The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1864-08-03
War Fifty Years Ago.

The people OF the North have had very lit
lie experience OF war since 1914 until the
present savage contest was commenced by the
South. In tnat year Sir John Provost in
yaded Northern New York with a British ar
my OF ten thousand men, to the great con-
sternation OF the inhabitants of the frontier
IN Vermont and New York. No such armies
traversed the country then as those which
form but auxiliary forces of the great militia
ry commands now. Gen. lizard, South Car
Gilman, who commanded the right wing Of
our grand Army of the North, had but about
thirty-iye hundred men for proposed ad-
vance into Canada, and the British immedi-
ately opposed to him mustered fifty five hund-
red with reserve of two thousand at Mon
treal. lizard, however, was ordered to Mag
ara and the frontier was left open for Pro-
yost,s demonstrations.
The frontier war, then, was carried on upon
a scale not much larger than that which might
measure John Morgan's raids. He had over
five thousand men when he entered Indiana
aud Southern Ohio. A fight between three
or four hundred combatants was signalzed
by the name of a battle. Lieut.. Col For
syth led band of seventy picked men from
Champlain across the border, fought two
hundred British troops, and retreated in good
order with the loss OF one man killed and five
wounded. Southerners and Northerners
fought together then, and Fo-syth's dash was
considered a great exploit.
When Provost neared Plattsburg, which
was defended by General Macomb with very
small force in comparison with the number of
the assailants. Major, (now General) John
T.. Wool, for the purpose of encouraging the
militia, took the initiative with less than three
hundred men and met the advance of the in
yaders. The militia, however, became alarm
ed at the overwhelming numbers and fell back
from the battle which was offered by the dar-
ing Wool. The history Of the battle OF Patts-
burgis well enough known. 1t was fought ON
the llth OF September, nearly fifty years ago,
at the same time that the British fleet under
Commodore Downie, who was killed in the
action, cooperating with General Provost,
was defeated by Mscdonough upon Lake
Champlain, aud the whole country was full
ofjoyiul congratulations at the result. This
demonstration essentially put an end TO Brit
ish invasion of the North.
The meh who participated in the battles of
that day little anticipated that within half a
century such immense armies as are now
gathered together for battle could have stood
in array against each other, and still less could
they have been made to believe that such an
army could be composed OF hostile brethren
of their own fair country. They had known
Of no such armies, pitted by hundreds of thous-
ands against each other, except perhaps in Bo-
napart's fatal Russian campaign, and they new
er dreamed Of such carnage, created upon
fields OF battle in one of the States of their own
Repubublic. with such frightful aggregates of
dead and wounded as have been counted upon
our battle fields since the commencement of
the May capaign. AS their experience had
never taught them, so neither could their fan
cies direct them TO anticipate such gigantic
and wholesale war preparations and war con-
hicts as now exists in this once happ country