Let us glance at some late English military magnates,
General James Thomas Brudenal,
Earl of Cardigan, who led the Light Brigade
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in the famous and fatal charge of the 600 on the
Russian guns at
Balaklava, ‘while all the world wondered,’ was never in a fight before or after the Crimean war, but he was made lieutenant-general,
Knight Commander of the Bath,
Commander of the Legion of Honor, and lionized generally.
General Sir James Yorke Scarlett, who commanded ‘the heavies’ and succeeded
Lucan, had a similar record, and became, too, lieutenant-general and
Knight Commander of the Bath.
General George Charles Bingham,
Earl of
Lucan, who commanded the cavalry division, consisting of these two brigades, beyond some amateur soldiering with the Russians in 1828, never smelt powder before or after the Crimean war, but he became
Knight Commander of the Bath,
lieutenant-general and field marshal.
What do these cavalrymen know of war compared to
Forrest,
Stuart,
Hampton,
Wheeler, or the cavalry
Lees?
Robert Cornelius Napier, Lord Napier of Magdala, as he is familiarly called, had served well in
India and
China, and he received an annuity of 12,000, was made field marshal,
Knight Commander of the Bath, and a catalogue of honors for a little skirmish with and a general demolition of King Theodore in
Abyssinia.
There were many skirmishes in
Early's campaigns, the names of which I have not called, that exceeded all his fighting.
His Royal Highness,
George William Frederick Charles,
Duke of
Cambridge, field marshal and long time commander-in-chief of the
British army, was in two fights, the
Alma and
Inkermann.
General Sir Garnet Joseph Wolsley, viscount K. P., K. C. B., G. C. M. G., D. C. L., Ll. D., fought the Burmese, the Russians in the Crimea, the Ashantees on the
African Gold Coast, and finally Egyptians and Arabs.
He is a scholar, a gentlemen and a gallant soldier, twice wounded, and has skirmished around the world in good shape, getting £ 25,000 from his government for undoing a poor
African king, and no end of military and civic honors, and is now commander-in-chief of the
British army.
John Bull has bullied the world.
He has done the largest
real estate business on the smallest piece of land; he has conducted the largest wholesale trade on the smallest retail capital; he has stretched out the longest lines with the fewest men, and has got more military distinction for the smallest lot of fighting than anybody else that ever lived,
In four years the
Confederates fought 2,261 battles, an average of nearly two a day. Six hundred of them were fought on
Virginia
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soil.
Our American transactions have been on so great a scale; we have produced so many great captains, that we often fail to realize the magnitude of our accomplishments and the greatness of our home-bred heroes.
How great a figure would they fill in the world's eye, if they were celebrated as the older nations have celebrated theirs with titles and estates, and with artistic and literary monuments?
Wellington's generals in the
Peninsula did real fighting.
They would furnish the nearest resemblance to our own; but time forbids that I pursue the parallel with other English generals, and I leave you to pursue it for yourselves, confident that you will tarry a long time with
Marlborough and
Wellington, and will stand puzzled to answer my question, ‘Who next?’
None, I will confidently say, that you will be willing to rank above
Jubal A. Early.
