The JVorthern Volunteers.
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��learn, was perceived by them at an early day, and they showed their willingness to rush upon works in 1862 at Fort Donelson, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. Gen. Smitli's Ver- raonters forced the passage of War- wick's creek waist-deep in water, and carried the enemy's works, and the 1st Massachusetts charged 800 yards under fire, and captured a field work as early as April, 18G2, at Yorktown. At Fredericksburg our divisions made a succession of determined and des- perate charges. They followed one after the other from morning till night. We lost over 7,000 killed and wounded in these charges. They did not fail from reluctance to go for- ward. The deadly fire from the triple lines behind the wall in our front struck down so many that by the time the men were within assault- ing distance there were not enough left to close the ranks for the assault. But the lines did not stop to deliver their fire until their formation was destroyed by their losses. Their dead were found within twenty-five yards of the enemy's line.
The critic who attempts to weigh the conduct of our volunteers by the amount of fighting at close quarters, as compared with that in former wars, is in danger of being misled, because the conditions have been changed so much bv the increase of the range and efficiency of arms.
If we compare our battles with those of the Franco-German war of 1870, we shall see that our men do not suffer by it. In the great battle of Gravelotte, the village of St. Marie aux Chenes was taken from the French by an attack on two sides. On account of the absence of cover.
��and the long range of the French Chassepot rifles, the Jagers of the Saxon Guards, who made the attack on one side, had to advance in open skirmish order, and, although this order afforded a poor mark to the French riflemen, yet the historians say the Jagers had to go forward "in a series of rushes of about two hundred yards each, and, throwing themselves flat on the ground, to re- commence their fire," and the last rush was deferred until the French evacuated the village. In this same battle, the village of St. Privat was taken by the Germans. It stood at the top of a slope like that which engineers make in front of a fort aud term the glacis, about two miles long, and was surrounded by a wall consisting mainly of massive stone houses, and had been fortified by the French for a general support of their whole right wing. Eighteen thousand of the Prussian Guards, the best trained soldiers of the German em- pire, attempted to carry the village by advancing up the slope about the same distance that our troops marched under fire at Fredericksburg, The very friendly historians from whom this account is derived say that the commander of the assaulting force, on account of its great losses, gave orders to suspend the attack, while his skirmishers were yet 400 paces from the French, to await a flank
attack by the Saxons, without which, these historians say, "it was impos- sible to carry out the last decisive attack."
The Prussian Guards lost 8,000 out of 25,000 to 30,000 in this bat- tle — twenty-seven to thirty-two per cent. At Fredericksburg, December
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