As skirmishers, the Federal soldiers act
admirably; and in several instances have carried fortified positions
with much dash and daring; it is in line of battle, on a stricken field,
that they are--to say the least--uncertain. In spite of the
highly-colored pictures of charges, &c., I do not believe that, from the
very beginning of this war, any one battalion has actually _crossed_
bayonets with another, though they may often have come within ten yards
of collision. This fact (which I have taken some trouble to verify) is
surely sufficiently significant.
The parallels of our own Parliamentary army, and of the French levies
after the first Revolution, suggest themselves naturally here; but they
will not quite hold good. The stern fanatics who followed Cromwell went
to their work--whether of fighting or prayer--with all their heart, and
soul, and strength, conning the manual not less studiously than the
psalter, while their General would devote himself for days together to
the minutest duties of a drill-sergeant. With all this, and with his
"trust in Providence," it was long before the wary Oliver would bring
his Ironsides fairly face to face,
With the bravos of Alsatia and the pages of Whitehall.
It is true that the Revolutionary army of '93 was utterly different from
those, wherein the Maison du Roi took the right of the line.
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