Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1890 — Private Gorman’s Plan. [ARTICLE]

Private Gorman’s Plan.

We hand in our company a very conceited young man named Gorinau, says a writer in the N—Y. Sun, and from the clay he shouldered a musket he was anxious to invent a plan to save the country. He had somewhere read that a private soldier gave Napoleon the plan of a successful campaign and was rewarded by being made a general, and his whole time was taken up iu inventing plans, all of which were knocked in the head by our captain. One failure after another had no dampening effect on Private Gorman, however. The more he was suppressed the harder he thought, and his time finally came. When Burnside moved up to attack at Fredericksburg Gorman wrote him a letter, saying that he had a plan by which Lee's whole army could be driven into Richmond in terror or captured without bloodshed. The letter was put in such strong language that the general decided to investigate, and Private Gorman was sent for to explain his plan. He came back to us a prisoner, and was kept in the guard-house all that winter, and it was three mouths before we got a chance to find out what had happened at headquarters. He explained that he was ushered into the presence of Gen. Burnsido with ceremony, identified myself as the writer of the letter, and the general wheeled on,him with: ‘’Well, how would you scatter Lee’s army ?” “Easiest thingin the world, general,” was the unbashed reply. “Wait, for a dark night; then let 10,000 soldiers dress up as spooks, put on false faces, and cross over the river. Each one is to step softly, groan every few seconds, and if accosted he is to answer that he is the ghost of a soldier slain at Bull Run- The sight of these spooks, will strike terror to every rebel’s heart, and he will either fly or surrender. If this don't work I ” But he got no further. He said that the general booted him out of the tent. It was a sudden and radical cure, and he spent no more time planning great campaigns. ---