The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 78, April, 1864

The three commanders who did most to break down Napoleon's power, and to bring about his overthrow, namely,—Benningsen, and Kutusoff, and Blücher,—were all old men; and the two last-named were very old men. It would be absurd to call either of them a great commander, but it is indisputable that they all had great parts in great wars. Benningsen can scarcely be called a good general of the second class, and he is mostly spoken of as a foolish braggart and boaster; but it is a fact that he did some things at an important time which indicated his possession of qualities that were highly desirable in a general who was bound to act against Napoleon. Having, in 1807, obtained command of the Russian army in Poland, he had what the French considered the consummate impudence to take the offensive against the Emperor, and compelled him to mass his forces, and to fight in the dead of winter, and a Polish winter to boot, in which all that is not ice and snow is mud. True, Napoleon would have made him pay dear for his boldness, had there not occurred one or two of those accidents which often spoil the best-laid plans of war; but as it was, the butcherly Battle of Eylau was fought, both parties, and each with some show of reason, claiming the victory. Had the Russians acted on the night after Eylau as the English acted on the night after Flodden, and remained on the field, the world would have pronounced them victorious, and the French Empire might have been shorn of its proportions, and perhaps have fallen, seven years in advance of its time; but they retreated, and thus the French made a fair claim to the honors of the engagement, though virtually beaten in the fight. Benningsen boasted tremendously, and as there were men enough to believe what he said to be true, because they wished it to be true, and as he had behaved well on some previous occasions, his reputation was vastly raised, and his name was in all mouths and on all pens. If the reader will take the trouble to look over a file of some Federal journal of 1807, he will find Benningsen as frequently and as warmly praised as Lee or Stonewall Jackson is (or was) praised by English journals in 1863,—for the Federalists hated Napoleon as bitterly as the English hate us, and read of Eylau with as much unction as the English of to-day read of the American reverses at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, while Austerlitz and Friedland pleased our Federalists about as well as Donelson and Pulaski please the English of these times. A few months after Eylau, Benningsen repulsed an attack which Napoleon imprudently made on his intrenched camp at Heilsberg, which placed another feather in his cap; nor did the smashing defeat he met with four days later, at Friedland, lessen his reputation. The world is slow to think poorly of a man who has done some clever things. We have seen how it was with the late Stonewall Jackson, concerning whom most men spoke as if he had never known defeat, though it is, or it should be, notorious, that he was as often beaten as successful, that more than once he had to fly with wind-like swiftness to escape personal destruction, and that on one occasion he was saved from ruin only because of an exhibition on our side of more than a usual amount of stupidity. But he had repeatedly showed some of the best qualities of a dashing general, and all else was overlooked in admiration of the skill and the audacity with which he then had done his evil work. So it was with Benningsen, and with more justice. The man who had bearded Napoleon but a few months after Jena, and not much more than a year after Austerlitz, and who had fought an even battle with him, in which fifty thousand men fell, must have had some high moral qualities that entitled him to respect; and he continued to be much talked of until greater and more fruitful campaigns had obscured his deeds. The pluck which he had exhibited tended to keep alive the spirit of European resistance to Napoleon, as it showed that the conqueror had only to be firmly met to be made to fight hardly for victory; and that was much, in view of the rapidity with which Napoleon had beaten both Austria and Russia in 1805, and Prussia in 1806. Benningsen completed his sixty-second year two days after the Battle of Eylau. He was employed in 1812, '13, '14, but not in the first line, and his name is not of much mention in the histories of those eventful years.

Prince Kutusoff, though a good soldier in the Turkish and Polish wars, did not have a command against the French until he had completed his sixtieth year, in 1805, when he led a Russian army to the aid of Austria. He checked the advance of the French after Ulm, and was in nominal command of the Allies at Austerlitz; but that battle was really fought in accordance with the plans of General Weyrother, for which Kutusoff had a profound contempt. If thorough beating could make good soldiers of men, the vanquished at Austerlitz ought to have become the superiors of the victors. In 1812, when the Russians had become weary of that sound policy which was drawing Napoleon to destruction, Kutusoff assumed command of their army, and fought the Battle of Borodino, which was a defeat in name, but a victory in its consequences, to the invaded party. His conduct while the French were at Moscow had the effect of keeping them in that trap until their fate was sealed; and his action while following them on their memorable retreat was a happy mixture of audacity and prudence, and completed the Russian triumph. Sir Robert Wilson, who was with the Russian general, who must have found him a bore of the first magnitude, is very severe on Kutusoff's proceedings; but all that he says makes it clear that the stout old Russian knew what he was about, and that he was determined not to be made a mere tool of England. If success is a test of merit, Kutusoff's action deserves the very highest admiration, for the French army was annihilated. He died just after he had brought the greatest of modern campaigns to a triumphant close, at the age of sixty-eight, and before he could hear the world's applause. The Germans, who were to owe so much to his labors, rejoiced at his removal, because he was supposed to belong to the peace party, who were opposed to further action, and who thought that their country was under no obligation to fight for the deliverance of other nations. They feared, too, that, if the war should go on, his "Muscovite hoof" would be too strong for the Fatherland to bear it; and they saw in his death a Providential incident, which encouraged them to move against the French. It is altogether probable, that, if he had lived but three months longer, events would have taken quite a different turn. Baron von Müffling tells us that Kutusoff "would not hear a word of crossing the Elbe; and all Scharnhorst's endeavors to make him more favorably disposed toward Prussia were fruitless. The whole peace party in the Russian army joined with the Field-Marshal, and the Emperor was placed in a difficult position. On my arrival at Altenberg, I found Scharnhorst deeply dejected, for he could not shut his eyes to the consequences of this resistance. Unexpectedly, the death of the obstinate old Marshal occurred on the twenty-eighth of April, and the Emperor was thus left free to pursue his own policy." The first general who had successfully encountered Napoleon, it would have been the strangest of history's strange facts, if the Emperor had owed the continuance of his reign to Kutusoff's influence, and that was the end to which the Russian's policy was directed; for, though he wished to confine French power within proper limits, he had no wish to strengthen either England or any of the German nations, deeming them likely to become the enemies of Russia, while he might well suppose that the French had had enough of Russian warfare to satisfy them for the rest of the century. Had his astute policy been adopted and acted on, there never would have been a Crimean War, and Sebastopol would not now be a ruin; and Russia would have been greater than she is likely to be in our time, or in the time of our children.

Blücher, who completed the work which Kutusoff began, and in a manner which the Russian would hardly have approved, was an older man than the hero of Borodino. When called to the command of the Prussian army, in March, 1813, he was in his seventy-first year; and he was in his seventy-third year when his energy enabled him, in the face of difficulties that no other commander could have overcome, to bring up more than fifty thousand men to the assistance of Wellington at Waterloo, losing more than an eighth of their number. He had no military talent, as the term is generally used. He could not tell whether a plan was good or bad. He could not understand the maps. He was not a disciplinarian, and he was ignorant of all the details of preparing an army, of clothing and feeding and arming it. In all those things which it is supposed a commander should know, and which such commanders as Napoleon and Wellington did know well, he was so entirely ignorant, that he might have been raised to the head of an army of United States Volunteers amid universal applause. He was vicious to an extent that surprised even the fastest men of that vicious time,—a gambler, a drunkard, and a loose liver every way, indulging in vices that are held by mild moralists to be excusable in youth who are employed in sowing wild oats, but which are universally admitted to be disgusting in those upon whom age has laid its withering hand. Yet this vicious and ignorant old man had more to do with bringing about the fall of Napoleon than all the generals and statesmen of the Allies combined. He had energy, which is the most valuable of all qualities in a military leader; and he hated Napoleon as heartily as he hated Satan, and a great deal more heartily than he hated sin. Mr. Dickens tells us that the vigorous tenacity of love is always much stronger than hate, and perhaps he is right, so far as concerns private life; but in public life hate is by far the stronger passion. But for Blücher's hatred of Napoleon the campaign of 1813 would have terminated in favor of the Emperor, that of 1814 never would have been undertaken, and that of 1815, if ever attempted, would have had a far different issue. The old German disregarded all orders and suggestions, and set all military and political principles at defiance, in his ardor to accomplish the one purpose which he had in view; and as that purpose was accomplished, he has taken his place in history as one of the greatest of soldiers. Napoleon himself is not more secure of immortality. He was greatly favored by circumstances, but he is a wise man who knows how to profit from circumstances. Take Blücher out of the wars of 1813-15, and there is little left in them on the side of the Allies that is calculated to command admiration. Next to Blücher stands his celebrated chief of the staff, General Count Gneisenau, who was the brains of the Army of Silesia, Blücher being its head. When Blücher was made an LL.D. at Oxford, he facetiously remarked, "If I am a doctor, here is my pill-maker," placing his hand on Gneisenau's head,—which was a frank acknowledgment that few men would have been able to make. Gneisenau was fifty-three when he became associated with Blücher, and he was fifty-five when he acted with him in 1815. In 1831 he was appointed to an important command, being then seventy-one. The celebrated Scharnhorst, Gneisenau's predecessor, and to whom the Prussians owed so much, was in his fifty-seventh year when he died of the wounds he had received at the Battle of Lützen.

There are some European generals whom it is difficult to class, as they showed great capacity and won great victories as well in age as in youth. Prince Eugène was one of these, and Frederick of Prussia was another. Eugène showed high talent when very young, and won the first of his grand victories over the Turks at thirty-four; but it was not so splendid an affair as that of Belgrade, which he won at fifty-four. He was forty-three when he defeated the French at Turin, under circumstances and with incidents that took attention even from Marlborough, whom he subsequently aided to gain the victories of Oudenarde and Malplaquet, as he had previously aided him at Blenheim. At seventy-one Eugène led an Austrian army against the French; and though no battle was fought, his conduct showed that he had not lost his capacity for command. Frederick began his military life when in his thirtieth year, and was actively engaged until thirty-three, showing striking ability on several occasions, though he began badly, according to his own admission. But it was in the Seven Years' War that his fame as a soldier was won, and that contest began when he was in his forty-fifth year. He was close upon forty-six when he gained the Battles of Rossbach and Leuthen. Whatever opinion others may entertain as to his age, it is certain that he counted himself an old man in those days. Writing to the Marquis d'Argens, a few days before he was forty-eight, he said, "In my old age I have come down almost to be a theatrical king"; and not two years later he wrote to the same friend, "I have sacrificed my youth to my father, and my manhood to my fatherland. I think, therefore, I have acquired the right to my old age." He reckoned by trials and events, and he had gone through enough to have aged any man. Those were the days when he carried poison on his person, in order that, should he be completely beaten, or captured, he might not adorn Maria Theresa's triumph, but end his life "after the high Roman fashion." When the question of the Bavarian succession threatened to lead to another war with Austria, Frederick's action, though he was in his sixty-seventh year, showed, to use the homely language of the English soldier at St. Helena when Napoleon arrived at that famous watering place, that he had many campaigns in his belly yet. The youthful Emperor, Joseph II., would have been no match for the old soldier of Liegnitz and Zorndorf.

Some of Frederick's best generals were old men. Schwerin, who was killed in the terrible Battle of Prague, was then seventy-three, and a soldier of great reputation. Sixteen years before he had won the Battle of Mollwitz, one of the most decisive actions of that time, from which Frederick himself is said to have run away in sheer fright. General Ziethen, perhaps the best of all modern cavalry commanders, was in his fifty-eighth year when the Seven Years' War began, and he served through it with eminent distinction, and most usefully to his sovereign. He could not have exhibited more dash, if he had been but eight-and-twenty, instead of eight-and-fifty, or sixty-five, as he was when peace was made. Field-Marshal Keith, an officer of great ability, was sixty when he fell at Hochkirchen, after a brilliant career.

American military history is favorable to old generals. Washington was in his forty-fourth year when he assumed command of the Revolutionary armies, and in his fiftieth when he took Yorktown. Wayne and Greene were the only two of our young generals of the Revolution who showed decided fitness for great commands. Had Hamilton served altogether in the field, his would have been the highest military name of the war. The absurd jealousies that deprived Schuyler of command, in 1777, alone prevented him from standing next to Washington. He was close upon forty-four when, he gave way to Gates, who was forty-nine. The military reputation of both Schuyler and Hamilton has been most nobly maintained by their living descendants. Washington was called to the command of the American forces at sixty-six, when it was supposed that the French would attempt to invade the United States, which shows that the Government of that day had no prejudice against old generals. General Jackson's great Louisiana campaign was conducted when he was nearly forty-eight, and he was, from almost unintermitted illness, older in constitution than in years. Had General Scott had means at his disposal, we should have been able to point to a young American general equal to any who is mentioned in history; but our poverty forbade him an opportunity in war worthy of his genius. It "froze the genial current of his soul." As a veteran leader, he was most brilliantly distinguished. He was in his sixty-first year when he set out on his memorable Mexican campaign, which was an unbroken series of grand operations and splendid victories, such as are seldom to be found in the history of war. The weight of years had no effect on that magnificent mind. Of him, as it was of Carnôt, it can be said that he organized victory, and made it permanent. His deeds were all the greater because of the feeble support he received from his Government. Like Wellington, in some of his campaigns, he had to find within himself the resources which were denied him by bad ministers. General Taylor was in his sixty-second year when the Mexican War began, and in less than a year he won the Battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista. He, too, was badly supported. The Secession War has been conducted by elderly or middle-aged men. General Lee, whom the world holds to have displayed the most ability in it, is about fifty-six. General Rosecrans is forty-four, and General Grant forty-two. Stonewall Jackson died at thirty-seven. General Banks is forty-eight, General Hooker forty-five, General Beauregard forty-six, General Bragg forty-nine, General Burnside forty, General Gillmore thirty-nine, General Franklin forty-one, General Magruder fifty-three, General Meade forty-eight, General Schuyler Hamilton forty-two, General Charles S. Hamilton forty, and General Foster forty. General Lander, a man of great promise, died in his fortieth year. General Kearney was killed at forty-seven, and General Stevens at forty-five. General Sickles was in his forty-first year when he was wounded at Gettysburg, and General Reno was thirty-seven when he died so bravely at South Mountain. General Pemberton lost Vicksburg at forty-five. General T.W. Sherman is forty-six, and General W. T. Sherman forty-four. General McClellan was in his thirty-fifth year when he assumed command at Washington in 1861. General Lyon had not completed the first month of his forty-third year when he fell at Wilson's Creek. General McDowell was in his forty-third year when he failed at Bull Run, in consequence of the coming up of General Joe Johnston, who was fifty-one. General Keyes is fifty-three, General Kelley fifty-seven, General King forty, and General Pope forty-one. General A.S. Johnston was fifty-nine when he was killed at Shiloh. General Halleck is forty-eight. General Longstreet is forty. The best of the Southern cavalry-leaders was General Ashby, who was killed at thirty-eight. General Stuart is twenty-nine. On our side, General Stanley is thirty, General Pleasonton forty, and General Averell about thirty. General Phelps is fifty-one, General Polk fifty-eight, General S. Cooper sixty-eight, General J. Cooper fifty-four, and General Blunt thirty-eight. The list might be much extended, but very few young men would be found in it,—or very few old men, either. The best of our leaders are men who have either passed beyond middle life, or who may be said to be in the enjoyment of that stage of existence. It is so, too, with the Rebels. If the war does not afford many facts in support of the position that old generals are very useful, neither does it afford many to be quoted by those who hold that the history of heroism is the history of youth.

THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH. 5

[1657.]Rivermouth Rocks are fair to see,    By dawn or sunset shone across,When the ebb of the sea has left them free    To dry their fringes of gold-green moss:For there the river comes winding downFrom salt sea-meadows and uplands brown,And waves on the outer rocks afoamShout to its waters, "Welcome home!"And fair are the sunny isles in view    East of the grisly Head of the Boar,And Agamenticus lifts its blue    Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er;And southerly, when the tide is down,'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown,The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheelOver a floor of burnished steel.Once, in the old Colonial days,    Two hundred years ago and more,A boat sailed down through the winding ways    Of Hampton river to that low shore,Full of a goodly companySailing out on the summer sea,Veering to catch the land-breeze light,With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right.In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid    Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass,"Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!"    A young man sighed, who saw them pass.Loud laughed his fellows to see him standWhetting his scythe with a listless hand,Hearing a voice in a far-off song,Watching a white hand beckoning long."Fie on the witch!" cried a merry girl,    As they rounded the point where Goody ColeSat by her door with her wheel atwirl,    A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul."Oho!" she muttered, "ye're brave to-day!But I hear the little waves laugh and say,'The broth will be cold that waits at home;For it's one to go, but another to come!'""She's curst," said the skipper; "speak her fair:    I'm scary always to see her shakeHer wicked head, with its wild gray hair,    And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake."But merrily still, with laugh and shout,From Hampton river the boat sailed out,Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh,And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye.They dropped their lines in the lazy tide,    Drawing up haddock and mottled cod;They saw not the Shadow that walked beside,    They heard not the feet with silence shod.But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew,Shot by the lightnings through and through;And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast,Ran along the sky from west to east.Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea    Up to the dimmed and wading sun,But he spake like a brave man cheerily,    "Yet there is time for our homeward run."Veering and tacking, they backward wore;And just as a breath from the woods ashoreBlew out to whisper of danger past,The wrath of the storm came down at last!The skipper hauled at the heavy sail:    "God be our help!" he only cried,As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail,    Smote the boat on its starboard side.The Shoalsmen looked, but saw aloneDark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown,Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare,The strife and torment of sea and air.Goody Cole looked out from her door:    The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone,Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar    Toss the foam from tusks of stone.She clasped her hands with a grip of pain,The tear on her cheek was not of rain:"They are lost," she muttered, "boat and crew!Lord, forgive me! my words were true!"Suddenly seaward swept the squall;    The low sun smote through cloudy rack;The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all    The trend of the coast lay hard and black.But far and wide as eye could reach,No life was seen upon wave or beach;The boat that went out at morning neverSailed back again into Hampton river.O mower, lean on thy bended snath,    Look from the meadows green and low:The wind of the sea is a waft of death,    The waves are singing a song of woe!By silent river, by moaning sea,Long and vain shall thy watching be:Never again shall the sweet voice call,Never the white hand rise and fall!O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight    Ye saw in the light of breaking day!Dead faces looking up cold and white    From sand and sea-weed where they lay!The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept,And cursed the tide as it backward crept:"Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake!Leave your dead for the hearts that break!"Solemn it was in that old day    In Hampton town and its log-built church,Where side by side the coffins lay    And the mourners stood in aisle and porch.In the singing-seats young eyes were dim,The voices faltered that raised the hymn,And Father Dalton, grave and stern,Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn.But his ancient colleague did not pray,    Because of his sin at fourscore years:He stood apart, with the iron-gray    Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears.And a wretched woman, holding her breathIn the awful presence of sin and death,Cowered and shrank, while her neighbors throngedTo look on the dead her shame had wronged.Apart with them, like them forbid,    Old Goody Cole looked drearily round,As, two by two, with their faces hid,    The mourners walked to the burying-ground.She let the staff from her clasped hands fall:"Lord, forgive us! we're sinners all!"And the voice of the old man answered her:"Amen!" said Father Bachiler.So, as I sat upon Appledore    In the calm of a closing summer day,And the broken lines of Hampton shore    In purple mist of cloudland lay,The Rivermouth Rocks their story told;And waves aglow with sunset gold,Rising and breaking in steady chime,Beat the rhythm and kept the time.And the sunset paled, and warmed once more    With a softer, tenderer after-glow;In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore    And sails in the distance drifting slow.The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar,The White Isle kindled its great red star;And life and death in my old-time layMingled in peace like the night and day!