Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1909-07-30

The Rear of the Army.

1t happened to some good soldiers
to see the rear of moving army.
Those who were temporarily detailed
for service with the quartermaster, the
medical department, as guards over a
hundred and one things that had to
be protected against our own troops,
as we'll as against attacks Of gueril-
las as orderlies set hither and yond
with dispatches-all these can tell Of
what a caravan Of wagons railroad
trains, suffers shops, citizens hanging
about the skirts of the army on every
possible pretense, dead beats" and
stragglers who disgraced their uni
form, and what not, made up the
rear of the army"
If the army numbered more than
thirty thousand men, it's great crowd
of non-combatants and their transpor-
tation, following it on all possible
roads, was spread over miles OF terri
tory. l have often thought that
general in the rear might have been
an excellent thing to our armies in
the field during the late war. The
commanding general usually had all
he could see to in the way of directing
the march, getting reliable informa-
ton of the movements of the enemy,
and getting and keeping ready for the
fighting of battles 1t did not often
happen that he knew much about what
was going on in his rear, or was able
to govern that part of the army very
much. Colonel John S. Mosby's true
story Of what he did in the rear of
Sheridan's forces in the Shenandoah
Valley, in the summer and fall OF
1854, would astonish even some OF the
Union soldiers of that campaign.
The trains that he captured, the pr1s-
oners that he took, the terror that he
caused, are only family shown by any
thing that has been published. And
although General Sheridan says in his
report that Mosby was his best rear
guard, and was worth as much to him
in the rear as brigade Of our own
cavalry to keep the rear closed up,
think that many Of his soldiers will
say that it was very costly rear
guard Things might have been very
much better had there been some ar
bitrary authority in the rear to keep
the trains closed up, to see that the
guards were properly disposed and in
perfect order for an attack, and to
send the stragglers summarily to the
Ia ond
Judgment to do this might have saved
many valuable lives and prisoners and
preserved hundreds Of thousands OF
dollars to the government in all kinds
of war material. l doubt not that,
with his large experience in the field,
no man would more fully admit this
than Sheridan himself
l never saw much of the rear of the
army, either in march or battle I
take no credit for the fact. The plain,
simple duty of the soldier under arms
is at the front, where the fighting is
likely to occur; and the soldier who
was not at the front at such a time
has got an explanation to make as to
why he was not Lnere.
Yet, disorderly and ill-managed and
weak against any attack of the enemy
as was the rear of most Of our armies
in the field, suppose it could bear no
comparison to the aspect of things in
the rear during the progress of a
heavy battle.
Practically, I know little of this,
either. But | have heard much from
comrades who had right to be in the
rear at such times as to the disheart-
ening appearance of affairs, and what
saw at the front will account for
something of the disgraceful state of
things that was visible in the rear
while a battle was going on. There
is nothing about my experience that
was out Of the common order. Thou
sands of veterans shared it, and will
cheerfully verify my words.
The business of the soldier is to
kill the enemy. He is clothed, fed,
and paid by the government; he Is
drilled and instructed; he marches
and countermarches for hundreds of
miles, and finally gets into a battle.
There his simple, stern duty is to kill
the enemy. He is to obey his officers,
and do all the killing that he posi-
bly, can.
If every soldier acted on this prin-
ciple and conviction of duty, wars
would be much longer and much blood
Ter than they are. Even the wonder
full modern improvements in firearms
and ordnance would not avail against
an army, every unit Of which was de-
termined to fight till victory was
gained, or until he was put hors du
combat.
In every army that was ever
brought into the field since firearms
were invented (back of that is not
necessary to go) there was a large
percentage of soldiers who would not
fight if they got chance to run. 1t
was so on both sides during our war;