The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-08-25

nous roll of 1900 killed in action, That
means 900 killed and wounded, equal the
fighting strength of two brigadcs.
The Iron brigade" and the First Yer
mont brigade also stand in unique rivalry
with respect to losses. The Green noun
tain boys scored the highest death list by
actual count and the western men tho
highest in proportion to original strength.
The Vermontcrs had their elite regiment,
the Fifth, composed of men who didn't
know how to retreat, and this again its
elite company. In one of the peninsula
battles this company (E) faced the storm
of canister in front of Kemper's Virginia
battery until only seven men remained
out of 56 combatants The dead, to the
number Of 20, lay on the ground in regu-
lar battle order, as if sleeping on their
arms, and six members of one family
touched elbows in those prOstrate files,
while a seventh was borne away wounded.
And that gallant race which fights SO well
for all causes but its own won fresh honor
by upholding in America the glorious ira
ditions of FontenOy, for the green ban
ners of our Irish brigade were consecrated
by the blood of thousand sons of old
Erin who fell around them never to rise
and of 5000 spared to prove the tale
by showing their scars Of war Three of
these Irish regiments, fifty named after the
three most noted Irish commands in the
wars of Europe-the Sixty-third, Sixty
ninth and Eighty-eighth New York-be-
came so reduced by fighting that the 10
companies In each were consolidated into
two during the last year of the war
But with few exceptions, nearly all of
which have been named, the 300 fighting
regiments stood alone, uninspired by race
rivalry or other form Of esprit de corps
than that which ever stirs the soul Of the
true warrior.
And to learn of the war as these heroes
found it one should share their fortunes
on field after field; march with Colonel
Madill's pluoky Pennsylvanians into that
slaughter pen at Chancellorsyillc and
with them stand above the long rows of
their fallen comrades, and there, in the
midst of and in spite of the furious storm
Of battle, sing above the din the stirring
martial pnan, Rally round the 1ag!"
or with those other Keystone men, the
Sixty-1rst Of the line, fight from knee
rests at arms length in the thickets Of
Seven Pines, then with them lead the
charge up the Slopes over the crest and
into the batteries on Maryes Heights.
One should servo the guns with the can
noneers Of Slocomb's New Orleans artil-
lery, 200 days and nights under fire, and
help them hurl 6, 600 charges Of shot and
shell into the enemy's ranks, lucky not to
be among the 43 killed or 100 wounded in
that slender crew of four gun battery, or
'plunge into the thick of the fight" with
the Tennesseeans Of the First (Confedcr
ate) regiment from Shiloh to Atlanta, not
counting u battle battle unless they made
bayOnet charge upon blazing cannon;
then with the First South Carolina and
the Eighty-third Pennsylvania take up
their unique three years duel and fight
over the bloody course from Gaines Mill
to Five Forks, tallying the dead almost
man for man in each battle until quito
800 a side had been slain. Yes, one should
ride with those Uhlans of America, the
First Maine First Massachusetts, First
New Jersey cavalry and Custer's Michi-
gan brigade, in battles by the score where
dead troopers" outnumbered the wound
cd, and stand with those Yankee heroes,
the Fifth New Hampshire, in the Bloody
Lane at Antietam, until, maddened by the
frightful carnage, the men painted their
faces with powder black and sounded tho
Indian warwh9op to put new courage into
their comrades and arouse terror in the foe.
And yet when all has been said that
might be said-for the half has not yet
been told-of the sublime devotion and
sacrifice of these noble commands both
the blue and the gray, there stands one
above them all whose claim to that dis