The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-07-03
NO FEAT OF ARMs LIKE 1T.
Charge of the Six Hundred 0utdon
by the First Minnesota.

GETTYSBURG, July 1--WE ought
to have a Gettysburg day in our ma
tional calendar of patriotic feasts,"
said a veteran New York officer while
strolling along Hancock avenue, point
ing out the sights for party of pill
grirns to the battlefield. New Eng
land has her Bunker Hill day all right,
though the battle of Bunker Hill was
only a starter in the revolution. Gettys-
burg was a finisher in the war of the
rebellion.
why, there are object lessons to
stir American pride and patriotism at
every turn of this classic field. For
instance, to our left, is the scene CT
the deed commemorated by that in
scription you have just paused over
on the monument to the dead heroes
of the First Minnesota. All time is
the millennium of your glory. You
thought, as have others, that those
words were placed upon enduring
marble through an outburst of ex-
travagant hyperbole What I could
not make clear to you before I hope
to now in telling you upon the spot
where it was enacted on July 2 1863,
of feat of arms unparalleled in the
annals of modern wars.
For nearly half century all the
world has wondered, just as Tennyson
meant it should, over the picturesque
ride of the Six Hundred
Into the jaws of death.
Into the mouth of hell
at Balaklava. I am not rabid lingo.
ordinarily, but it does make nv
American heart beat faster than it's
wont when I must listen to the
rhapsodies of the crowd over the
charge of the Light Brigade. as though
that incident made Ba1aklava a field
to date from in summing up deeds of
martial valor. Frankly, the ride of
the Six Hundred down the Valley of
Death isn't in this contest by forty
five points, all of them scored on
American battlefields during the Civil
war
THE little block of marble you would
nave stumbled over back there in the
shadow OF the grant national pile. but
for its catchy Inscription, is placed
above the graves of fifty-six Minue-
sotans who were killed outright in a
charge made by a ptalanx of on1v 262
men. There We're nineteen mortaIly
wounded and buried elsewhere, and ian
wounded who recovered, leaving forty
seven survivors out of 262, a loss of
81 per cent.
Nov the Light Brigade had 247 kill
ed and wounded out of 673 who rode
in the fight, a loss of about 81 per
cent. A little elementary mathematics
shows a gap confronting the Britfshers
sap was bridged, point for point, on
the battlefields of the Civil war, all
the way up to eight-two, the highest
on record in all the worlds showing.
Wen come back to figures and COM
parsons later, if you bear with me
while l tell what they are all about.
deed of which Gen. Hancock said:
There is none sublinneF recorded In
the pages of history My figures say
there is none so sublime counting
the gains ON the bloody investment.
I saw it with its prelude and it's
sequel, for L stood upon this ridge thai
afternoon when Gen. Sickles's Third
corps was overwhelmed out there on
that high ground in our front This
long ridge upon which we are now
standing was held by Hancock,s
corps, and the. defeat of SickIes
threatened disaster to this flank of
Meade's army, for that rocky mountain
here on the left, Little Round Top
had not yet been seized by our troops.