Woodscrew Armies Campaign - Apres le déluge...

 

By our Special Correspondent - August 7, 1889 

The cataclysmic battle of 'Camp Supply', a signal victory as it was, has badly damaged our Tenth Army. As the shattered Chinese Army crawled off to the northwest, the Union Army has set about reorganising and refitting. Just about everything is wanting to keep the Army in being and  in action. There are thousands of wounded to be hospitalised or transported the tens of miles back to the border and thence to the railhead 20 miles further on. There are as many Chinese prisoners, wounded and unwounded, that also have to be fed, accommodated and - more or less - cared for. Those who can wield a spade are being put to burying the Chinese dead, with whatever funeral rites they practise.

Major-General Thos. J. Jackson has ordered the stepping up the resupply of every kind of consumable Tenth army requires: victuals, water, ammunition, transport, remounts, medical supplies - even tenting and construction materials for accommodation that is none too abundant in this wilderness. There is a sense of urgency in the orders given, the orderly bustle about the Camp and the adjacent battlefield, the heavy traffic up from and back to the Union border, with carts, wagons and pack horses heavily laden in both directions.

Three of the five infantry brigades having been badly depleted by the recent blood-letting, the five are to be consolidated into three. The Fifth Army brigades, be assured, will retain their separate existence. But the two combined, once the stragglers were rounded up, are together scarcely larger than the 17th and 19th Brigades were separately less than a week ago. 

The reason for the haste and bustle, I have been advised, is that Tenth Army may undertake active operations as soon as can be arranged. General Jackson has set the deadline: upon no later than August 20, the Army will march. 

Meanwhile, the Army of China has disappeared into the northern wilderness, followed - rather than pursued - by our Cavalry. Reports are coming in daily: the whole enemy force took the turnoff road westward past the Weshall Pass battlefield, where they seem to have been reinforced by the column that was defeated at the end of July. There they have stopped their retrograde moves, and have fortified their position. Word is, that however deep their entrenchments, it will avail them nothing against our Gardner guns and superior artillery. Further, a few squadrons sent forth in the direction of Yangzigu have discovered the town abandoned, and several score Union prisoners left to fend for themselves. The General has directed that upon their return to the Army, that they form a provisional battalion for the guarding of the camps and trains.

Altogether then, prospects are more promising, the outlook brighter, than it appeared five days ago.  Expect soon a resumption of active operations by General Jackson and his gallant little army.

Frank H. Vizetelly - war correspondent.

* * *

T'ai Kun Wu led his army as it fell back from the Camp supply battlefield, shattered, almost in the last stages of dissolution.  But dissolve it did not.  Over the next few days, the stragglers rejoined, and the scattered remnants coalesced into a force that had at least the approximate semblance of an army.  This was the Chinese strength: its resilience and capacity for rejuvenation.  

But could it make up for the huge losses the army had taken in its determined bid for a victory that would have ended the campaign?  Fifteen thousand men the fewer, formations reduced to handfuls of stragglers, almost all the artillery lost - T'ai Kun could only hope that his men had bloodied the Union nose enough to put a halt to their operations for a few days at least.  Perhaps he could hold on long enough at least to cover the passage westwards of some vital transports carrying back to the Emperor some precious cargo.

For, as the battle raged, T'ai Kun Wu had ordered a small company of his staff and hangers on to collect as many as they could of those magazine rifles the Union dead and wounded had left upon the field of battle. Several score of these weapons now burdened the carts and pack animals, escorted by a company of light infantrymen, as they journeyed westwards. If China could not acquire these weapons through trade, perhaps they might in another way. 

* * *

Great Battle in the West!

Enormous Losses to Tenth Army!!

Brig-Genl Isaac Bidwell saves Tenth Army!!!

August 7, 1889 -

Of course, our gallant Major-General T.J. (Fool Tom) Jackson has not only once again put his foot in it, he has shoved in the other one as well. Offering battle to hordes of the Chinese enemy, in numbers far in excess of his own, he not only hazarded his fighting men, but the whole heart and sinews of his force, headquarters, supply depots, line of communications troops, the lot. Only by a miracle was the Chinese army held.

We can name that miracle: Brigadier-General Isaac J. Bidwell.

General Bidwell has already acquitted himself superbly during the course of this campaign, as even his General Officer Commanding has attested in the parts of his campaign reports that have been published. His superb holding actions at Midla Nowhere and Liaoyang, against vastly superior numbers, should already mark out this soldier as a Great Captain. Perhaps the time is not far distant that he should command an army. We can but hope it will be the Tenth.

Suffice it to say, that General Bidwell's counter-attack into the flank rear of the Chinese army caused within that barbarian horde a panic that did not cease with nightfall, nor yet within the three days' or so's march they separated themselves from the battlefield. 

Meanwhile, what does our thrustful commander do? Sits on his hands and lets his enemy escape to reorganise and to recover his wits. Only the cavalry were there to follow up, and that at a respectful - that is to say, timorous - distance. The General will excuse his inaction by the battered and fractured state of his Army. But by whose incompetence and negligence has Tenth Army been reduced to that condition? By whose disregard for the rules of warfare must we yet await the next blood-soaked instalment in this woeful campaign?

There has been talk of further reinforcements in the shape of the rest of Fifth Army, the 17th and 19th already having joined and been frittered away, its scant remnants barely enough to constitute a single formation where two stood before. Is this to throw more good troops after the good troops lost? Naturally, prideful as ever, the 'humilious' General has denied the necessity for such reinforcement, declaring, from the shelter of his tent, that he has all in hand that is necessary for the successful conclusion to this war. 

All we can say, then, is that events will no doubt demonstrate the value of General Jackson's professional opinion upon the matter.

To be continued