The National tribune., 1888-07-19
MERELY A SPECIMEN BATTLE.

hGt6ELhaA n SREGAmEN BATTLE
Just now public attention is strongly
drawn toward Gettysburg and the impress
sion seems to be growing that the fighting
and the losses there were phenomenally Sc
we're. Measured by a European standard
they undoubtedly were, for Europe never
saw such fighting, such awful losses, nor
regiments which had been torn to pieces in
the earlier fighting coming up with such
unconquerable resolution to renew the con-
test. So calm and dispassionate student
of warfare as the Count of Paris pronounces
the fighting all along the line to be "mur-
derous."
But, compared with the other engage
ments of our war, Gettysburg was no bloOdier
or more desperately contested. The gall
lantry of attack and stubbornness of defense
shown there were customary on every field
where the two armies encountered. The
men of the First and Eleventh Corps, who
breasted the overwhelming rebel hosts on
Oak Ridge. until their organizations were
literally cut TO pieces; those of the Third
and Fifth Corps, who fought to the death
Longstreets overpowering masses on the
Emmittsburg Road, in the Wheatfeld and
around the Devils Den; those Of the First,
Eleventh and Twelfth Corps, who beat back
Ewell from Culps Hill, and those of the
Second Corps, who withstoOd Pickett's
charge with such splendid courage, had
fought with no less bravery in many battles
before, and went forward to equally desper-
ate fighting on future battlefelds.
Therefore it mustnot be assumed for an in
stant-as there is danger-that substantially
all the fighting our soldiers did was done at
Gettysburg, nor even that that terrible field
formed the culmination of their deeds and
services Gettysburg was merely a sample
Of what came before and followed after. 1t
was only a specimen of a frequent expert
ence of the men who carried the salvation
Of the country in the barrels of their rifles
during those terrible four years of conflict.
People nowadays shudder when they read
vivid descriptions of the awful fighting and
slaughter in that one battle. They think
what it must have cost the men who went
through that terrible ordeal, but they for
get that this does not tell the whole story
by great deal. 1t is but one chapter of it.
The larger part of the men who struggled
there began fighting for their country more
than a year before in the swamps Of the
Chickahoaliuy-they had gone through
the Seven Days fighting and the slaughter
at the second battle of Manassas. Reform
ing their thiDned ranks they went on to
Antietam. Those who survived that field
were in the Iuckless assault on Fredericks-
burg and the disaster at Charlottesville.
Still undismayed, they marched to Gettys-
burg. That field did not half finish their
work, for there still lay before them the car
mage of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold
Harbor and the siege of Petersburg before
victory and peace crowned them at Appomat-
tox. Such record was never made before by
soldiers since the world began fighting with
organized armies. What was true Of the
Army of the Potomac was true of the other
great armies of the Republic. Never in ali
history did practically everybody do as much
and as hard fighting as these men who fol-
lowed the flag from 1861 to 1865.
Ia face Of such history as this how malig-
nant and contemplate is the slang whang-
ing Of stay-at-home towards about "shirks,
"cofee-coolers," bounty-jumpers," etc.