in the dignity and majesty of its might, trampled out the offensive claim. The result achieved vindicates God's providential control over human action and human government, and has established personal manhood rights on the broadest and most immutable foundations-his sovereign justice and the will of a regenerated people. "Here the free spirit of mankind at length Into the depths of ages, we may trace Distant the brightening glory of its flight Till the receding rays are lost to human sight." Read June 3, 1885. AFIELD WITH THE ELEVENTH ARMY CORPS AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. BY OWEN RICE. Late Captain Company A, One Hundred and Fifty-third Pa. V. I. In the calm light of recent adjustments, now that an almost implacable prejudice has given place to the spirit of patient inquiry, and passion has spent its rage, no specious ex parte plea will be permitted to embarrass the truth of history. "What are the attested facts in regard to the part of the Eleventh Army Corps in the battle of Chancellorsville?" is a question which, in justice to the living and our holy dead, demands more ingenuous and cogent answer than stale calumnies, first devised and now only more mildly reiterated by the corps commander. Not merely the exaltation of an extenuating episode, however brilliant, but the rather a candid review of all of the antecedent and material events of May 2, 1863, will dignify and requite the inquiry. The still current popular belief in regard to this disaster, based on captious reports stinging with the envy of a blackening frost, is, that this corps was almost wholly German in na * Commencing with a council of war, convened before the retreat, at which General Howard voted to remain and fight, "because," he alleged, "his corps had behaved badly, and he wished to give it an opportunity to redeem its reputation." tionality; that it had become demoralized and vindictive because of the removal of Sigel, its preferred commander; that it was posted and patrolled as skillfully and advantageously as any other division in the field; and yet, precipitately gave way en masse, and thus, without urgent cause, imperiled the Nation's life at a most critical juncture of the war, when "God himself seemed dumb, And all his arching heavens were in eclipse;" and when, lightly esteeming the invincible majesty of the Union arms, maritime Europe stood prepared to cast the tribute of its open aid and sympathy before the standards of the first presumptive victor. A candid examination into the nativity of the personnel of the corps, at this time, discloses, undeniably, that little more than one-third was German or of foreign lineage in file and command, and only a small percentage of these had not been naturalized. The ratio of nationality, thus determined, as certainly shifts the burden of vindication upon the native majority, who emulously wore the crescent badge. Before essaying this, however, a hurried analysis of the elements of the German contingent may not be inopportune, because it has been individually assailed in respect to this disaster. If "the English language went to a feast of words and stole the leavings," as Hazlett has somewhat tartly declared, and is attested by its predatory growth, must not the lingual digestion of the German have been fairly appalled by the uncouth verbal cookery and slangous condiments that greeted his enlistment in the People's War? The kaleidoscopic language was, almost insuperably, a perplexing and changeful barrier between himself and his ultra-English comrades. And again, the German had been nurtured and trained, in severe schools, to a sort of stalwart impersonation of frozen military proprieties; but his average American comrades saw, above all this, only the towering majesty of the ludicrous, and treated it with hoiden levity and sportive affront. Both the over and the under-done soldiership held its own with avidity. But, aside from these and kindred disharmonies growing out of race-culture, the great majority of the Germans were quick with the spirit of the hour, and their élan was impaired only by the perplexity of their associations. That among them was found a small minority, over-tenacious, and that with all the vehemence of Teutonic character of the asserted superiority of the military systems of the Fatherland, is undoubted. An undisguised idolatry of both their martinetisms and their servility still venerated the traditions of Rossbach. But this doubly alien element always gave way in action, and soon became a by-word and a reproach, obnoxious even to its own native countrymen. Another notable minority element comprised the soldiers of fortune-those errant adventurers recognized in every protracted war, and whose chief credentials are their élan and daring. Typical of this class was Salm-Salm, who, with his regiment, had been mustered out of the service shortly before the opening of this campaign, but whose martial indiosyncrasies were reflected by many who still remained among us. Always conspicuous, and yet under self-command; now foremost and now unhorsed in the hurdle-races with which Sickles, Warren, Collis, and all of the quick blood of the Army of the Potomac, had beguiled the tedium of the pre vious winter; again, at the imperial court of Mexico, the dashing chief of the undaunted Foreign Legion, that last allied the deserted Austrian; full soon the volunteer leader of every bloody midnight sortie, foremost to defy the beleaguered desperation and inevitable downfall of empire at Queretaro; once more an American soldier, when, at the call of his superb American wife, Mr. Seward's little bell unbarred for him the vengeful prison doors, from which, on a glorious June morning, Maximilian, Meija, and Miramon had been led forth to expiate their treason to the Republic; until, at last, when at Gravelotte, the re-invested Prussian Hussar went down in splendid death before the French mitrailleurs, was he not, always, the very beau-ideal of a soldier-was he not true to the symbols and inspirations of every cause that he espoused? And what of Schurz, Steinwehr, Hecker, Bushbeck, Von Gilsa-undoubted representatives, these, of the large majority of the German element of the corps? Embittered by the gibes of malice, They bore defeat like gods And such defeat! Or wrong, or right, It takes as true a man to bear Defeat like that as win the fight! On the bloody slopes of Gettysburg, with its three-fold baptism of fire, and on every blood-sodden field, "From Lookout to the rebel sea," they wrote the courage of their convictions, in answer to the aspersions of zealots, and overwhelmed with unfaltering devotion those cavilers who demanded of them the impossible at Chancellorsville. |