The daily sentinel., 1909-01-01
ROBERT E. LEE WAS
GREATEST GENERAL
Today Noted Army Officers Compared Battles Of the Civil
War With Those Of This Decade Most
Interesting Discussion

| who fought in the Wilderness cam
paign. In dealing with this subject
Major Swift took occasion to com
pare the battles of the Civil War with
the battles of the present, his con-
clusion being that the tendency of
| modern warfare is to lengthen the
duration of battles.
certain" said Major Swift, that
will not venture to describe its effec-
tiveness. At the present day bat
terry of four guns firing shrapnel can
accurately place 10000 bullets on a
ten acre lot, two miles away, in two
minutes. BY the method of Indirect
| fire a single observer can direct the
fire of artillery which is sheltered
behind hill in such a way that it
can fire over the hill and hit its tar
get just as accurately as if it were
firing in the open. In the Wilder
ness campaign the smoke of powder
gave information of the position of
the army, obscured the view and
made the aim uncertain. But with
smokeless powder it is exceedingly
difficult to locate the firing lines.
but aiming is easy for both sides
The Wilderness campaign called
for braver soldier than ever fought
in war. Battles called for the ut
most limit of physical and moral
force, but the results were often neg
ative and partial. Since that cam
paign, increase in the destructive
power of weapons has acted to
iengthen the range at which battles
begin. They end where they always
did
Major Swift stated that the most
important point derived from a study
of the battles of the Civil War. com
pared with those of the present, is
the question of generalship and
strategy
Lee was the only general of Ma
poleonic type who ever lived" de-
clared Major Swift, 'and whether
greater or not. who shall say? OF
all great soldiers no one but Lee
probably encountered as dangerous
an adversary as Grant Napoleon
yielded at the last to smaller odds
and his disaster was complete. but
Lees army at the end of the Wild
erness campaign. was an aggressive
and high-spirited as ever Lee made
five campaigns in a single year. no
other man and no other army ever
did SO much. Napoleon's lucky star
often brought victory which his COM
binations had not prepared and saved
him from disaster which he had not
foreSeen. IL VIII be hard to find
where luck and good fortune ever re-
trieved a mistake of Lee, or where
the happy inspiration OF subord-
mate ever gave him - victory TO a
different type. He was the modern
embodiment of force in war He
dared not for ruse or strategy in its
accepted form. Although he made
nine thanking movements between
the Rapidan and the James. he seems
to have preferred the frontal attack
Strategy was reduced by him to a
study of objectives. and objectives
were reduced to one-the hostile
army. Grants campaign was hardly
over when another strategist came
upon the field of war Moltke con-
quered Austria and France. He in
troduced many new elements into
the art of war. but in his strategy
we will observe the counterpart of
Grant. In his five days battle around
Metz his proportion of loss closely
approached what | have given for
other modern battles. In the great
war in eastern Asia we watch