Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1913-04-09
CiUil War tragedies
Recalled by April
By COL. ]. A. VARIOUS

in the year, finds the soldier element
both North and South, looking through
the mists of many years and recalling
exciting and tragic experiences. 1t
was fiftytwo years ago this month
that young men in every state in the
Union were hurrying to enlist one
side to uphold the Union and its flag,
the other to fight under another flag
and newly named government.
What days those weIe Never be-
fore and never since were the thoughts
of the adult population of the nation
so intense and so constant. for people
could scarcely sleep for thinking and
planning in those tragical, exciting
days of April, 6fty-two years ago.
Not only the soldiers who still
survive. but the people who lived,
thought and agonized in those days,
are turning their attention to April,
1861.
And isn't it we'll that they should
do so, and wouldn t it be worth while
as deeply as possible to impress upon
the minds of the present generation
the condition of things just before
and at the wars outbreak? If only
the present and future generations
could recall and keep in mind the
anxiety. the agony, tears, crushed
hope and heartaches-th awful loss
Of those four years of war-this and
future generations would consider
long and carefully before they urged
the authorities of their government to
engage in war.
On the 9th and 7th of April, 1862,
fifty one years ago. was fought one of
the great battles of the war-Shiloh.
1t was in that battle that leaders of
the two armies received a test and
lessons which had vital part dur
ing the balance of the war 1t is
had been successful at Fort Donelson,
but that was no such test as the
battle of Shiloh. Virtually defeated
the first day, he reorganized the
under General Buell. In position and
reopened the battle early the next
morning and that night the sun
went down on victory that much
more than Offset the defeat of the FIRST
day. Fifty -one years ago Sunday,
that testing battle was begun. The
southern confederacy lost next to its
greatest soldier Albert Sidney John
stm, and there it tried out another
t general whose promise was for great
; things to the confederacy. 1t tried
olt Beauregard, under whose orders
. ne first shot was fired at Fort Sumter.
The trial settled that he was not a
e great general. or even a moderately
: successful enc. He cut but a poor
figure the balance of the war. On
r the other hand, Grant, Sherman,
i Mcpherson and many others on the
Union side from that test steadily
grew in strength as leaders
Fiftyone years ago. now, Nc
Ciellan, with an army of more than
125, 600, was working his way to
Yorktown. on the peninsula, with
Richmond in view. Fifty one years
ago Mcdowell. in command of 80, 900
splendidly equipped and ll-drilled,
soldiers, was moving out from op-
posite Washington to Centerville,
Manassas Junction, Bristow and
Catlett station, where he fingered for
a few days and then marched to the
left thirty miles, to Falmouth and
vicinity, opposite fredericksburg.
where many of his troops were camped
on the plantation once owned and
operated by the mother of George
Washington, and where Washington
grew to manhood.
Fifty years ago General Grant was
completing his plans for one of the
most famous campaigns ever entered
upon in any war, and one of the most
difficult, that which resulted, the
following Fourth of July, in the
surrender Of Vicksburg and 30 900
confederates, and the opening of the
Mississippi River, an event that had
as much to do with Fastening the
end of the war as the battle of
Gettysburg.
Forty nine years ago this April
General Sherman, in chief command
in the Southwest, was fitting and
preparing his army of 100. 900 men to
move against the confederate army
commanded by General Joe Johnston,
and early in May the movement to-
ward Atlanta began. Forty-nine
years ago General Grant had been
In virtual control of all of the
armies of the nation for a month
He had led in getting the Army OF
the Potomac thoroughly reorganized,
newly disciplined, we'll supplied with
arms, equipments, ammunition, pro-
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