The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-06-30
BATTLE OF MONMOUTH.
NEW JERSEY IN THE WAR OF THE
REVOLUTION AND THE LATE
CIVIL WAR.
Centennial Celebration of the Battle of
m0nmOuth-HOw Battles Were
Fought n Century ago.
Especial Correspondence OF the Democrat
MnMAInIIIIL q II N I..na 1919

MONMOUTH G. H., N. j., June &C. 1878.
Do you In Louisiana ever get tired Of
POLITICS;
OF the eternal humdrum Of bills and pro-
1eets, statesmen and scandals Investigations
and perjury, John Sherman, Eliza Pinkston
Ambrosial Pitkin and the awful jerks II
you don't, / do. In fact, I'm in just that
frame of mind now. Seems to me I've writ
ten politics and thought politics and had
Nightmares of politics, in which I dreamed
troublously that was the sovereign State of
Louisiana, and that spook with the hoofs,
horns and tail of the devil and the facial con-
tour of j. Madison Wells, was belaboring me
across the stomach with Returning Board,
suppose, however, you'll say in reply that
that's my business for transaCting which
have my being. But there must be rest
sometime, somewhere. Congress sat eight
months at q stretch, and the session was all
politics save the mark of the quality,
too. And now, that Congress Is gone, it would
seem proper to let the politics go with it for
the time being.
As you may have inferred from my letters
last summer concerning Oriskany, Benning-
ton and Bemis' Heights, have weakness
for
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
About the only thing l have to be proud Of
aside from my connection with the DEMO
GRAFT, is the fact that my assessors large
family Of them-"fit into that unpleasant
ness though must add, for the conserva-
tion Of the truth Of history, that, in order to
show no Partially and get their work in, no
matter how it ended, they furnished recruits
for both sides, according to localty-those
who lived on Manhattan Island siding with
the King, and those who had frugal and
patriotic farms up the Hudson marching
with Gen. Washington. So that, on one
occasion, to wit: the capture of Stony Point
an ensign, B, of the Kings Seventeenth
Regiment, fell into the hands of his first
cousin, Capt. B, who commanded O
company in the Second New York Line Con
tinental Light Infantry) and as the family
tradition runs, was so despttefully used that
when he got back to the Kings colors he cut
one of the Ps off the end of his name, In
order to be distinguishable from those ras-
eally and ill-bred rebels, his rural cousins
from the up-country.
This brings me to
THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH,
whereof the centennial anniversary Is upon
us, This may be described as great day for
the neighboring province of New Jersey;
which has always been called foreign
country in derision-no doubt because of its
being inhabited mainly by race of sand heas
differing totally in personal appearance, man
ners, and no doubt in speech as well, from
oil the other heas in the country. Moreover
the province of New Jersey produces a variety
OF the peach and q species of the American
patriot not found elsewhere, but Indigenous
and running numerOusly to the hill, as they
say Of potatoes On past occasions, wishing
to be picturesque, | have defined the New
Jersey freeman as q cross between the Hessian
stragglers of Sir Henry Clintons army and
the war widows who made merry with the
enemy while their husbands were starving at
Valley Forge. The strain of bloed
thus admixtured was tempered deli
cately with an infusion from the veins
Of those antique army contractors whom
Patrick Henry has immortalized with the
cry of Beef Beefl Beefl!! in their mouths
and the jingle of British gold in their poeA-
cts. There was good blood in Jersey, but it
was all spilled during the war, and as q con-
sequence we have the present population of
the State. In the late diversity Of sentiment
between the North and South / have seen five
New Jersey regiments take to their heels i'm
consequence of stumbling upon three wounded
Confederates lying In a ravine, whom they
miStoOk for the outlying decoys of an .anibgs-
cade. In fact the most gallant exploit | ever
saw performed by
A JERSEY WARRIOR
was one morning, when the Sixth Corps was
moving by the left flank from Marve's
Heights upon Salem Church. There was q
small white washed house by the wayside
and from an upper window waved two small
flags of the COnfederSey in the hands of o very
rebellious, but altogether bewitching girl of
about sixteen summers. These hated en-
blems caught the eye OF our Jerseyman, who
was a staff lieutenant, temporarily in charge
ola Pennsylvania battery-the guns of which,
by the way, we were kind enough to leave
with A. ?. Hill as souvenir of our visit just as
we were coming away;-these caught the mar
tial eyeof our patriotic Jerseyman and he i'm
mediately leapt his horse over into the yard
drew his sabre and commanded the rebeIlous
young female to lay down her Confederate
flags and dispense forthwith She tripped
gaily down stairs, came out onthe front porch
and informed our hopeful son of the Jersey
Mars that il he wanted them he had better
come and get them; viii ch he did, receiving
them right In the face where the rebelliOus
young female flung them as soon as he came
in range But Gen. Sedgwick, one of the
few Federal generals who did not recognize the |
female sex as belltgercnts, rode along that way
just In time to take in the exploit of our Jer- |
sey hero, and asked him who ordered him to
precipitate the engagement in that manner, !
made him return the flags to their owner ia |
formed him that as soon as we could get
couple of miles further ON there would be
plenty OF Confederate flags for him to capture
under conditions better suited to the charae- |
ter of q soldier, and wound up by admonish-
ing him that, This was not the Department
OF the Gulfr' doubtless in grim a1lusion to |
the then recent exploits of the doughty Gen |
Butler In your own city.
But what has this all to do with 1878 and |
the battle of Monmouth you will ask To
which | reply nothing, except as a preface to |
the remark that the three most glorious bat |
ties of the revolution were fought on Jersey
soil by troops from New York, Pennsylvania, |
Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. under com
mand of general belonging to the last
named.
NEW JERSEY -ssF~saese
herself lost heavily in these actions, having
several strawstacks shot through and through
and large numbers of pigs and sheep bay
Onetted