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Show The secretary in his report statett ' that while the pay of a second lieutenant lieuten-ant is $116 a month, a first sergeant receives only $22 a month. The committee com-mittee in a report express the opinion that a good first sergeant is quite as necessary to a company as a second lieutenant and that his duties are much more onerous. The committee also believes that tho beneficial effects of the proposed measure would at once be felt throughout the army and would result in an abatement of discontent dis-content and listlessness, and a new esprit do corps" would take possession posses-sion of the non-commissioned officers of the army which would permeate the rank and file. Socrctary Proctor, in endorsing the bill, says there can be no more important step taken for the improvement of the army than to make the position of the higher noncommissioned non-commissioned officers better worth seeking, thus attracting a better class of young men intothe enlisted service. Array and Navy Register. (ond for the Yerinnnters. R. R. George, Co. 1), ."th Vt., having seen an article which said that the Sixth Corps was not the first to break the rebel lines near Petersburg, April 2, 1805, says on the night of April 1, which was as dark as pitch, the order came to full in and march over the breastworks toward the picket-lino. After reaching tho picket they formed in lino of battle and tho Vermont Brigade Bri-gade was ordered to lio down. About 4 o'clock on tho morning of April 2 a signal-gun was fired which bade them form for the first dance, the music to bo furnished by tho participants. partici-pants. They were ordered to pay no attention to tho rebel picket, and not a gun was fired until they got to tho abatis. Tho rebel picket did not see them until they got within 20 feet, it being be-ing so dark. While getting through the abatis the rebel main lino opened THE CAMP FIRE. REV1T1.NG SOME OF THE SCENES OF THE LATE UEBELUOX. The Itattlet or the Future One of the Uueer Chaitre Inrreate of 1'ajr Incidents. In the battles of the future the air will be full of noise sharp, crisp, rattling, bellowing detonations, coming com-ing from mauy quarters, deceiving the judgment, shaking the nerves Of the timid, and possibly interfering with the condition necessary to catch quickly and clearly tho words of command. com-mand. Smoke volumes break and shut up sound, and in their absence there will bo need of greater calmness, calm-ness, the strain on the mind will be more severe, the discipline, disci-pline, required will have to be more rigid, the attention will have to be more concentrated, lest the far-distant should attract and disturb. All this will come with training, of which there will have to be a considerable amoftnt, involving much waste of powder before our troops will be fit to tight with an enemy using smokolcss gunpowder. Indeed, it will be for some time necessary to train the soldier to engage in the old as well as tho new baitle, with an enemy making a great smoke, as well as with an enemy making nono at all. Accordingly, the new powder will not bo all gain, and it will impose a good deal of extra work and anxiety. It is by no means clour what the issue would bo if two bodies of soldiers, equal in other respects, were using different forms of gunpowder. Tho advantages of quick firing and clear sight might not long be with tho smokeless weapons, and in the thick of a melee, troops trained in tho smokeless system might bo somewhat bewildered. On the other hand, especially es-pecially with artillery, massed or in detachment, and of fairly long range, the use of smokeless powder wouldun-doubtedly wouldun-doubtedly be an advantage, not only as regards rapid and accurate firing, but as offering less aim to an enemy, obscured by his own smoke and with nothing but sound to guido him. With armies using smokeless powder, it may be that ono of its early effects will be to affect tho color of tho soldier's dress, subduing it in tone, and so depriving de-priving the battle-field of another of its picturesque elements. Judging distances by colors will become a most important feature in military training, and more attention will be needed to perfect sight at such ranges as the different dif-ferent arms in use will carry. How this may affect a people afflicted with short sight will become a very grave question indeed, not wholly to be settled by tho employment of artificial aid. Maneuvers will take place over larger areas before actual fighting begins, be-gins, and something of an Indian's craft and natural keenness will be needed on the part of staff officers Army and Navy Journal. on them with telling effect, und the solid flame from their breastworks lit up the country around so they could see where they wero going. They charged und took tho works, and the writer does not think there was any regiment ahead of his in that charge. The writer was slightly wounded in tho breast and came near being bayoneted by the rebel, but a member of his company brought his gun-barrel down on tho rebel's head, and the writer can hear tho sound of that gun-blow gun-blow until this day. The fight did not last long at such close quarters, for some of tho rebels threw up their hands, while others ran liXe racehorses. race-horses. The brigade moved on until they reached tho South Side Railroad, where thoy tore up the truck. It wr.s a glorious victory, and the Vermont-ers Vermont-ers got there for certain. Thrlllatt b jMtialr. The cry was "On to Richmond!" in the early spring of 18G2, und the Army of the Potomac separated, says the New York Press. Some wero sent to Fort Monroe and other points south. The German division wont down through the Shenandoah, Sumner in command at first, then Fremont and afterwards Sigol. I was with the lat. ter, and many and many a long and One of the Queer (fiances. Every once in a while somo war veteran, vet-eran, under proper circumstances and conditions, will tell you how he escaped es-caped death at such a place and such a time by the "queerest chance in the world." One of these "queerest chances in tho world" fell to the lot of an old timer who lives in German-town, German-town, and, in truth, it is ono of the very queerest. Ho was about to leave for the seat of war in 1863, and tho girl to whom he was engaged, among numerous other things, gave him a chest protector made by her own fair hands and wet by her tears. It was meant to bo practical and was of immense thickness thick-ness that is, it was padded to the depth of an inch or two. During a long and tedious campaign in chilly weather, the soldier found it invaluable invalu-able as a safeguard against colds, and wore it almost constantly. He had it on ono morning when plunged into tho heat of a hand-to-hand skirmish. Tho affair developed into quite a little battle, and soon the straggling fire on both sides had become rattling volleys. vol-leys. When it was ovor the soldier retired to his tent and removed his coat and shirt in order to stanch the flow of blood from a small flesh wound in his back. In removing the protector pro-tector ho felt a sharp pain shoot through his chest, and then he noticed that the protector was cut all up by the passage of a bullet. An Investigation developed an awfully "queer chance." His sweetheart had accidentally left a ncedlo sticking in tho pad which he had never noticed before. This ran right through the cloth and a bullet hud struck it on tho point. Tho needle had been forced back clear through a thick button on his woolen undershirt and thence hud gone a little distance into the skin. Tho resistance of tho button had forced the soft lend of the bullet clenr round the needle so that the bullet was fairly impaled on the slender wire. Thus was the life of the soldier sol-dier saved, and through tho caroless-Dess caroless-Dess of his beloved in leaving the needle in the protector. Pa. Grit. Increase of Pay. An important bill affecting the efficiency effi-ciency of the army has been favorably favor-ably reported to the llouso from tho committee on military affairs. The bill is one designed to carry out in j part the suggestions so cocently made ! by the secretary of war in relation to the pay of non-commissioned officers of the infantry, cavalry and artillery branches of the army. The bill provides pro-vides practically a system of selection of sergeant-majors and regimental quartermaster sergeants of tho noncommissioned non-commissioned staff and the first sergeants ser-geants of tho companies of tho line of the service, who are to receive the same pay as sergeants of engineers, which is about $32 a month, with the usual increase for length of service. wearisome march we had. F'inally one day we came to a branch of the Shenandoah. There was no pontoons, and wo waded across, the water up to our shoulders. We kept marching along, our wet clothing catching and retaining the dust. We were just about getting dry when we struck the same river and waded it again, to our excoeding discomfort. Later on the same day wo were sickened with the sight of another turn of the river. The Thirty-ninth regiment, New York volunteers, were in advance when the order was given to wade across. They kicked and refused, re-fused, and the rear coming up, a block ensued. A musician of the Thirty-ninth, an E flat cornot player, which was one of tho jollicst men I ever knew, made a rush for the river, waded up until the water reached nearly to his armpits, and began playing an exquisite waltz. The sight of that fellow playing under such circumstances was so comical com-ical that tho soldiors, forgetting all discomforts, cheered him, and when he had finished followed him with a rush, and tho division camped on the other sido for tho night. A Story nf t'sar Nicholas. Bismarck's latest story concern Nicholas I. of Russia. The czar suffered suf-fered from a disease that his physicians physi-cians told him could be relieved only by a rubbing of the spine. Nicholas was anxious enough to try the prescription, prescrip-tion, for ho was in great pain, but in all his court ho had no one whom he would trust to give him tho treatment. So eventually ho sont a courier all the way to Rei'lin with a written request that Frederick William II. should send him five non-commissioned officers of tho Guards to rub his back. The officers were sent, rubbed the czar's back for a few weeks and were then dismissed to Berlin with presents of $1,500 each. In speaking of the matter to the Prussian king subsequently, subse-quently, tho czar said: "I trust my Russians as long as I can look thorn in the eye; but to let them go to work at my own back that is more than I caro to risk." ;ront,the American. Every student of comparative history and biography should keep in mind how much the making of a man do-pends do-pends on the time in which he lives, says the Banner of Light. To compare Grant with Alexander, Hannibal, C:esar, Napoleon, or Wol. lington seems to bo folly, for he was not similar to any one of them, nny more than tho period of time in which they existed resembles ours. Each epoch creates its own agents, and Gen. Grant more nearly impersonated the American character of 1861-65 than any other living man. Therefore he will stand as the typical hero of the great Civil War in America of the nineteenth century. |