Omaha daily bee., 1895-09-22

" A1A iAiif ~ AhAFt ahF AiNiNNf hA'At ]
immortal by the immovable figure that stood
there-serene, sedate, our own General George
II. Thomas, the Rock Of Chickamauga.'
THE Army OF the Cumberland can well
be congratulated that among its leaders IN ere
were no jealousies and never evidence Of de-
sire to reach chieftalnshlp by wrecking an
others fortune and running anOther's fame.
Fealty to each other. devotion to the ser ice
and loyalty to the cause were the inspirations
that led TO success. Victo les are as .urel
while fealty holds. devotion con inues and
loyalty prompts. How well those n supreme
command supplemented each otherl To or
ganize, to discipline, to convert the fresh
levies Of raw troops into the compact and
resistless battalions that moved with precision
and struck with force-came General Don
Carlos Buell.. To take the mighty weapon,
thus skillfully fashioned for his hand, and,
with admirable skill, WELD It with the power
of genius and the force Of a strategy most
masterful, followed General William S. Rose
Grams. To steadily. persistently hold to all
advantages ever gained and to be ever sue
cessful in fighting with the veteran soldiers,
who looked on him as their father and ttnged
all their service for him with a confidence
never shaken, a devotion that never faltered
and a love that has never faded-succeeded
General George H.. Thomas. And those splen-
did subaltern commanders who were at the
head Of corps, the chiefs of divisions and
who led our brigadesl How our hearts thrill
with recollections Of that distant past as we
read the roll of names that were not born
to die! Let me speak Of some of them,
Jackson, Sill, Whitaker, Beatty, Gesry, KIM
ball, Newton, Baird, Brannon, Cruft, Rous-
seau, Davis, Johnson. Van Cleve, Reynolds,
Steedman, Slocum, Granger, Garfield, Hooker,
Palmer, Crittenden, Wood, Stanley, Nc
Cook, Howard, Sheridan.
These are the immortalsi
WERE FIRST CLASS FIGHTING MEN.
Never did better men draw swords and
fix bayonets than those of inferior place and
OF the rank and file that followed these
trained leaders. Coming from nearly all the
states north of those bordering the gulf, the
great mass Of them were from the middle
west. They were OF the best blood Of the
communities from whence they came. Skilled
in pany callings, learned in all professions,
they brought to the performance of their
duties a rare and most exceptional intelli-
gence. Filled with the fire Of patriotism
they followed the flag of their country to
endure until the end and determined that ct
the end no star should be effaced from that
glorious banner of the Republic. They were
'Infexible in faith, invlncible in arms
"Fain would / give In detail the story of
our army from its first combats in the sum
mer of 1861, on the neutral soil Of Kentucky,
to the great battle in the winter of 1861
fought at the capital of Tennessee. But time
will not permit that l should make more
than the merest reference to the glorious
record unparalleled for continuous success in
the annals of war. Neither need l show the
process by which 1t passed from the hands
Of its first commander, General Robert An
derson of Fort Sumter fame. to the control
of that able military leader, who, endowed
with prophetic vision, saw the magnitude of
the coming contest, said that to advance the
great line of the center to its ultimate OBJ
j~ective and reap the legitimate rewards
would require an army OF 200 900 men and
who was relieved because of doubts of his
sanity, to be again sought for and to win
immortal fame-General William Tecumseh
Sherman. He was succeeded by General Don
Carlos Buell. and the troops under his com
mand became known as the Army of the
Ohio, losing for a tina their original aprel'a-
ton.
"To operate on Buell's flank and retard the
movement into Tennessee General Humphrey
Marshall, then of considerable military fame,
moved a strong force into eastern Kentucky.
In the presence of this threatening danger
Buell. looked for the man equal to the emer-
gency. He selected an unknown volunteer
soldier, a newly made colonel of an Ohio in
fantry regiment, who proved himself the
right man in the right place, drove the con-
federates from their mountain Businesses and
laid the foundation of that splendid reputa-
ton and forceful character that commanded
our admiration and won our sincere respect
for General James A. Garfield.
BROKE Fl OPPOSITIoN'S BACK.
I'm the winter of 1861 the confederate line
extended from the Mississippi river at Co
lumbus to Cumberland Gap, its center being
at Bowling Green. 1t was not long TO remain
undisturbed, for the first field fight in Ken
lucky at Mill Springs was a victory so decided
that it compelled the abandonment of the
rebel line and, with the fall of Forts Henry
and Donelson, permitted the occupation of
Nashville. The defeat of Cri.tenden at
Mil Springs was a crushing blow to southern
hopes. General Albert Sidney Johnson
wrote of it: The tide of ~fugitives from that
battlefield filed the country with dismay.
It did much for the couse of unionism in
Eon4uNku and ahova all Il draw tha attaOtinn
of the republic to the great soldier who was
never to disappoint it's experimentation
George H. Thomas.
''Of the concentration of our troops al
Nashville | need not speak, but to forego
~allusion to Shiloh would be ineXcusable. II
was the first great combat between large
armies led by prominent chieftains. and while
its results were not decisive, the bloody
slaughter secured TO us the holding Of the
center west and the opening of the valley Of
the Mississippi. The natural and artificial
conditions pointed to Corinth as the objective
and it was won at Shiloh as Chattanooga
was won by the battle Of Chickamauga. How
we'll do we who formed that marching column
that composed the divisions of Nelson, Crit.
tenden, McCook and Wood remember the
booming of the cannon that filled the air OF
that beautiful sabbath morning in the early
spring time. We moved to the sound of tbs
guns that told US that the fight was on In
deadly earnest and that our brethren of thu
Army OF the lcnlleSSee were heavily eISdBGA
across the deep river, whose name they bore
ON WAY TO SHILOH.
There were long miles ahead of us be
fore we could reach Savannah, where there
could be crossing of the deep and rapis
! stream, lowing past the rear of the army o
Grant; but eager feet, responding to listening
ear, devoured them rapidly. Supply wagons
were thrown to the side of the road, ammu
milton hurried to the front for rapid dis
tribution, unnecessary burdens cast away
and the men Of Buells army stripped them
: selves for the fight. The division of Nelson
the gallant old tar, was the first t
= reach the battlefield and did goo
I work on that Sunday afternoon
in repelling the assault of Bcagg's comman.
) on Grants left. C-ittenIen's division was
f close second and McCook's crossed the rive
carly the next day. The spectacle present
to these troops, as they left the iran port
and climbed the river back, is simply IN e
scribable. Und the rrote 2t,ol Afforded b
the slope was huddled a mass Ct dlshea .ten2d
demoralized creatur,s, completely uunery,
and cowel. II was a trying ord5a TO pas
through these prophets of disaster and hea
their forebodings of defeat. But te beirin
, of the we'll di disciplined trocps of Buell. pu
heart into many Of those thus dlsp.rlted an
induced good service in the battle of The It'll
The Comte d. P5rls says of the three dI
visions that servel at shiloh GO list ntl
drilled for the year past by a rigid disci