The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1863-06-05

'Etii dDSuluItS On tDS vel. ioCe VI tboli
till could lave cried for shame and grief tc
be obliged to acknowledge myself as be,
longing TO the same army.
/ Still in spite Of all have said, it is BY nc
means the truth that our men are parcel oil
towards and poltroons. They are as brave
as the average Of peop!e-qui,e as brave as
our enemies are. But We don't fight in such
commonsense way as they do. Shall
;.ll you how one of our lines of battle en-
cages? They go in in fine style, steadily, in
good line and without any finching, halt
at what is held to be a desirable point, and at
the commend commence firing, standing
kneeling Or ing down, as may be ordered.
Then, as in all their previous training they
have been taught to load and fire as rapidly
as possible, three or four times minute, they
90 into the business with all fury, every man
vying with his neighbor as to the number OF
cartridges he can ram into his piece and spit
out of it. The smoke arises in minute or
two so you can see nothing where to aim
The noise is deafening and confusing to the last
degree. The impression gets around of a
tremendous conflict going or. The trees in
the vicinity suffer sorely and the clouds a
good deal. By-andby the guns get heated
and won't 90 Oft and the cartridges begin to
give out. The men have become tired with
their furious exertions and the excitement
and din OF their own firing, and without
knowing anything about the effect produced
upon the enemy, very likely having scarcely
had one glimpse of the enemy at all, begin
to think they have fought about enough and
it is nearly time to retire. Meanwhile the
enemy, lying quietly a hundred Or two yards
liz front, crouching on tie ground or behind
trees, answer our fire very leisurely, as they
get chance for good aim, about one shot
to our 500, hitting about as many as we do,
and waiting for the wild tornado of ammuni-
ton to pass over their heads, and when our
burst OF lighting is pretty much over they
have only commenced, They probably rise
and advance on us with one of their unear,h-
y yells as they see our fire slackens Our
boys. finding that the enemy has survived
such an avalanche OF fire as we have rolled
in upon him, conclude he must be invincible
and being pretty much out of ammunition,
tire. Now if had charge of regiment
or brigade, III put every man il the guard
rou>e who could be proved to have fired
n.ore ti."n twatity rounds in any one battle :
| wou,,.n't let them carry more han their car
GrlGse box fell go ro1nds). and have them
understand that that was meant to last them
pretty much through d campaign. and il
very possible way endravor 10 banisn the
Chinese style Of fighting with big noise
and smoke, and initiate rather the backwoods
style OF our opponents.
Whenever We chose to defeat the armies
Of the rebels, we can do 81, and we don't
need 00,O0G more men to do it with either
There are men enough in Hooker's army
HOW TO march straight through to Richmond
loo many men are on Y an encumbrance. -
There isn't the general living who has the
ability to manage properly, certainly, more
than hundred thousand men. All we have
TO do is to make up our minds rot to run
before an equel number of the enemy, to
keep cool and save our ammunition to shoot
something besides trees with, and when the
butternU.s fnI We don't run away thew will.
Meanwhile. till am able to return and ef-
feet in our army this change in their method
of fighting, have the honor to assure you
that these brown coated fellows are not so
b@d as they might, be Only they don't furnish
US any sugar to pat in our coffee, nor yet any
coffee to pat sugar in. Yours atfably.
Dunn BROWNE.