The New York herald., 1863-10-12
this little scrap of a scea, from sAaAspeso-"ill

\ The Kina /. almost vo,Dced 70 tne death;
Add. n tho fortuus of o,y lord, yolr son.
!rincs Harry p'ain oa,r,git; and toh the 'a?uuts
| Kiri ~ the bind of n,'Fa n. lousg pritco John
! Nnd wes,n,ore'eud md sl rd rcd tho Aaii.
Aud Harry Manmonth's h isn. The t,rk Str John.
4 ~ prts ner o. your son. OH stcN eday,
| 20 io1sht 90 toiin ed aus ~ tasty Won s
4 tsmo ut ,ll now iod,snty the tincs
! bnce tfcsars rru,c6
| hoKr!, How "a thls her,veds
| Saw you tbs ttci = Game "a trim thrcwsbVye
| bAano In-ITass sih o'r. nv ,o,d. Gsai oams from
! a o nlcs or 60 y bet aud of o>os naa.,,
| mat f'-s J. 'r7dsrai ne hex ne'cs fof true.
Nov. Lord Bardolph's "rcliabie gentleman
was singuarly unfortunate hore; FOR mot on'y
was the whole story tissue Of lies. but the
truth was in the exact contrary or every state
ment made, and tho next courier converted
"thls grcatest victory since the time Of Cesar
into miserable defeat.
Accounts OF Che battle OF Chattanooga. made
IN IN the way we have sketehed. appeared ia
several newspapers just after the battle. Our
account, written by Mr.. Sbanks. did not, as
might he supposed, agree with these accounts,
and hence il and its writer have been maligned
somewhat. Nevertheless. that account will
stand as the best account wrltten OF that
battle-as the best account written ef any
Vuttic III b'tH WNI uuu ao tuo UCSt Ul lCVuut wiz
ten Of any battle ever fought. We do not In
this statement 60 syllable too far. In his do
scription of the great struggle at Chattanooga
Mr.. Shanks has done what has never before been
done since men met one another In battle. He
has furnished to the world, directly from tho
battle field, an account Of an immense action
that is as ineligible and as clear as the calm
"a: al~sne 4
down ones nerves as Sir Philip Sidney said tho
ballad Of "Chevy Chace" did-"iike the blast
of a trumpet" When and by whom has this
been done before?
Begin with the Scriptural account Of the
"battle Of four kings against Ave." and come
you will find that Il has not been done at all
Thymbra is the first general action in history Of
which we have any particular account. 1t was
fought by over four hundred thousand men on
one side and nearly two hundred thousand on
the other, and decided the possession of all
Asia. Every account Of it, however, is miser-
ably poor by comparison with the account we
gave our readers Of the late great battle in
Georgia. AT Marathon the Greeks fought the
Persians, as Herodotus says, Sin manner
worthy to be recorded" and Herodotus accord
ingly records 1t. Marathon is one of the worlds
great battles, and HerOdotus is the father OF
history, and Of course we have an immense
respect for both; but we must pronounce our
correspondent to be head and shoulders taller
than the Halicarnassian on battle pieces.
Plutarch has tried bis hand on battles to
great extent. Compared with our account in
question, his description of the way in which
Alexander 'opened the gates of Asia" on the
banks Of the Granicus reads like puerilo aneo-
dote. Nor is the account of Arbela any better.
All accounts of Alexander's battles may be read
In vain to ind first rate one 80 may all the de-
scriptions Of the battles fought by the race Of
generals who contended for the kingdoms no
left. II the genius Of Alexander found no ft
ohronicler, Pyrrhus could not expect II. How
comparatively tame is antiquity upon Tber
mopyie, Plataa, Leuctra and Mantinea. And
the lesson Is sufficiently simple-the historians
did not see the battles Of which they wrote, and
in some instances did not write their accounts
Of the battles until hundreds Of years after they
had been fought Hence they inevitably want
clearness and life.
There is in Grecian literature one celebrated
description Of battle written by man who
was present on the field ss' q locker on, and
therefore not too much engaged to see the
whole battle. This is the description in Keno
phOn of the battle Of Cunaxa, between Cyrus
and the "Grest King" from which field the
"ten thousand began their celebrated retreat
As the account Of spectator, 1t is a fair an
cient parallel with our account of which we
speak. Let any one compare tho two and see
how Xenophon limps. Josepbus Is another in
stance of writer who was present at the bat
ties he describes. All the fights about Jerusa-
lem in the great siege by Titus arc given in
his pages with certain reality and life; but
they are altogether deficient in breadth and
force.
Neither have the battles Of tho great Roman
wars any especial vvidness in Roman history.
Alas that there was no special correspondent
with that wonderful soldier, Hannibal, through
all the years that he remained 10 Italy As il is,
we have no adequate account Of the dreadful
ambuscade at Thrasymenus, carried on while
"an earthquake rolled unheededly away" nor
| any account of Gamma worthy Of IL. nor OF Zams.
Cesar gives us magnificent glimpse Of grand
onset; but there Is very little Of 1t. Pharsalia
stands rs great fact In history, but not with
especial brl'iancy In any author. We know
| how the battle was lost and won. Tactlcans can
draw diagrams Of the man1uvres; but there is
no especial spleDdor or excellence in the de-
scriptions Of It. Charles Mar,el's grand achieve
mcnt at Tours, which turned back the tide Of
Saracen conquest and made Europe Christian
and whore the battle was continued through
seven dsys-tbougb 1t has been described by
Arabians and Europeans, and by Gibbon, Il
very tamey described everywhere. 1t is in
q great degree the same Of the later medieval
wars. Froissart's "Battle OF Cressy" Is, how
ever admirable. So are some Others Of thai
old chronicler's battle pieces, especially hi,
Flemish battles, as that at Courtrai bu,
yet they are far behind the accounts given II