The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1889-05-09
THURSDAY MORNING. MAY 9, 1889.


fought the British FIVE to one and 60
whipped. tiuilford Court House th'
lecturer styled!a quarter. race. He sait
when you came to think of it there wa'
mighty little killing. With three mil
lions of population the Continental
never had an army of2O,OO0 men. Will
five millions of whites the Confederacy
had quarter of million killed. A
skirnish in the Shenandoah Valley fur
nished more !graves than the whole
Revolutionary war. No wonder the
Continentals gained the victory with such
| luck
The Continentals had three great ma
| tions, France, Spain and Holland, assist
| ing them. The Confederacy had the
whole world frowning upon it.
The lecturer then proceeded at consid'
erable length to attempt to show that il
| vas only by luck that the Continentals
| were yictorious-that but for Burgoyne'i
blunders and the death of Give the
Revolution would have been put down
If Give had lived, he said, the Revclu.
tion would have been crushed within
sixty days.
He ridiculed the Continentals during
their flight in North Carolina and Vir.
ginia, saying that the Continentals would
have been ,overtaken and routed after
crossing the Catawba, but that the river
rose during the night; that the same
thing saved them after they had crossed
the Yadin, and again after they had
passed the Dan. He drew q somewhat
ridiculous picture of the condition OF
affairs in Virginia when CORVALLIS
reached there, and claimed had he remain.
ed at Portsmouth he could. never have
been taken; also, that it was an accident
that he stopped at Yorktown.
Further, the lecturer claimed that it
was only by reason Of q storm that Count
de Grasses French feet was driven into
Chesapeake Bay, and that the same storm
which drove him there drove away the
British feet coming to join CORVALLIS.
Then, again, that only the occurrence of
another storm prevented Cornwallis's
army from escaping..across York river in
boats, and that the surrender which
ended the war was entirely the result Of
a chapter of accidents or luck.
Calling the attention of his hearers to
the Oonfederacy, the lecturer related that
Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General
under Lincoln, had told him remarka-
bic fact about the battle of Shiloh or
Pittsburg Landing. Describing the
positions of the opposing forces, MIR.
Blair had said that over one-half the
Federal troops had been driven back to
the river completely demoralized, and
that he was satisfied that if Gen. Albert
Sidney Johnston had lived thirty min
utes longer, the Federal army would
have surrendered. Gen. Blair, his owD
brother, had said SO. 1t was spent ball
which killed the champion of the South.
What luck or illluck came from an ounce
of lead
Take the fall of Stonewall Jackson.
he had just matured plan to get be.
tween Hooker and the Rappahannock.
AS he was between the lines one evening
bullet struck down the great warrior,
from whose gun, OK from which side
never has been known. If Jackson had
put his army between Hooker and the
river one army or the other would have
had to surrender. IfHooker had reached
that river it would have been over
causeway of the corpses of every man in
Stonewall Jackson's command.
General Lee on one occasion had been
waiting certain move of Grant in the
movements around Richmond-that was
the division Of his forces and the putting
of part of his army the other side of
Petersburg. The Federal troops were
to go across pontoon bridge,:and in the
distractions of piles, ETC., above an
opening had been left by the Confeder.
ates. Iron.plated steamers had been
kept in readiness for just such an expe'
dition and when he learned that Grant
had actually moved portion of his
troops Lee had the steamers made ready
to go down and destroy the bridge, thus
cutting communication between the two
parts of the Federal army, and he intend
ed to attack Grant on the Richmond
side. The pilot of the first steamer,
whether traitor, or through accident,
intead of ofsteering straight through the
opening in the piles, Fan his boat upon
them, thus closing up the only gate of
egress and running The proposed expedi-
ton. What piece of luck Lee would
certainly have crushed Grants army but
for it.
In that campaign, in which Lee was
willing to go down to the centuries and
to be judged by the military critics of all
time, from spottsylvaniat to Cold Harbor,
Lee knocked down more men in the
Federal army than he had in his whole
army when he started.
At Cold Harbor the slaughter of the
Federals was such the soldiers refused
to charge again. A dispatch was sent
to Seward. "The fight is out of the army
of tho Potomac" Seward then begun to
get ready to arrange an armistice, and
summoned to him Swinton. the historian.
He showed to him the dispatch and took
him in his private car to Albany, where
there editorials were written by Swinton
for the New York Times to prepare the
public mind for the proposed peace pro.
ceeding. The manuscripts with Stewards
interlineations are still in existence and
will be published at Swinton's death.
Just before they we're put in type the
Army of the South at Atlanta gave way,
and tho namc nansed The nnhlicatinn to