his troops, losing his
head, giving no ineligible orders, with a
regiment waiting for orders an hour and
forty minutes, and at last, just as the brave
regiment of Zuaves would have taken the
battery any how, if they had been let
alone, the general RECEIVERS his head in
time to call them off, when the rebels are
just turning their backs.
At the same time we have news from
our Pennsylvania army that there is the
greatest dissatisfaction with many of their
officers. The men are loyal, devoted to
the country, willing to fight, and yet null
titudes talk of going home at the end OF
three months, because they are not proper.
y commanded.
If there were no remedy for this state Of
things, we could only bear it in silence but
the source of this mischief is Obvious
The difficulties of which the country is
complaining do not relate to grand stratc-
gy or great genius for war. They are
routine matters that every trained officer
would understand and provide for. War
is regular business like law, medicine,
merchandising Or farming, and no one un-
derstands it who has not been trained to
it. The error consists not in appointing
officers at all from civil life, but in appoint
ing Them to very high positions of great re-
sponsibility, and not mingling with them
in suitable proportion regular soldiers.
Here, for example, are, say a hundred
or more Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels and
Majors-to say nothing of two or three
times as many Captains-who have served
in the army twenty or thirty years, and a
large number of whom have been educated
at West Point. Why not make generals
of some of them? Why take a man who
could not drill an awkward squad and, as
we see, does not know how to take small
battery or give an ineligible order in a
slight difficulty, man who has never seen
the slightest service and make Brigadier
or Major General of him! Why not put
the civilians in subordinate places, until
they learn something of war, and put the
veterans in command ? As we said, we
trust the press will speak out until this mat
ter is remedied. We do not desire that
this nation should learn the lesson in the
loss of great pitched battle with the rcb.
els.-Phladelphia Bulletin.