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OUR WAR OF MOBS Vol Moltke said contemptuously that our civil war was but a war ofj mobs and certainly neither one of the opposing armies could bear com ¬ parison with the highly trained instrument of effi ¬ cient brutality that so fittingly reflects German character characterWe We were a primitive people in the sixties sadly lacking in the qualities that the kaisers higher command deems essential to successful conduct of war We called Senmies a pirate yet 1m spared women and children as did Sherman though his march from Atlanta to the sea left a trial of devastation behind him War is hell cried the soldier and his words will go echoing down through the ages How would he have characterized it had lie lived to behold the work of the Germans in Belgium and Northern France FranceIn In our dealings with spies and the traitors within our gates we were unquestionably primitive in the days of the civil war The country north cf Mason and Dixons line was honeycombed with sedition and copperheads were as thick as flies The New York Hotel was a veritable nest of southerners who made no secret of their allegiance to the Confeder ¬ acy But save for a futile attempt to burn New York those gentry did little but talk possibly because there was no slush fund to stimulate their activities activitiesAs As regards wholesale internments the hanging and shooting of hostages and the kidnapping of young women we deserve the contempt of any mod ¬ ern strategist At Jhe close of the war but one of our enemies was hanged and it is interesting now to note he was a German New York Herald
