The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-01-20
UOMBATANTS AND NON.COMBAT.
ANTS

In military parlance, these terms sig
nify-the one, the soldiers who carry
the muskets aud do the actual fighting,
the other, those numerous classes of the
medical, quarternaster's commissary's,
and some other departments whose ac-
tual business is 80 take care of him
when he is sick or wounded. But we
invariably find on any active campaign
that the term "non-combatants has a
much wider significance, and that it np-
propriately designates that very numer-
Gus class of soldiers whose business is to
fight, but who never do and never will
fight. The popular idea of an army in
battle is very erroneous one. 1t is
assumed that if 10000 men are placed
under fire at any given time they all
fight, and each and every man of them
does his duty. If this We're so the issue
of the average battle would hang in
doubt for days, and such slaughter
would result as very few battles have
produced. All other conditions and
circumstances being equal the fate of
any battle depends upon the comparative
number on each side who will fight and
the number who will skulk, shirk, or
run clear away. Every company COM
mander knows this, and he can check off
at sight on his muster-roll the names of
the men whom he never has to watch in
battle and the names of those who will
leave the field at the earliest moment
possible. In any company these two
classes can be separated and enumer-
ted with tolerable accuracy, but when
the inquiry is extended to an army of
1000 the numbers of good soldiers an
towards are unknown quantities,
which battle will only prove, not de-
termine. This has always been true of
all armies since wars were first known.
The greatest efficiency of the companys
officers, commissioned and non-commis-
stoned, in battle, is displayed in keep
ing these shameful "dead- beats" and
shirks up to the work, and in preventing
them from leaving the field. It is re-
ported of Napoleon the Great that as
he stood silently regarding the gay
dancers on one occasion he was asked if
he did not dance, to which he pithily
replied that his business was to make
other people dance. SO of the good
officer. He had better not fight himself,
but give his whole attention to making
hSohp' ilC Will lldNo SItIu anu
a a,disagreeable duty to perform in doing
this. Not only the laggards, the men
who don't want to fight, but those whose
souls are struck with terror and disney
at the sights and sounds of battle,
must all be urged remorselessly up to
the fighting line, and held there. I
have known pistols to be drawn upon
the shirks by company officers in the
heat of the action. 1 have heard of
such men being shot by their officers
while persisting in deserting their
colors.
A quartermaster, writing of a battle,
says: From my position, hardly a mile
back, we could see the smoke, and hear
the tremendous booming of the artil-
lery and the incessant crack of the mus
kerry. We had no news of how the
day was going; but to judge by what 1
saw around me, we had surely lost it.
There was stream of fugitives continu-
ally dropping out of the woods and
making for the rear, some with arms and
some without. There were hundreds of
them-I don't know but there were
thousands. To my excited imagination,
it looked as if half our army was leaving
the field. The provost guard were do
ing their best to turn them back, but
they could not reach half of them. 1t
was the worst sight / ever saw in the
army.