St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-09-13
QUEER THINGS IN WAR.

No participant in the first battle of
Bull Run was able to tell how the mem.
orable panic started. 1t should never
have been. There wasn't the slightest
reason for panic. Although the Fed
eral troops were outnumbered when
the Confederate reinforcements came
from the valley. they could have fallen
back In good order and formed new
line to the rear.
Burnside should never have attacked
at Fredericksburg. Every soldier of.
of prominence in America and Europe
has so declared. There weren't an even
hundred private soldiers in his COM
mand who believed an attack would be /
successful. /
Gen. Hooker went down into the VII.
derness to take Lee in rear. Before he
was ready Stonewall Jackson was al I
most In his rear. Word was sent to
Hooker early in the day that jackson
was passing along his flank. He pre-
ferred to believe that the willy Confed-
crate was in full flight toward Rich
mond. Had he not put his own opinion
against facts as stated by prisoners
captured he might have bagged jack
son and Lee then and there.
All military students believe that Lee
made mistake in ordering the memo
rable charge at Gettysburg instead of a
flank movement, while Beaureguardi
rested an hour too soon to complete the
disaster at Shiloh.
When one knows how thin Lees
right was at Antietam, some of the bat
terles having no support whatever, he
can reason that had Burnside charged
at the hour ordered by Mcclellan, the
result of that battle would have cen
far different. n
thousands lay in camp at Shiloh for,
days without protecting their front in
the slightest. a great army marched
over the country to attack, out there
was not even cavalryman out to see
and hear, and bring in the news. The
biographers have furnished plausible
excuses, and the historians have sought
to cover up mistakes. but one needn't to
have fought In the ranks to realize that
1T was war in which many queer,
strange things came to the surface, con-
tlnues writer in the New York Wovlh
They used to be called plumbers, but
that term is too harsh for these piping
days of peace. There are old histories
which tell of Gen. Butler being bottled
up" at Bermuda Hundred. The now
ones refer TO his queer position there as
an error of Judgment.
One of the most stupendously queer
Ihih5 VI INC Wal WAS DdukS RrGdu
move OH Texas, and the queerest thing
about 1t all was the fight at Sabine
Pass. The federal force comprised
four gunboats and about 1000 infantry.
1t will hardly be credited, but 1t is
fact surrounded by hundred proofs
that there were less than fifty Confed-.
crates in the fort. They did not expect
victory, but were determined not to
leave without fight. Seventeen min
utes after the first gun was fired the
Confederates had possession of two Of
the gunboats, and the other two, to-
gether with the transports carrying
1000 men, were in full retreat down the
river.
1t was the quickest, queerest victory
of the war. In the fort not man was
scratched, while the Federals lost over
two hundred in killed and prisoners
and two crafts armed with fifteen rifed
guns. Each one of the defenders was
subsequently presented with medal
by the Confederate president, and was
afterward known as a Davis Guard"