Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1900-04-04
THE FIELD OF BATTLE
INCIDENTS AND ANECDOTES cE
THE WAR.
The Veterans Of the Rebellion Tes. of
Whistiing Bullets. Bright Bayonets,
Bursting Bombs, Bloody Battles.
Camp Fire, Festive Bugs. Etc. Etc.

ROnhBss biOOdy
Camp Fire. Festive Bugs. Etc. Etc.
The son of a Confede. ate officer, Dun
can Rose, contributes paper to the
Century on "Why the Confederacy
Failed" The failure he attributes to
three leading cause.-the excessive
issue of paper money, the policy of dis
persion, ana the neglect of the cavalry.
Concerning the last of these Mr.. Rose
says:
Ii is a fact worthy of remembrance
that all the greatest generals of an
eient and modern times have put their
greatest faith in their cavalry. 1t was
his superb cavalry, and not the Mace
DOMAIN phalanx, with which Alexander
charged the Persian center at Arbela,
and won The crown o. Asia 1t was
HannibaPs numidian horse which
slaughtered those eighty thousand Ro-
mans at Cannae, and carried the war
TO the very gates of Rome. 1t was Ma
poleon's powerful cavalry reserve at
Austerlitz that enabled him to finish
off that great victory with the capture
of forty-three thousand Russian and
Austrian prisoners, and a hundred
pieces of artillery. And it is undoubt-
edly true, as the great captain himself
stated, that his success at Dresden did
not avail TO save his throne, because
the horses with which he had conquer
ed Europe had persisted in the SHOWS
of the Russian steppes.
The Prussians are the greatest sol
diers of modern times. and they have
never made the mistake of undertaking
cavalry. 1t was Blucher's terrible cav
airy which changed the drawn battle
of Waterloo into that dreadful rout, and
which all that awful night after Water
loo pursued the flying French until,
when the next day broke. of all those
with whom Napoleon marched out TO
fight there was not an organized body
remaining, except Grouchy's detached
command. And in her last war it was
the Prussian uhlans that made Ger
many's great victories so effective, and
made possible Sedan with its two hun
dred thousand prisoners.
And SO ii has come to be considered
an axiom that, however authorities
may differ as to the relative value of
the different arms of the service in
battle, no. great, decisive victory can
be won without sufficient cavalry to
press the pursuit; that the fruits of vic
tory cannot be gathered, the harvest
cannot be reaped, without sufficient
fresh men on horseback to pursue the
retreating enemy.
1t might be expected that, as the
Southerners were natural-born horse
men, cavaliers from the cradle" the
mounted an n Of the service would have
been the strongest AMI the most valued
and cherished: but. strange as it seems,
the contrary, the very contradictory, of
that was true. From the beginning
the cavalry was relatively the weakest,
was underrated and neglected, and
even ridiculed and derided. In jocular-
ity rewards were offered for "A dead
man with spurs on" such poor opin-
ion had they of soldier on horseback.
At the first great battle of the war,
on the plateau of Manassas, the mount
ed men did not even fight as an organ
lied body. but were divided, detailed,
and attached two companies to each
brigade, in imitation, perhaps, of the
old Roman legion, a method of arrang-
ing cav..lry in battle which was aban-
doned before the Christian era. And
vet Johnston has been blamed because
he did not capture the Federal army
and the city of Washington. too. And
at all times after that the little band of
horsemen never seemed to be consider
ed as a constituent part of the fight
ing army. Nearly always they were
separated from ii on detached duty. At
Gettysburg the Confederate cavalry
was mil away when the battle began
They were not Il factor in the great
fight until the last day. If Lee had
won. and had captured the heights of
Gettysburg it could not have been in
effect more than a drawn battle, be-
cause he had not sufficient cavalry
with which to press the purs''!t
And so, from the beginni' = to the
end, either because the government
could not learn the value of mounted
troops. or was incapable of changing
a policy ,nce adopted, or for some mex
plicaale reason. the cavalry was under |
rated and neglected. The excuse can |
not be offered that there We're not suf- |
ficient horses in the Confederacy, A |
glance at the census of 1860 will show |
that there Were horses enough in |
Texas, or Georgia and North Carolina, |
TO have mounted all the Confederate |
armies in the field. leaving enough to !
make the crops; and surely, if the gov
eminent may lawfully ''conscript" a |
man into the army. his horse or his /
neighbours horse may also be conscript- |
ed. Almost at the very time when the |
General of the Army of the Tennessee |
was begging for horses to draw his |
cannon. Federal army was capturing |
nearly two thousand horses from the |
farmers in the valley of Virginia.
Gen. Logan's Night Dispatch.
"Shall never forget that message. 1t |
was my first night work in big city