The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1894-10-09
sourHERN wAR HISTORY.
The achievements ofthe Confederate
Are Ignored and Neglected.

The achievements O3the COnfedcrates
Are Ignored and Neglected.
Hampton Guardian.
The neglect or failure or omission
or whatever else 1t may be ~named-of
these States of the South to have au-
thenticated and issued an organized
chronology of the military actions of
their commanders and troops in the
American civil war, and to have done
SO within the generation of its imme-
diate survivors, will become q regret,
deplorable and i~rreparable in all flu
ture time. No other people in the
worlds history would ever have sub
mitted to the oblivion of their martial
glory, and no other people ever SO
wonderfully evinced such vital and in
herent capacity for the duties of war
and the tests of battle. Differing i'm
ancestry and tradition, divided in pur-
suits, in policies, in creeds, in climate,
In customs, they might have BEEN
but in military action they were q unit,
a symmetrical and concete body alike
In every component.
Nor should their fame have been
cherished and venerated alone for their
genius or ~generalship, the invincibility
oftheir legions, and the devotion and
sacrifices OF their women, but as well
because the military faculty of the
Southern people promptly devised re-
sources of offense and defense that
since have transformed the ornaments
OF the world. Gradually the credit
for many of these innovations has
PASSED to spurious claimants, and in
half a century the origin of tine others
will have been sealed forever in false.
hood. This beause Southern war in.
ye%ntiveness made no sign for the know
| la1nn of pOcfnrifu HOW ,n~r of fhn
thousands who sail past that grim ruin
at the gate of Charleston are aware
that with four inferior guns ingenious
ly shielded from harm but terrible for
repulse, that same work successfully
deied the naval power of the United
States to the bitter end =? How many
have even a vague conception Of the
wonderful historical, and especially
valuable military, interest which illu-
inmates hat dreary surrounding :
There the torpedo and the torpedo boat
first asserted their successful uses as
destructives there the riled cannon
first in record rent the air in actual
war there the irOn-clad land battery
and there the iron-clad floating bat.
terry first took part in hostile action
there, on a nearby island, was devised
and thrown up q defensive work the
diagram of which is today an authoriz-
cd study for military engineers at West
Point. All these we're Southern wal
explorations that must perish from
renown because the Southern people
wilfully have ignored the need of COR
rect and ,indelible history.
The mammoth vessels of the worlds
tremendous navies are all of them me-
tai armored rams. The earliest metal
armOred was the Virginia Tor Merri-
macy, built ut Norfolk, 1861. Tronsat-
lantic navigation lately raved over
two great steamers equipped each with
three " propellers, and the American
navy Is applying this power to its
greatest ship and yet thirty-two years
ago, on his capture of New Orleans,
Admiral Porter, U. S. NJ, officially re-
ported the seizure of the unfinished
Confederate "iron-clad ram Miss
issippi, having three propelling screws,
and the largest and finest war vessel in
the world ~
But what need to further cite ? In
fifty years all these wonderful contriv-
ances and tho aptitude that earliest
adapted and utilized them will be
greatefullX ascribed to pretenders and
cOunterfeits.