Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1905-02-03
Bloody battles of Modern Times.


South Africa, that he had fought the
bioodlest battle Of modern times" earn
ed for him no end of ridicule. Russian
and Japanese generals are at least
modest in their reports and show no
disposition to boast of record making
feats. 1t is easy to exaggerate the
'terrors of battle for as rule any
description. by participant or spectator,
can only refer to a portion of the field.
1t is likewise natural that figures of
losses may be exaggerated through
care1essness, haste or the zeal of under
officers and even of enlisted men who
have responsibility in the work Of
gathering and burying the dead And
the exaggerations of generals in stat
ing the number of the enemy's dead
are notorious. This is not always due
to Intention but results in part from
the rash claims Of subordinates whose
figures cannot be verified The first
formal statistics Of losses in the civil
war were given to the public twenty
years after Appomattox, and by curl
GUS error Grants losses in the Wilder
ness were overstated by about 10000,
and only <an expert could detect the
error. 1t was due to a misQuota ton Of
the official figures compiled by the sur
gical bureau.
The subject of battle losses is
grewsome one to consider, but only by
reiteration can the horrors of war be
brought home to the public mind and
conscience The little end of every
bloody battle is terrible. The cumula-
ton Of horrors in prodigious combats
like those of the Wilderness, Gettys-
burg, Antietam, Chickamauga Lao
yang and Sha river, not to speak of the
countless fields of slaughter on Euro
peaa soil within the century, cannot
do Otherwise than "stagger humanity
even when the point of view is no more
than a summary of the losses. The
figures may mean one in every ten shot
down in an army of 100000. and they
may mean one in every two shot down
In certain regiments, certain brigales
or certain divisions, as happened again
and again in the civil war. At Gettys-
burg the First Minnesota lost 215 kill
ed and wounded out Of a total of 252
In line in the space of ten minutes, a
loss of about eight IN every ten en-
gagged On the same field the Twenty
seventh North Carolina in one days
battle lost 686 killed and wounded out
Of 800 in line.
At Anietam the First Texas regi
ment lost 1856 out Of 226 in single
charge, a loss equal in percentage to
that Of the First Minnesota. At Cold
Harbor the First Maine artillery went
into charge with 1872 men and, while
under fire but seven minutes, lost 632
killed and wounded. There were fifty :
three Confederate regiments in which
the loss for each In some particular
engagement exceeded so per cent or
one In every two, and the casualties
ranged as high as 80 per cent, or eight
In every ten actually present in the
fight. In the Federal armies there
were sixty-three regiments which lost
over SO per cent in single battles At
Gettysburg the First corps, entire, lost
81 per cent in killed and wounded, and
Hancock's Second corps on the same
field lost over 40 per cent. 1t is plain
that had the armies Of the civil war
eQualed in numbers those fighting in
Manchuria the losses would haye been "
computed by the hundreds Of thou
sands instead Of tens of thousands.
Reports from the east state that Ger
tain regin ents have been wiped out
In the prolonged fighting at Liaoyang
and at the Sha river, both battles Of
many days duration. IN every case
cited above the regimental losses given
were sustained in one day, often in a
single charge Of a few minutes and
the figures are official verified by the
war department records
The proportion Of dead in battle cas-
ua1ties depends upon the intensity Of
the fighting. In isolated cases the
number Of killed outright and mortal
" wounded will equal the wounded
who recover. 1t has been assumed that
the wounded in the Manchurian bat
ties should be estimated as five times
az great as the dead, but that assump-
ton is wrong if the lighting was phe-
nomina]ly severe. The First Maine
heavy artillery at Cold Harbor lost
21O killed and 422 wounded. The First
Minnesota at Gettysburg lost in the
same proportion, the casualties being
rs killed and 40 wounded.
As rule, every soldier on the line
OF battle stands one chance in ten Of
being hit, which gives nine chances in
his favor. But If he gets into a
slaughter pen his chances of escape, u
may be reduced to two in ten, which
% but little short of massacre. Actual
maSSa creS have hoon roro IN x,><7o,,>