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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 1962)
U. MONDAY. MAY 21, 1962 8 B 55.1WAS THE O . . , . .. , , O CI VIE WAR MEOFORD MA ftp TRIBUTE. MEDFOHD, OMOO Federals Learn About Lightning By MEKTON T. AKtina UPI Correspondent The Federal Army learned about, lightning war-the hard way in Ma 1862. Their teacher was Stonewall Jack son, only recently an instruct or at the Virginia Military Institute, and now applying his lessons. - HU text was to save Rich mond, the Confederacy's cap ital. Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor, one of Jackson's generals, de scribed his first sight of this dour, religious man who glor ified in war: "The mounted officer . . . pointed out a figure perched on the topmost rail of a fence . . . and said it was Jackson. "Approaching, I saluted and declared my name and rank, then waited for a response. Before this came I had to see a pair of cavalry boots cov ering feet of gigantic size, a mangy cap with visor drawn low, a heavy dark beard and weary eyes eyes I saw aft erward filled with Intense but never brilliant light." Jackson asked Taylor how far his men had marched that day. "Six and twenty miles," Taylor replied. "You seem to have no strag glers," Jackson said. "Never allow straggling," Taylor answered. "You must teach my peo ple" Jackson said. "They straggle badly." Sand Strikes Up About that moment Tay lor's band struck up a waltz and some of his Creole sol diers began to dance. "Thoughtless fellows for serious work," Jackson re marked. That was Jackson on the eve of his first triumph, "Stonewall" to the South, "Old Jack" to his men and "Fool Tom" to V.M.I, cadets. , On this day In May, Jack son was 38 years old. He was in the midst of a campaign In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia against two Union armies. By whipping both. he could create enough con sternation in Washington to keep reinforcements from go ing to the Army of the Poto mac, which was miles to the Southeast. Late the same night Jack son sat at Taylor's campfire. "If silence be golden," Tay lor reported, "he was a 'bo nanza.' He sucked lemons (Stonewall thought lemons helped the dyspepsia), ate hardtack and drank water, and praying and fighting ap- peared to be his idea of the 'whole life of man.'" As he sat at the campfire Jackson was forming a de cision which likely changed the course of the Civil War. Certainly , it changed the course of Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsular campaign, the biggest Union drive of the war to date. Sudden Strikes If Jackson by quick man euvers and sudden strikes against the Union armies of Gens. Nathaniel P. Banks and John C. Fremont i: the Val- ley could prevent their going to the Peninsula to reinforce McClellan and if he could lure Union Gen. Irvln Mc Dowell's 37,000 -man corps from Fredericksburg, Va., to ward the Valley, then the for ces of Confederate Ge n. Jo seph E. Johnston with their backj to the Richmond de fenses might have a chance to stop McClellan, even to de stroy his army. The man milling over how to do this had come from ob scurity and stood where he now was because he had ov ercome poverty and lack of early education by hard work rather than brilliance. Born in Clarksburg, Va., (now West Virginia), he arrived at West Point an awkward boy in homespun. He barely manag ed to meet the minimum stan dards at the Point the first year, but by long hours of hard study, graduated in 1846, 17th in a class of SB. He won two brevets in the Mexican War, but by Civil War time he had quit the ar my and was a professor at V.M.I., austere, taciturn, a strict disciplinarian and a working Presbyterian. He had won the name of Stonewall at the battle of Bull Run (Manassas) by hold ing his brigade firm under attack. Now he was operating in the Valley, home ground he knew as well as a farmer knows his own land. Strategic Corridor Jackson's maneuver ing ground, the Shenandoah Val ley, is a long, strategic cor ridor running southwest and northeast the length of west ern Virginia. Two ranges of mountains, the Blue Ridge on the east and the Alleghenies on the west, bind the valley and protect the flanks of any army operating there as long as the passes are held. The Shenandoah river runs from south to north in the valley. Its two forks join near the north end (foot) of the valley and meet the Potomac river at Harper's Ferry. The Massanutton Moun tains split the valley near the north end for about 50 miles, leaving a valley on each side. The narrower one on the east Is called 'Luray Valley after its principal town. Only one road crossed the Massanut tons, running from New Mar ket on the west U Luray on the east. , A macadamized road, call ed the Valley Pike, ran on the west side of the Massa nuttons. Pointing straight into Mary land and Pennsylvania be yond, the valley was one of the Confederate's safety valves. Whenever pressure be came too great on Confeder ate armies in eastern Virgin ia, a force could be thrown into the valley, thereby threatening Washington from the northwest as well as Bal timore and Pennsylvania. Reading from north to south, the valley towns af ter Harper's Ferry were: Win chester, Mt. Jackson, Stras burg, Woodstock, New Mar ket, Harrisonburg and Staun ton In the west corridor; Front Royal, Luray, Conrad's Store and Port Republic in the east corridor. Jackson consulted Gen. CHICK AHOMINY CAMPAIGN At the end of May, 1862, Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston set out to level a blow at the Union Army of the Potomac. Near the Chickahominy river lay Fair Oaks, and this was the site Johnston picked for the first cision resulted. Gen, Johnston was wound ed and carried from the field. After his injury. Gen. R. E. Lee would take command of Confederate forces. Here, in a litho graph from the Library of Congress collec tion, the Army of the Potomac Is shown of a series of bloody battles for Richmond, en route from the Chickahominy after the Many died in the battle, but no real de- battle. (Ufl) Robert E. Lee, military ad viser to President Jefferson Davis. Lee said to go ahead and try to stop the Federals and gave Stonewall command of Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell's division and the troops of Brig. Gen. Edward (Allegh eny) Johnson. All together Jackson had about 10,000 men. Against him were align ed about 70,000 Union troops scattered among three com manders. Jackson prepared carefully for the campaign. His topo graphical engineer, Jed Hotchkiss, mapped the north ern end of the valley. Stone wall himself drew up accu rate charts of distances be tween the chief towns. He was ready to call to order -the class in tactics and demon strate his brand of lightning war. His subordinates were told as little as possible of his plans, the foot soldiers noth ing. On May 8, 1862, Jackson opened up by hitting a part of Fremont's command at McDowell, Va., in the south ern part of the valley west of Harrisonburg and drove them about 30 miles north west. Fremont now was out of touch with Banks, whose troops were at Strasburg, Va., about 20 miles south of Win chester. Jackson sent Ewell north in the Luray Valley, march ing his own men north from Harrisonburg, cutting across the Massanutton Mountains and joining Ewell at Luray. The combined force hit a Federal detachment at Front Royal on May 23, and sent it flying north toward Win chester. Supplies Abandoned Banks at Strasburg was outflanked, realizing the dan ger, Banks raced north for Winchester. He barely es caped annihilation and made Winchester only by abondon ed all his supplies. Jackson was delayed on his way from Front Royal to Winchester when some of his troops stopped to loot one of the Federal wagon trains and missed pinching off Banks. He then attacked at Winches ter on May 25. Banks, defeat ed, made a disorderly retreat 20 miles north across the Po tomac river. The strikes at Front Royal and Winchester netted 3,000 prisoners, 10,000 muskets, several cannons and wagon trains full of supplies, all of which Jackson and the Con federacy desperately needed. With Jackson controlling the valley and threatening Harper's Ferry, Secretary ' of War Edwin M. Stanton pan icked in Washington and or dered 20,000 of McDowell's troops to march west from Fredericksburg, Va., to the valley. This halted a planned move to reinforce McClellan before Richmond, a move that had a vital bearing on the Peninsula campaign. Offensive Ordered Fremont, little hurt so far in the south of the valley, was ordered to go on the offensive. Banks was reinforced with 15,000 men and also ordered south after Jackson. That left Stonewall in a tight spot with McDowell's troops under Gen. James Shields pressing in from the east, Fremont from the west and Banks from the north. His only route was south along the paved valley pike and he took it without delay on May 31. Shields retook Front Royal: Fremont was skirmishing with Jackson's cavalry at Ce dar creek, 20 miles south of Winchester. All day and all night prod ded his wagon train south along the Pike, his troops If? the Day's. Nes By FRANK JENKINS In Las Vegas the other day, a radio station sent one of its reporters out to do a man-on- the-street questionnaire on Laos. Packing his microphone on the sidewalk, he began ask ing passers-by: "Where is Laos, and why is it so impor tant in the news?" It was a washout. He found ONE person who thought it was somewhere on the other side of the world but didn't know where. If the general run of people are as vague as all that about Laos maybe we d better do a little backgrounding on South east Asia, of which Laos is a part, WHAT we are reading about in the big headlines these days is the remnant of French Indo-China. French Indo- panting from long forced marches, with rear units fending off Shield's and Fre mont's skirmishes. By nightfall Jackson had his weary army safe at Wood stock, half way down the valley. The next day, June 2, pa trols of Shields and Fremont joined on the Pike but it was empty. Jackson's "foot cav alry" had won the day again, Shields and Fremont pursu ed, Fremont on the west side of Massanutton, Thields on the east, cut off from com munication by the massive hogback. By June 5 Jackson was back at Harrisonburg, where if he wished he could fade away south. But he had other ideas. He sent' Ewell to Cross Keys below Harrisonburg to stop Fremont. That Ewell did easily. Meanwhile Jackson hit Shields at Port Republic and drove him back 20 miles. That ended the valley cam paign. Between April 30 and June 9 Jackson had marched 400 miles, fought and won five battles, defeated four Union commanders, seized great quantities of supplies the Confederates needed bad ly, kept McDowell from rein forcing McClellan, panicked Washington for a time, mud dled the plans of the Pen insular campaign and made himself a reputation as a mas ter of lightning warfare. China, historically, is a group of Southeast Asia states that for nearly a century before World War II were French colonies. It included Annam, Cambodia, Cochin China, Laos and Viet-Nam - all familiar names in the news these days. The Chinese ruled Indo China until about the 900's A.D. The next seven or eight centuries saw more or less constant fighting to throw off Chinese rule. The French be gan to intervene in Indo China about 1785. For three quarters of a century there was more or less constant fighting, and by 1907 the French gained control of the entire area. . In World War II, the Jap anese overran practically the entire region, but when they were defeated they lost it all. In the peace settlement that followed World War II, the French took Indo-China back BUT In the meanwhile The PEOPLE of Indo-China had developed a strong desire for independence. When the war ended, they set out to throw off French rule. Under the leadership of Communist- trained Ho Chi Minh, they eventually ran the French out. By that time, however, the Chinese communists had come to the conclusion that THEY wanted add needed ai t. of Southeast Asia. So they set out to TAKE it. By then, we had learned Jfi the hard school of experience that these Chinese commu nists were not the "simple agrarian reformers" we had been claiming they were. So we started out to do what we could to checkmate them. SAD TO SAY, we didn't have much luck then, and we haven't had much luck since. Because of Communist Ho Chi Minh's help in run ning the French out, the peo ple of Southeast Asia, espe cially the people of the for mer French colonies, leaned toward the communists and were suspicious of us because we were allies of the French. IN CAPSULE form, there is the background of this Southern Asia business. Com munist China WANTS South east Asia. Communist China NEEDS Southeast Asia. Among other things, only Burma sells more RICE in world markets than this Indo China area. Rice makes up two-thirds of its exports. Rice is the chief food of the Chi nese. China, reportedly, can't produce enough rice to feed its people. If it could grab the rice of Indo-China, it would help. That helps to explain why communist China is so deep ly involved in this Southeast Asia business. Money From Crater Finance Is Like MONEY FROM HOME! 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