St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-08-16
IN ARMY OF OFFICERS.

The annual gathering OF the Army OF the
Tennesses" has just taken place, and was,
in all results, a success. The weather was
pleasant, the place of holding the meeting
was incompatible in its convenience and
beauty and the attendance included all the
representative men who followed Sherman
| from Atlanta to the sea. The Army of the
| Tennessee has wonderful history,
not only in the amount and character
of its fighting but in the ro-
nance which attended SO many of its
movements. It's march from Chattanooga
| southwark through the tremendous passes
Of the mountains, its conflict about Atlanta,
| its cutting loose from its base of opera tions
and disappearing in the depths of hostile
country and its final triumphant re-appe&
ance on the shore of the Atlantic, are all oc-
curances out OF the usual course of events,
and contribute to give to this branch of the
| federal forces splendor and an eclGt not at
tanned by any other division.
| In reading the proceedings of the various
annual reunions one is surprised to find thai
the material of this celebrated army is sin
gular in its quality. The officers of the civi
| body are all generals, colonies, majors anG
captains. All the addresses are made by
| gentlemen who have handle to their names
the lists Of committees are made
up exclusively of commissioned
| officers. In the coures of an
debate in the meetings, the men who speak
are always those who have no flavor of the
ie
that the gallant Army Of the Tennessee is
composed entirely of commissioned officers,
and that unlike most armies it is now and
must have been in its days of active service,
made up without any rank and file.
1t must have been when it went swinging
through Georgia an army of swords. There
was no such thing as a musket There
was no such encumbrance as a private. The
rank and file of the union armies were al
some other point; they were being lost in
the wilderness; they were engaged in but
ting out their brains against
the impregnabe defenses of Goa
| Ilarbor; they were being blown W
in the trenches. of Petersburg; they were
chasing Price in Missouri; they remained
with Thomas at Nashville and assisted in
the repulsc of Hood with his infuriate follow
| ing. They were not permitted to join with
Sherman on his breezy promenade to the
sea- All this is evident from the reports Of
the meetings of the Army OF
4 the Tennessee, for in no part
of any of its proceedings is the name of any
private mentioned, nor is there in. any di-
rection the smallest evidence of the presence
Of this lowly but often valuable factor Of
war.
The persons present at these gatherings
who are members of the body would not call
themselves the Army of the Tennessee un-
less.they were the army Of Tennessee.
| II they. were not all that their name
claims them to be, they would be guilty OF
deceit. If they were only the officers of the
army referred to, they would term themselves
the officers of the Army of the Tennessee
| But, as they do not thus class themselves, il
must be that they are what they claim to be-
that is the Army of the Tennessee. They
are the persons and the only men who pene-
trated the south and wound up the rebellion
| McHnWullt WLidJ HAS DSCOHlB VI tlatt TAI
and file that belonged to some of the other
armies-other armies than the army of the
Teuressee-or were there no private soldiers
or If there were any, did they do none o
the fighting, There are reunions of the army
Of the Cumberland, the army of the Potomac
and various other armies, in no one Of
which there appears a person who once car
ried musket. There is some
thing odd in this phase of things
at the present time. There are every where
armies taat meet, congratulate each other on
their deeds and their galiantry, and in none
o. them is there that once famous character,
the high private. Is it "a fiction that there
! were privIteS in the war, and il there were
ANY. what has become of them!