Some talk is had upon the street corners as to the policy best to be pursued in case the enemy advance upon the city and the country, and seem likely to capture the city. The Federal forces are yet a great distance from us, and we hope and believe they will never be able to reach here. Certainly they will not if the whole people arouse in their might and present a solid breast against the invaders. The movement in progress here aims to stir up the people to this universal resistance, and it seems probably that it will be successful.
The talk upon the corners is not always remarkably sensible. Men who spend their time in dilating their lungs at such places are very often not the most wise, calm and brave sort of characters. They are apt to talk large and act small. They often cloak over a craven heart under stout words. Often, too, their counsels spring from panic stricken hearts, though they wear the color and take the shape of being the offspring of courage and patriotism.
Certainly we prefer to follow the advice or commands of our chosen and lawful leaders as to the best modes of conducting the war. It is the business, and duty, and right of the military chiefs to plan and direct the proper measures in the exigency. If they say fight, we say fight; if they say retreat, we acquiesce, however painful it may be, if they say tear up the railroads, so say we; if they say burn the bridges, burn them, if they order the country to be laid waist, execute the order; if they command the city to be laid to ashes, lay the city in ashes and plow up its foundations, and sow salt over them. It is the right of the military chiefs to give such orders and cause them to be executed. The law of the land, the civil law read out of books and administered by the courts, holds them blameless for such orders and acts.
But street corner orators, and groggery-alley haunters, and whisky-inflamed patriots, and panic-struck cravens are not intrusted with any such right or authority; nor are even the most sensible and excellent of private citizens. If they venture to usurp or perpetrate any of these acts, the law has a name for them, and the statute book provides for their treatment. Felons is the name, and the act is arson, a crime which is punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than five nor more than twenty-one years. Arson is the willful burning of any house or out-house, in the country, or the setting fire to or burning of any house or building in any city or town. Private persons are not allowed to do these acts, no matter how laudable they may think their purpose. Nor can a man excuse himself from the consequences of the crime, even though he sets on fire his own buildings, if by so doing he jeopards the building of another. And besides, the criminal offense such person makes himself liable in a civil action for the value of any building of another which he cause to be burned by the setting on fire his own house.
Obviously, it may be very wise and altogether right to burn a town upon which an enemy is advancing; but quite as plainly is it, that it will never do to allow any person who chooses to do these things. It is not a power entrusted to any and everybody. It is not certain that any and everybody is wise, and prudent, and patriotic. Any and everybody may claim to be so; but any and everybody’s talk is not a very safe ground on which to trust a power of this kind.
Acts of this extreme character may become a military necessity. Such was the case of Moscow, famed in the history of Napoleon. Moscow is in the heart of the Russian Empire. It stands on North latitude in the 56th parallel, the same as the central region of Labrador in North America. Of course this is an extreme winter climate, though Moscow is not as cold as the same latitude on the eastern slope of this continent. Besides, Moscow was some seven hundred miles from the western frontier of Russia, the nearest point to a country friendly to Napoleon. In that day, the year 1812, there were no railroads or steamers, or in that region of Russia any rivers, for the easy or speedy transportation of any army. So that Napoleon, to get from Moscow out of Russia to a friendly country, had a line of about 700 miles over which his army must march on feet, and an average of 18 or 20 miles per day, in case he was forced to retreat. Over so long a line, and during mid-winter, and through a hostile country, such retreat would inevitably be fatal. The Russian soldiers were inured to the climate. – The French army were of many nations, most of them of countries having mild climates, and were unable to bear the rigor of the Russian climate. Hence, the policy of the Russians was to force Napoleon to retreat during the winter. This could be done by depriving the French army of shelter and food.
To burn Moscow and desolate the country around, accomplished both – left the French without food and without shelter. Count Rastopchin was the Governor of Moscow, and Kutusoff was the General-in-Chief of the Russian army. The battle of Borodino was fought and lost by Kutusoff, seventy miles west of Moscow. As he retreated before the French, he devastated the country for several miles on each side of the line of his march; and upon approaching the city moved several divisions of his army through it, and, at the point of the bayonet, drove the citizens out of the walls, and far off into the country.
Napoleon entered the city on the 16th of September. The day after his entrance, the city was set on fire in several places by felons, that Rastopochin had turned out of prison for the purpose; and seven-eights of the houses laid in ashes. Three hundred thousand Russians were driven from the city, of whom one hundred thousand perished in the fields, of starvation, freezing and disease – men, women, children – old and young, male and female.
About the middle of October, Napoleon took up the line of retreat. He could find nothing to eat, nor any shelter for his soldiers. Very soon the rigors of winter set in. Of that grand army of 500,000 men which entered Russia on the first of July, a wretched fragment of 40,000 men crossed the frontier upon the retreat out, about the middle of December.
The Russian policy was wise and effective. It was so because Napoleon was seven hundred miles distant from the nearest friendly point – because his army could not live in tents – because he could not procure food at that distance from the country friendly to him – and because the Russian army though inferior in regular warfare, was greatly superior in numbers and was able to surround him in Moscow, and to cut off all attempts of foraging parties into the country around. Such were reasons and such the policy of burning Moscow. – {Memphis Avalanche.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 1
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