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as twenty-three, the
Confederate loss as thirty-two; the Japanese loss at Mukden as 14.1 and at Lio-Yang as 18.5.
these were the bloodiest of the much lauded Japanese victories.
This fighting does not compare with that in the
American Civil War.
in the great Franco-Prussian War there is but one battle in which the percentage of the victor's loss is at all in the same class in the
American Civil War, and that is Vionville, 1870, where the victor's loss was twenty-two, as compared with twenty-seven at
Chickamauga.
So it may be said fairly that, for a century, the world has seen no such stubborn fighter as the
American soldier.
in studying the statistics of the various regiments whose losses are tabulated in this volume, the reader will discover that very many of these were suffered in great battles, the nature of which has been told briefly; and he must remember that neither of the armies suffered at any time any such signal defeat as would account for very heavy losses.
The
First Manassas (
Bull Run) is no exception to this.
The Confederates did not follow, and their losses in killed and wounded were heavier than those of the
Federals.
what some of the foreign military experts think of us as fighters we may learn by extracts taken from their writings, italicizing at will.
The late
Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson was professor of military art and history at the staff College of
great Britain.
He says, in his
The science of War:
the War of secession was waged on so vast a scale, employed so large a part of the manhood of both North and South America, aroused to such a degree the sympathies of the entire nation, and, in its brilliant achievements, both by land and sea, bears such splendid testimony to the energy and fortitude of their race, that in the minds of the American people it has roused an interest which shows no sign of abating.
further on in the same essay he states:
now, if there is one thing more than another apparent to the student of the Civil War, it is that the soldiers on both sides were exceedingly well matched in courage and endurance.
