The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-05-27
The Degeneracy
of Modem War
By Captain F. A. Mitchell

IL, anyway! n hundred thousand men
march up against line of trenches de-
Tended by rapid fire guns. electric
wires and grenades; G0,00D or 10000
of them are either killed or wowded,
while the rest capture a few yards of
territory or are driven back without
having accomplished anything You
might as well extract romance from
the Chicago stockyards on killing day"
The remark was made to a party of
men sitting on chairs tilted against the
outside of n country store.
where's the romance in the war
you fit inF'' asked an old farmer, TAX
ing his pipe out of his mouth and look
ing at the G. \. Il. man doubtfully.
"Whar is it? Why, that war was
brimful of it. 1t was spread over
big country; there were comparatively
few battles; small amount of takin'
Notifications and all the rest was ro-
nance | don't mean girl romance,
though there was plenty Of that. l
cerned in one of 'em myself. We was
layin' quiet in camp, down in Tennes-
see, one summers evening, singin',
When this cruel war is over or 'Lo-
rena' or some other of the romantic
war songs of that time, when my cap
tain came along in hurry, shoutin',
Any locomotive engineer among you
boysy l said I'd been a fireman on a
locomotive and could run a machine
tolable well. He yanked me off to the
general. who asked me few questions,
then told me that the bridge guard
across the Tennessee river. twenty
miles above us, had been attacked and
unless he could get re-enforcements
there right off the bridge would be
taken and burned. This would break
might have to give UP big stretch of
country we occupied. lie wanted an
engineer to take regiment through to
the rescue. The officer commanding
the guard had telegraphed that he
couldn't hold out much longer, when
the wire was cut
The train was made up and 400
men were hurrying into the cars. A
locomotive was being fired Up, and |
jumped aboard and took the throttle.
"Well, now, mebbe there was nothin'
adventurous in that ride! The colonel
commanding the regiment and the ad-
jutant were in the cab with me, and
it wasn't long before they were made
aware of the fact that we were run
ming a gantlet. 1t was the people
along the road who were trying to
wreck us that made it amusing.
Rounding a curve, | saw about half
the length of the train ahead tie
wedged in under the rail. 1t was too
late to stop, but | reversed and wait
ed There was thump, but the en-
| CINE stuck to the track There were
seven out of ten chances that we would
have been ditched and most of us in
the cab killed or manned.
THE next amusing occurrence was
the rattle of bullets against the cab
Nobody was hurt. but you'd better be
lieve every man ducked, not excepting
! the colonel.
But they didn't get the excitement
| out of it that | did. | was Strainin9
my eyes into the darkness ahead with
| my hand on the throttle, expecting
every minute to run up against an OBJ
Struction. The shadow of a tree was
"A log felled across the track; the shad
ow of Il stump was Il tie on the rails
And sometimes the distractions were
real. Once | pulled up within a few
feet of log that had been rolled
square across the rails. Another time
/ | slowed up before reaching a switch
/ and found that it had been left oper
to run us up against n brick house
You see. If they hadn't really beer
/ tryin' to wreck us there wouldn't a
been any excitement.
"And IL there hadn't been any ne"es
/ sity of goin' at rapid gait there
wouldn't "a been any fun neither. Il
we didn't get there in time to save thu
bridge it meant the retreat of the
whole army. So you see l was obliged
! to let her out, danger or no danger
for If didn't we wouldn't be in time
and we might as we'll be wrecked a
too late. Besides, if I'd wanted to g
slow the colonel, who was at my ell
bow, wouldn't have allowed it.
THE last obstruction was post pu
| up on end as a cattle guard only I
few miles from the bridge. Seeing
that | couldn't stop in time, put oil
steam and snapped it off like a twig.
after passing this we heard firini
and knew that the bridge was not We
lost. | blew a long blast on the wits
/ tie and heard distant cheer. Whel
! we came near the bridge the cOlone
ordered me to stop the train in cut
The men got out and, forming on on
side of the cut ON high ground, charg
ed down ON the attacking force an,
drove them off.
Now, that's what call the romano
of war-the adventurous romance
When l got back to camp the genera
sent for me, and thought he was e
ing to hug me. l never saw ma
look so tickled in my life. I'd save
hundreds of square miles of territory.
what chance has any soldier to d
anything like that in this big EurC
pean slaughter business? don
blame fellows for not volunteering
such a war. It's like volunteering fo
certain death without any of the e.
element that was so fascinating in I'll
racket we had from 81 to '65."
How about them fellers fghtin'
. the SKYE" asked listener.
The G. A. r. man gave no reply.