Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1905-08-10
Xxx.
A CRY FROM THE AMBULANCE.

CHAPTER Xxx.
A CRY FROM THE AMBULANCE.
The autumn, the wasted autumn has
gone, 1.-THE winter of our discomfort
indeed has come. For weeks the army
hangs there inert and chatting along
the Potomac, while Lee and his bronzed
saunter away through the
Shenandoah, feeding on the fat of the
land" Marveling at the inactlon OF
Mcclellan, Stuart rides back with 800
horse and two light guns and, OF
course, Pelham; and, just as he did a
few months earlier down on the pen-
insula, joys contemptuously clear
round the bewildered and indignant
divisions, laughing at the effort of
Pleasanton to catch or others to head
him. Mcclellan says his cavalry is
too wearied and broken down to ac-
complish anything, and the president
mildly asks what it has been doing to
SO fatigue it. Another correspondence
Of complaints begins, and finally ends
at Warrenton, when the order comes
early in November that sewers once
and for all McClellan's connection with
the Army OF the Potomac. He had
done much to make it, God knows.
He was great as an organizer and in
structor. He had the faith and regard
of most of the officers and the love of
all the men. 1t was in battle and cam
paign that he failed them, not they
him, for mortal man had deeper
devotion than was accorded Little Mac
until he took the field. Even now, this
| sad November day, there are scores of
officers and soldiers whose faces are
furrowed with tears as they see him
ride away. There are many commands
that would gladly recall him. There
are regiments that could not be made
to cheer him after Antietam that
mourn his going now, even in the
hard-used First corps.
Changes, too, have occurred in many
a minor grade. The Fifth corps
mourns the loss of the brilliant, gift
ed, handsome soldier whose head is de-
manded as one result of the woful mis-
maneuvers about Manassas. Old
names appear at the head of grand
divisions, as Burnside calls the doubled
corps. New names, comparatively, ap-
pear at corps headquarters. New
brigadiers, a full crop, ride up from
the roster of field officers, and not Sc
many now hail from the ranks of in
1uential but unskilled civilians. New
regiments have been grated on ole
brigades; new blood injected into ole
and toughened veins. 1t is high time
our friends of the Iron name had re-
Enforcement, for despite Wisconsin,
praiseworthy course of recruiting vet
eran commands as well as raising new
ones, their ranks are wofully thin; SO
as neither Badger nor Hoosier regi
ment mt to swell the Army of thu
Potomac, there is assigned to the oil
brigade, thereby assuring its distinctly,
western character, a brand new, ambi
tious and, as it turns out, most pug
nac;ous and fightful array of Wolver
ines, "all teeth and toe-nails," sa!
the Badgers, who take them under ad
visement, and so the m~uch-vauntet
menagerie is complete again.
, Changes, too, have come to the staff
and, to Benton's blushing delight, HI
is called upon at Catlett's to wet
a new commission, recommended b,
/ his old general and heartily approves
: by the new. 1t is Capt. Benton. add
t tional aide-de-camp now, and he ride
4 for the time being with a division com
: mander famous for staying qualities,
/ not for urbanity, a man who IL of tn
e fght-to-a-finish mold, aid would han
/, every rebel from Maine to Mexico
We have had few as yet Of these We
hement patriots in high places. W
I have had far too many, storms Stanto
b in Washington, Of those who woul
handle treason with gloves, furnis
r guards for the homesteads of hare
t fighting chiefs on the souther sid
y hold commerce and commune
through flags of truce with forme
9 comrades across the lines. eve mus
stop it., by heaven!" says Stanton
splitting a table top with one blow
his fist. I'VE must drumhead an
n shoot EN- says Fred's new commas
err, "and I'll hang the first man of m
staff that / catch"
.'The winter Of II discomfort il
deed! With gloomy heart and So
anticipation Benton rides away throug
the leatiess woods to the old familii
scenes about Fredericksburg. Wol
: from Washington has brought him Ii
9 Tie comfort. Rumor Of his eomman,
et's sayings has hllel him with for
2 loding,
: no Be ccat1aleel