Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1877 — A Russian Dare-Devil. [ARTICLE]

A Russian Dare-Devil.

Among the officers on the Grand Duke’s staff is a tall, handsome man, with a lithe, slender, active figure, a clear blue eye, a large, prominent, well-shaped nose, and a face young enough for a Second Lieutenant. It is Skobeleff, the youngest General in the Kussian army, the conqueror of Kliokand. He has the reputation, even among the Russians, of being a madman who would fling away his own life and those of his troops without the slightest regal’d for consequences. During the war which resulted in the conquest of Kliokand, a Russian detachment of 800 men, wtth 400 Cossacks, was compelled to retreat before a superior force of the enemy. Gen. Trotscky decided upon a night attack, and confided his plan to Col. Skobeleff, then his Chief of Staff. The latter entered into the idea with great enthusiasm, and proposed to lead the attacking column himself, and to take only 150 Cossacks. Skobeleff, having reconnoitered the ground, perceived that the Khokandians had encamped within a mile and a half of the Russians in an open plain, which gave every facility for the maneuvering of cavalry. At mi<..night he took his 150 Cossacks, divided them into three patties, and cautiously surrounded the enemy’s camp. The party led by Skobeleff himself managed to pass the enemy’s outposts, who were sound asleep. Then he gave the signal for the attack by firing his pistol, and, followed by 150 Cossacks, he rode headlong into the enemy’s camp of 6,000 or 7,000 men, shouting and yelling like fiends, and cutting down everything in their passage. For a quarter of an hour the plain resounded with shrieks and yells, shots, the trampling of horses, shouts and groans, and all the uproar of battle. Then all was silence. Skobeleff assembled his Cossacks, and when morning came he found that the whole army of the enemy, 6,000 or 7,000 men, had disappeared, leaving on the field about forty dead, 2,000 or 3,000 muskets and sabers, all their camp material, and baggage. But what was his astonishment on calling the roll to discover that he had not lost a man either killed or wounded. Mr. MacGahan. who first met him on the banks of the Oxus, relates this exploit to show how much method there is in this dare-devil’s madness. *