PREFACE

Of THE ESSAYS here republished, the first four relate to the great war in America, the military excellence displayed in which has been unduly depreciated by comparison with late events on the Continent. There is a disposition to regard the American generals, and the troops they led, as altogether inferior to regular soldiers. This prejudice was born out of the blunders and want of coherence exhibited by undisciplined volunteers at the outset,—faults amply atoned for by the stubborn courage displayed on both sides throughout the rest of the struggle : while, if a man’s claims to be regarded as a veteran are to be measured by the amount of actual fighting he has gone through, the most seasoned soldiers of Europe are but as conscripts compared with the survivors of that conflict. The conditions of war on a grand scale were illustrated to the full as much in the contest in America, as in those more recently waged on the Continent. In all that relates to the art of feeding and supplying an army in the field, the Americans displayed quite as much ability as any continental power; while if the organization and discipline of their improvised troops were inferior, the actual fighting was in fact more stubborn for no European forces have experienced the amount of resistance in combat which North and South opposed to each other. Neither was the frequently indecisive result of the great battles fought in America any proof that they formed exceptions to the ordinary rules of military science. These actions were so inconclusive, first, from deficiency in cavalry, and next because the beaten side would not break up. The American soldiery, in thus refusing to yield to panic when losing the day, retiring in good order, and keeping a good front to the victorious enemy, displayed, let us venture to believe, an inherited quality. In order to pursue, there must be some one to run away, and, to the credit of the Americans, the ordinary conditions of European warfare in this respect were usually absent from the great battles fought across the Atlantic. Hence partly the frequent repetition of the struggle, almost on the same ground, of which the last campaign of Grant and Lee is the crowning example. Nor have those who study the deeds wrought by Farragut and Porter, with improvised means, any reason to hold American sailors cheaper than our own, or to think lightly of the energy that raised the fleets they led.

The essays on de Fezensac and von Brandt bring to notice memoirs which not only deal with a most interesting period of history, but may be studied with special advantage at this time. They will prove that the present fashion of depreciating the French military character and ascribing German successes to an innate superiority, though carried to extravagance, is more reasonable than the belief in French invincibility which was as commonly entertained in the earlier days of the first Empire. These memoirs show clearly that the French victories of that era were not due to any intrinsic superiority of a military organization in which might be discerned broad-sown the germs of the faults that have lately been manifested but to the extraordinary imbecility of the powers that controlled the opposing forces. The military qualities of the two races appear to have been then very much what they are now.

The essay on Lord Cornwallis is an attempt to illustrate the life of a man who, without conspicuous ability, effected by common-sense, high-mindedness, and force of character a complete revolution in the Indian Public Service, overcoming in doing this the dearest prejudices of his employers, as well as the self-interest of his subordinates. In his early days Lord Cornwallis had taken an honorable, if not glorious part in the war of American independence, perhaps the most ill-conducted of the many ill-conducted wars in which England has ever been engaged ; and the memior which follows that on his Indian career gives a curious picture, by one of the loyalist militia he raised, of that almost forgotten struggle, when the Southern states especially were divided almost man against man, as personal feeling declared itself on the side of Congress or King.

The remaining essays in this volume are designed to record high work done by two brother officers, namesakes, though not related to each other: one, a man who lately ended a life of which heart-whole devotion to duty had been throughout to a degree hard to parallel, the unswerving guide; the other, a soldier still young, whose brilliant military genius has already saved an empire from ruin, and is still happily available for the service of his country.

Essays of Military Biography
By Charles Cornwallis Chesney, Colonel in the British Army and Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Engineers (1874) (pdf)