Something To Listen For

This entry is from then New York  Times, September 15, 1861

 

A Suggestion for Scouting Parties.

To the Editor of the New-York Times. Permit me, through your columns, to suggest an idea that, if adopted, may be useful to our skirmishers, who appear to have been so often, and in several instances fatally surprised by the enemy. If the Captain of each scouting party would carry with him an instrument similar to the stethoscope, only larger, (which could be easily constructed by a good instrument maker,) occasionally applying it to his ear and the ground -- he could detect at a great distance, I think, the existence of approaching cavalry, [???] the footsteps of infantry; and thus by being prepared might save lives that would otherwise be lost by the guerilla system of warfare inaugurated by our antagonists. F.A. VON MOSCHIZISKER. NEW-YORK, Sept. 5, 1861.

 Pleasontons Cavalry deployed as skirmishers, from Library of Congress Collection