Evening star., 1918-08-11


Sappers break ground for an army.
When the commander OF a division or
q corps. having halted for a battle.
deslres to know what Is In front OF
MIN. geographically, he sends his
sappers ahead to Investigate and map
sne country. Gen. Sherman. on his
march TO the sea. questioned q negro
about the movement of Federal troops
some distance away.
First. there come along some cav
alrymen, the negro said. "and they
burned the depot; then come along
some iniantrymen and they tore up
tn. tns track and burned 1t. and just as I
lett they sot fire to the we'll"
~
sherman. sweeping on. did not stop
and get ready for battle. Neverthe.
less. he was well supplied with sap
pers. or pioneers. as he. also. called
them. There are thousands of Amer.
lean sappers In France at this mo.
ment.
No mon. in the line or out Of II.
navc ceen more carefully trained.
MOST OF them are echanics-carpen
ters' machintsts. masons, blacksniiths
ana 30 on. Their officers belong to
at West Point. They can be dsscribed bad
az scouts. fighting men and engineers.
Cney repair and build roads and
brldges-and also blow them up-and
lay out systems of trenches and thus
snow s1 the infantrymen just where to
~ SS themselves In. The technical
who saps." WV
AND g sap is "a narrow ditch or
trench by which approach is made to
= fortress or besieged place within
range Of Are" Specifically, a sapper
- soiaier employed In the building
Se,d 0r,mScetions. wnrS the execution Of
similar operations"
AZ ;Vicksburg, again quoting Gen.,
Grant. 1T was necessary to cover our
men by something more than an or
oinary parapet. To give additional
%srs rHse'I,Gm nisc.d SAND nd bags. bulletproof.
parapets far enough apart t. make
!oophoies for musketry. On ton of
tnese logs were placed. -By these
means the men were ena abled to walk
eDout erect when of duty. without
.ear OF annoyance from sharpshoot-
Sappers did this work. Practically
the same sort of labor is now heinS
done BY Pershlng's sappers IN E;,,.
rope. The sharpshooters Of 1862 are
the snipers of 1918.
Ihe soldiers of the two sides."
Grant wrote, Occasionally conversed
tt,easantiy t,nan across this barrier: some
times they exchanged the hard bread
OF the Union soldiers for the tobacco
OF the Confederates. At other times
tne enemy threw over hand grenades
"a perrormance that Is being repeat
ed IN FLANDERS and France), and our
men. catching them in their hands,
returned them"
Infantrymen cborn;o- -.
their objective" Immediately. IL
ments. The permanent defensive
work OF an army. however, is plan
ned and usually carried out by the
sappers. Consequently they spend Q
with the enemy. They examine the
territory or position Of the forces
opposed to them and their report
guides the action Of their COM
They climb trees. hide among the
rooks hness and wriggle through grass and
IN their search for information.
scouts they are, and fighting men,
put the reading public seldom hears
OF them. When they are not sap
ping. and battle is on, they are
using their rifles and bayonets like
root soldiers. In this war a regiment
OF l.600 sappers Is attached to each
DIVISION and division now consists
Of $4,000 men.
The glory Of a battle. IL the battle
Is won. Is shared nowadays by the
infantry and the artillery. Honor is
also being earned by and given to the
aircraft. Rarely, however, is any-
thing. outside of military reports,
said of the engineers.
TT was one Of Prof. Mahan's max
ims." Sherman noted in his quaint
and interesting history of his own
military operations that the spade
was as useful in war as the musket.
and to this Will add the AK"
Today were Sherman writing. with
the German war as subject, ne
would, possibly, include the sawmill.
piledriver and crane. There are 215.-
900 engineers in the American Army.
Meade and Lee between them had
100000 men at Gettysburg. OF the
5000 officers in direct command OF
the engineers, about 400 are grad
yates Of West Point. The others
came into the war from civil life.
They are educated men, however, Tor
most part, or men Of experience IN
their particular lines of activity. The
members of the two forestry regi-
ments, officers and privates. know
how to go into a tract of timber, cut
down the trees, move them by lana OF
water and saw them into lumber: =.
They can set up n sawmill and take II
down and can tell by looking at a log
whether II should be cut into planks,