September 1, 1887.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



247 



States, and 1-1:5,000 of these rest in gi-aves marked un- 

 known. 



" The total Confederate loss will never be known, but the 

 best estimates place it at about 220,000 men out of 1,000,000 

 men who served in the Southern armies. They fought 

 during the war on the defensive, among friends, and 

 generally under cover of breastworks of one kind or another, 

 from rifle-pits to regular fortifications, which gave them an 

 enormous advantage. 



" The total number of men furnished to the Federal army 

 by the United States during the war under all caIIs was 

 2,683,523. The total number of coloured troops in the 

 Northern army was 123,156. The heaviest loss bv disease 

 was suffered by the coloured troops; while but 2,897 died 

 in action and of wounds, the enormously large ntimber of 

 26,301 died of disease. Among the white troops the pro- 

 portion of deaths in action and from wounds to the deaths 

 from disease was about 1 to 2 ; among the coloured troops 

 as 1 to 8. Of the coloured troops enlisted, one out of every 

 seven died of disease. The proportion among the white 

 troops was 1 to 15. 



" Now that we are brushing up these figures it will be 

 well enough to remember how many men were furnished by 

 each State, and the following list will show : — 



" Few of the great battles of history can compare in 

 magnitude with tbe greatest battles of the Civil War, and 

 the battles of that war were the bloodiest in all the history 

 of wars in the proportion of killed to those engaged. 

 Waterloo was one of the most desperate and bloody fields 

 chronicled in European history, and yet AVellington's 

 casualties were less than 12 per cent., his losses being 2,432 

 kUled and it, 580 wounded out of over 75,000 men, while 

 at Shiloh one side lost in killed and wounded 9,740 

 out of 34,000, while their opponents report their killed 

 and wounded at 9,616, making the casualties about 

 30 per cent. At the great battle of Wagram, Napoleon lost 

 but about 5 per cent. At Wiirzburg the French lost but 

 3| per cent., and yet the army gave up the field and retreated 

 to the Rhine. 



" At Zurich, Massena lost hut 8 per cent. At Mal- 

 plaquet, Marlborough lost but 10 per cent., and at Eamillies 

 the same intrepid commander lost but 6 per cent. 



" At Contras, Henry of Navarre was reported as cut to 

 pieces, yet his loss was less than 10 per cent. At Lodi, 

 Napoleon lost I5 per cent. At Valmy, Frederick William 

 lost but 3 per cent. ; and at the great battles of Mai-engo 

 and Austerlitz, sanguinary as they were, Napoleon lost 

 an average of less than 11^ per cent. At jMagenta and 

 Solferino, in 1859, the average loss of both armies was less 

 than 9 per cent. At KiJniggratz, in 1866, it was 6 percent. 

 At Werth, Spicheren, Mars la Tour, Gravelotte, and Sedan, 

 in 1870, the average loss was 12 per cent., while at Linden 

 Gteneral Moreau lost but 4 per cent, and the Archduke John 

 lost but 7 per cent, in killed and wounded. Americans 

 would scarcely call this a lively skirmish. 



" At Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Atlanta, 

 Gettysburg, Mission Ridge, the Wildernesses, and Spottsyl- 



vania, the loss frequently reached, and sometimes exceeded, 

 40 per cent., and the average of killed and wounded on one 

 side or the other was over 30 per cent. 



'• Of the gentlemen who were at W^est Point during one 

 period of a cadetship, fifty-six were killed in battle, and, 

 estimating the rate of killed and wounded at one to five, 

 280 were wounded. 



" From the discovery of America to 1861 in aU wars with 

 other nations the record gives the deaths in battle of but 

 ten American generals, while from 1861 to 1865, both sides 

 being opposed by Americans, more than 100 general officers 

 fell while leading their columns. From 1492 to 1861 the 

 killed and wounded upon American soil in all battles, 

 combats, and skirmishes, added together, as shown by reports, 

 hardly exceeded the casualties of single battles of the great 

 American conflict." 



SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. 



PROMISED some time back (or threatened— 

 which is it ?) to show from Shakespeare's 

 sonnets that the special forms of knowledge 

 traceable in the writer of the plays can be 

 recognised in poems unquestionably by Shake- 

 speare. I now propose to carry out this idea. 

 I take first the tokens of legal knowledge, or 

 rather the use of legal terms and expressions so correctly 

 that many lawyers have wondered how the country-bred 

 Shakespeare could have obtained such command of legal 

 language. Of course the wonder is not so great as many 

 imagine. It is quite true that most of our best novelists 

 blunder when they deal with legal matters, and especially 

 when they try to use legal phraseology. But that is natural 

 enough. The novelist is no more likely to have occasion, 

 in his own experience, to study even the simplest legal ques- 

 tions, than other folk ; and almost every reader of these 

 lines who is not himself a lawyer knows how unapt he would 

 be in the use of legal phraseology. But if any one not a 

 lawyer has occasion, unfortunately for himself, to have deal- 

 ings with lawyers, and if he has been careful to master all 

 such legal statements as those dealings bring before him — • 

 then he will very soon acquire readiness and precision in the 

 use of law terms, especially if he is observant and hiis a good 

 memory. Now Shakespeare, owing to the many troubles in 

 which his father was involved, had probably occasion to hear 

 a great deal about legal matters ; we can hardly suppose 

 that a man of his power (judging only by the poems) would 

 let these matters pass unnoticed. His keenness of observa- 

 tion and insight into meanings would enable him very 

 quickly to learn all those details to which every sen.sible 

 man who has dealings with the law must attend, and we 

 have only to consider Shakespeare's amazing facility of 

 expression to know that none could be quicker than he 

 would be in seizing the meaning of new terms and phrases, 

 and turning them into account in his poetry. 



The trouble in this matter lies in the selection, so numer- 

 ous throughout the sonnets are the legal terms and jihrases. 

 They come in sometimes casually, but not less significantly 

 from the beginning. Thus, after touching in the first three 

 sonnets on heirship, succession, posterity, and so forth, in 

 the fourth sonnet Shakespeare deals with these and .asso- 

 ciated ideas in terms which might be objected to by an 

 overwise critic as unduly technical. " Unthrifty loveliness," 

 he says, — • 



wh}- dost thou spend 



Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy t 

 Nature's hcquctt gives nothing, but doth lend. 

 And being frank, she lends to those are free ; 



