Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1884 — The Annihilation of Armies. [ARTICLE]

The Annihilation of Armies.

The Confederates, out of 68,000 men engaged at Gettysburg, lost 18,000, but Meade held his hand from interfering ■with their orderly retreat. Of that battle the climax was the assault of Pickett’s division, “the flower of Virginia,” against Webb’s front on the left of Cemetery Hill. Before the heroic Alrmitage called for the “cold steel” and carried Gibbon’s battery with a rush, the division had met with a variety of experiences during its mile-and-a-half advance over the smooth ground up the crest. “When it first came in sight it had been plied with solid shot; then half way across it had been vigorously shelled, and the double canisters had been reserved for its nearer approach. An enfilading fire tore through its ranks; the musketry blazed forth against it with deadly effect.” This is the evidence of an eye-witness on the opposite side, who adds, “but it catae on magnificently.” . Yes, it came on to cold steel and clubbed muskets, and, after a desperate struggle, it went back foiled, to the accompaniments which had marked its advance. But, heavy as were its losses, it was not “annihilated.” Pickett’s division survived to be once and again a thorn in the Federal side before the final day of fate came to it at Appomattox Court House. At Mars-la-Tour, Alvensleben’s two infantry divisions, numbering certainly not over 18,000 men (for they had already lost heavily at the Spicheren Berg), sacrificed within a few of 7,000 during the long summer hours while thejf stood unsupported athwart the course of the French army retreating from Metz. But, so far were they from being annihilated, that forty-eight hours later they made their presence acutely felt on the afternoon of Graveloite. In the July attack on Plevna, of the 28,000 men with whom Krudoener and Schahovskoy went in, they took out under 21,000. One brigade of the latter’s command lost 725 killed aad 1,200 wounded—about 76 per cent of its whole number—yet the Russian retirement was not disorderly; trad next day the troops were in resolute cohesion awaiting what might befall them. In the September attack on Plevna, of 74,000 Busso-Boumanian infantry engaged, the losses reached 18,000. Skobeleff commanded 18,000 men, and, at the end of his two days’ desperate fighting, not 10,000 of these were left standing. But there was no annihilation, either literally or conventionally, if one may use the term. The survivors who had fought on the 11th and 12th of September were ready at the word to go in again on the 13th; and how they marched across the Balkans later is one of the marvels of modern military history.— Exchange.