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The Daily Dispatch: October 10, 1861., [Electronic resource], Defensive campaigns. (search)
rapid movements and facile combinations peculiar to the new French tactics. His iographer, Chief Justice Marshall, in noticing these expressions of doubt, takes occasion to say, that Washington would have been always prompt to act on the offensive, had he possessed the means of doing so. His want of trained veterans, when his enemy had them in abundance, kept him on the defensive. The war of 1812 in Russia, is frequently spoken of as a defensive war. Yet it brought forth the battle of Borodino, the most trementous conflict of modern days. When the French retreated, the Russians pursued them even into Germany, attacking them every day, and slaughtering them in a most unheard of manner. We have already alluded to the Peninsula campaigns of Wellington, and shown that his system was not what is called the Fabian by any means. Col. Napier, indeed, repels the idea as a reproach, and asserts that no man was ever more prompt to act on the offensive, when he had the ability to do so.--
The Daily Dispatch: June 5, 1862., [Electronic resource], The War in the Southwest. (search)
f they dare to make the attack.--Nor can I express all I felt at the sight of these glorious heroes of Shiloh, who, Buell says, "fought like devils the first day and like veterans the second day." Had our attack been made a day sooner, or continued one hour longer, the whole Yankee army would have been killed and captured, or destroyed before Buell arrived. It was, perhaps, the bloodiest battle recorded in all history. The loss of life was thirty three per cent of the armies engaged. At "Borodino," considered one of Napoleon's most sanguinary battles, the destruction was only thirty per cent. --Hereafter, to have been at Shiloh will be among the proudest recollections and distinctions of the armies of the Confederacy. It will be pardoned to a Virginian's pride to exult that the old State was so numerously represented by her sons, who bore themselves with such conspicuous gallantry on that memorable day. The list has already been published, and Beauregard has made many of their name
The Daily Dispatch: June 12, 1862., [Electronic resource], Navel reconnaissance up the Chickahominy. (search)
whom have, we understand, already rejoined their regiments. An unusual number were wounded in the hand, which arose from their having to part the bushes as they were advancing on the enemy. This is a very small loss, in a great battle fought for the defence of the capital. It scarcely reaches one in sixty of our effective force. Compared with the losses -red in the great battles of Europe, it is -ly perceptible. When the Russians defended the city of Moscow, in the great battle of Borodino, they lost, according to the account of a Russian officer published three or four years ago, and believed to be the most reliable history of that campaign that has ever appeared, 52,000 men, killed and wounded, out of 130,000. Yet though driven from the field, they were by no means conquered. Take any European battle, where the numbers were nearly the same with those of the contending hosts the other day — Marengo for instance, where the combatants were a little over fifty thousand--and i
The Daily Dispatch: June 18, 1862., [Electronic resource], The destroyer of armies. (search)
statistics of the Chef d'etat Major quoted by Canot, who was War Minister, gives the numbers of the invading army which crossed the Nieman on the 24th June at 302,000 men, 104,000 horses. On the advance to Moscow was fought the great battle of Borodino. In this battle there were put hors de combat --that is, killed and wounded — on the side of the Russians no less than thirty Generals, 1,600 officers, and 42,000 men, while the French, according to Marshal Berthier's papers, subsequently takenrcements they may have met on the way 40,000 men returned to France, showing how few men were lost in this masterly retreat, either by the severity of the winter or the harassing attacks of the enemy. But even if three-fourths of the wounded at Borodino had died, and allowing for those killed in minor actions and operations, there would remain nearly 200,000 men who perished by insufficient commissariat — by want of forethought. The Count de Segur the historian of this campaign, considers that
The Daily Dispatch: July 12, 1862., [Electronic resource], A Yankee letter found amongst the Spoils. (search)
best way he could That he got off at all is a miracle, and due less, we are told to his own skill than to the short comings of some of our own Generals. The works he had created on this side of the Chickahominy covered, we are told, an extent of ground equal to the area of the corporation of Richmond. All the Heralds and all the correspondents in the world cannot convince any sensible man that he would leave such works as these — within seven miles of Richmond — to occupy a position eighteen miles further off, unless he had been compelled to do it. These enormous works were surrounded by an immense moat, and were to serve as the basis of his operations against Richmond. He was to creep up by inches, until he got near enough to throw shells into the town. As for marching boldly up and attacking the army of Gen. Lee, that entered not into his tactics. He has no passion for battles like Borodino, being conscious, probably, that his troops cannot stand before ours in the open fiel
The Daily Dispatch: June 28, 1864., [Electronic resource], A Review. (search)
indeed it was — but it is a very serious error. The translator tells us that the battle of Borodino was fought on the 6th September, 1812. It was fought on the 7th September, 1812. "On the day pradvance work" here alluded to was carried on the 5th September two days preceding the battle of Borodino. These are but small blemishes, it is true; but in as much as they indicate baste and careher means than by brave force, that Segur, the renegade, gave the best account of the battle of Borodino in a book evidently written to curry favor with the Russians, &c. In this spirit he blames Napoleon for not giving his Guard at Borodino at a time when, Segur says, it would have insured the rout and destruction of the whole Russian army, overlooking entirely the overwhelming reply of Gourgaud ed beyond the strength of the enemy." Now, Napoleon, according to his own account, had at Borodino 120,000 men. The Russians had, according to the book of one of their Generals, (we forget his n
The Daily Dispatch: July 19, 1864., [Electronic resource], article 1 (search)
army would have been literally and absolutely destroyed. These reinforcements amounted to 85,000 men, if the Yankee accounts are to be trusted, so that he was 40,000 men out of pocket when he began his march from Cold Harbor. In the battle of Borodino, the two contending armies in one day, lost an aggregate of probably 90,000 men. But then it was a grand pitched battle, in which the whole force on beth sides was engaged. In the battle of Leipzig, which lasted four days, the aggregate of loss on both sides, was probably as great as the loss of Grant's single army in this campaign of a month. Now these two were the most murderous battles of modern times. In the month which ended with Borodino, the Russian army had lost nothing like the number of men Grant lost in the month ending the 31 of June, 1864. The same may be said of the month ending with the battle of Leipzig. The Russians estimate the loss of Napoleon's army in 1812 at 330,000 men the greater part perishing from the incl
The Daily Dispatch: September 8, 1864., [Electronic resource], article 1 (search)
Yesterday was the fifty-second anniversary of the great battle of Borodino — the greatest, Alison says, ever fought in Europe, at least in modern times.--The French army numbered 120,000 men; the Russian has been variously estimated at 120, 130, 150, 170, 230 and 250,000 men. At any rate, it was an enormous army, with nearly a thousand pieces of cannon, the French themselves bringing about six hundred into the contest. The day was cool, bracing and beautifully clear, as the earlier part nd patriotism more than Spartan. Moscow fell, but not until she had exacted from those who trod the path that led to her gates a toll of 50,000 men. We could not but think of this great event yesterday, when, under a sun resembling that of Borodino, we read, for the first time, in Stanton's bulletin, that Grant still required one hundred thousand additional troops to insure him the capture of this city. He started to take it last May with one hundred and forty thousand men. This same Stan
The Daily Dispatch: December 2, 1864., [Electronic resource], article 1 (search)
This day. This is the anniversary of Austerlitz. If Grant should make his grand attack to-day, be may point to the rising sun, as Napoleon did at Borodino, and say, "Behold the sun of Austerlitz." Brilliantly as that luminary rose upon the plains of Moravia on this day fifty-nine years ago, its splendor was scarcely greater than it appears, at the time we are writing, likely to be on this anniversary of the great event that then occurred. The 2d of December is a famous day in French history. On this day, exactly sixty years ago, Napoleon the First was crowned Emperor of the French by the Pope, who had come all the way from Rome to perform that office; a thing that the world, so far as we know, had not witnessed since the coronation of Chestermagne, whose iron crown Napoleon , as he said, in a gutter, and put upon his own head. It is remarkable that after all, the Holy Father did not the crown on his head; for, with the natural impatience of his temper, he became tired of
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