Numbers an Impediment to great enterprises.
The following extract from
Bacon's Essays is peculiarly appropriate to the times, and worthy of study.
We invite public attention to it, especially our leaders: for there can be no doubt on which side the true courage in this contest lies, unless it is blighted by the frosts of delay and disappointment:
‘
"Walled towns, stored arsenals, and armories, goodly races of horse, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, and the like — all this is but a sheep in a
lion's skin, except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike.
Nay, number (Itself) in armies imparteth not much, where the people are of weak courage; for as Virgil saith, 'It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.' The army of the Persians, in the plains of Arhela, was such a vast sea of people, as it did somewhat astonish the commanders in
Alexander's army, who came to him, therefore, and wished him to set upon them by night; but he answered, 'He would not pilfer the victory'--and the defeat was easy.--When
Tigranes, the Armenian, being encamped upon a hill with four hundred thousand men, discovered the army of the Romans, being not above fourteen thousand, marching towards him, he made himself merry with it, and said 'yonder men are too many for an embassage, and too few for a fight;' but before the sun set he found them enough to give him the chase with infinite slaughter.
Many are the examples of the great odds between number and courage."
’
And here we may appropriately allude to the order of
Gen. Beauregard, announcing the
Leesburg victory to the First Corps of the Army of the Potomac, in which he expresses the confident hope that all of his command, officers and men, will be assured of their ability to cope successfully with the foe arrayed against them, in whatsoever force he may offer battle. "Under the inspiration of a just cause," continues the
General, "defending all we hold dear on earth or worth living for, and with the manifest aid of the God of Battles, we can and must drive our invaders from the soil of
Virginia, despite their numbers and their long accumulated war equipage." The courage of our troops has frequently been put to the test, and as frequently proved; but on no occasion more triumphantly than on the 21st of October. After that success, no odds could discourage or make them doubtful of victory.--Numbers give but temporary confidence, which avails nothing against an army animated by the resolution to conquer or die.
