Gen. Wingfield Scott.
We to call this defunct strategist by the his parents bestowed upon him not by his own affected substitution. His parents were highly people, and named him after an old and respected Virginia family, to which, probably, he was related. He substituted a name perfectly such as man, devil, nor beast, ever bore before him, we suspect — a name as fall of affection as the which go so far to the making up of his ensemble. However, let us not quarried with a name.At the commencement of this war the Yankees believed they had secured a mighty prize in winning over old ‘"Pass."’ When Col. Harcourt, in the midst of a snow storm, galloped into the village of Beckingridge and carried off Gen. Charles Lee, the British boosted that they had gotten possession of the ‘"Palladium of America."’ Even so the Yankees thought when Scott sold himself — body and bones, soul and honor, fuss, feathers, affectation, rattlesnake stories and all — to the Northern despotism. They made a great mistake; but it was a natural mistake. There probably never existed so overruled a man. Even the very officers that had taken up the cause of the Confederate States had a nigh opinion and a great dread of the man. They had the same awe of him that a school-boy entertains of his teacher. He had taught them, and knowing nothing else but what they had learned from him, they presumed, as a matter of course, that he must know everything. There had never been a war on a grand scale in the country, and they had never had an opportunity of seeing war on a grand sealed abroad.
We can now look at the exploit's of Gen. Scott through the medium of the mighty military transactions that have taken place within the last year, and truly they seem very diminutive. In the war of 1812 he was second in command in the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane — hard-fought engagements between some eight or ten regiments, the sum total of the forces on both sides — on neither occasion reaching ten thousand men. It does not appear from any account we have read that there was any manæovering — anything calculated to bring out any other quality of a General than stu been courage. Yet his services in these little affairs made him, in the eyes of a people unused to war upon a large scale, a great General, and entitled him, in his own, to make an exhibition of himself at Paris, when it was occupied by the allied armies, in the midst of such men as Wellington, Blucher, Schartsenburg, the Archdske Charles, and all the Generals that had been engaged in the wars against Napoleon, and whose names resounded through the earth like the sound of a trumpet — The mortification which he experienced on finding that, his name had never been heard in Europe is described by Vincent Nolte in his work, and is amusing enough. But in this country his pigmy exploits continued to be regarded as miracles of generalship, although he was but second in command, and caused him to be still looked upon as a great tactician. His Mexican campaign, undertaken after Gen. Taylor had already destroyed all the best troops of the Republic, and was ready, with only had the troops required by Scott, to march to the city of Mexico, further increased his fame. Yet what was it after all? One of the most powerful nations in the world, with inexhaustible supplies of money and munitions, was engaged in a war with a feeble and degenerate race, half armed half clad, and half fed, with no money to pay soldiers, and no officers to discipline them. Scott waited until Taylor had explored the way. He found that Taylor had beaten them in four great battles, in each of which they outnumbered him in the proportion of two to one, and in at least one of which they were five to his one. He discovered plainly that an advantage of numbers could unable them go beat the American troops. He saw that victory was sure, under any circumstances, and he thought the opportunity excellent for adding to his reputation without running any risk of impairing it. If Taylor had been reinforced after the battle of Vista, he would have entered Mexico in two mouths But, instead of reinforcing him, Scott had taken away nearly all his regulars before that battle to contribute to his own individual glory. He beat the Mexicans in every battle — How could we do otherwise. He had one of the finest armies in the world; they were an unwarlike rabble. He had everything in the shape of arms that the improvements of science had created. They had old tower muskets, condemned and sold as worthless, and liable to burst whenever they were fired, and honeycombed cannon that had been left there by the Spaniards. He had the best, educated officers in the world; they had no officers that had received even the rudiments of a military education. His soldiers were, by a large majority, Anglo-Saxons; they a degenerate race, half Indian and half Spaniard. It would have been a miracle had he failed. Yet, for succeeding, he was cried up as the great General of his day. We never could believe this. Every person who ever conversed with him, represented him as the greatest feel in conversation they had ever seen, and we could not conceive it possible that a fool in conversation could be a great man in any respect.
