Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1861-08-28

There are certain things to be learned before
this Government can carry on war successfully
the knowledge of which at present we have not.
They are:
/. The art of war.
2 The art of governing during war.
AT present we have neither. Through non
usur, the art of organizing, dscplning. subsst-
ing, and leading armies in the field, has passed
away. We have not a general of whom it can
be said that we know, from positive information,
that he can handle fifty thousand men in battle;
and in respect to all other branches of the mill
tary service, our practical knowledge is equally
defective. Our officers have passed the greater
part of their lives at frontier posts, unused to
command, unused to responsibility, inactive and
unimproving; and although we have the best ma
terial in the world for soldiers, how to make them
them up, and use them when made, NAV fairly
be reckoned in the catalogue of the lost arts in
the United States.
The art of governing during war, is also to be
learned The ordinary municipal proceedings of
course do not vary from what they were before.
But all those duties which have reference to the
commencement Of the war, the necessary provis-
ion for the support sf armies, the fixing of the end
to be gained by hostilites, the diplomacy of war
making and peace making, are things of which
we are practically in a state of ignorance.
Nothing has been more apparent, during the
progress of the hostility than the fact that our
Administration has been unable TO take anything
like an accurate measure of the exigency. Some
times this has seemed to be the effect of fear of
expense. and sometimes of an inability to appre-
ciate the fact that the country was actually en-
gagged in war. But from whatever cause il has
arisen. the people have, every few days been
startled with information of something done or
left undone, which indicated Enthusiastically a
want ofjudgment or of courage, or of knowledge
in the Government, calculated to excite the
graveSt apprehensions.
When the Administration of Mr. Lincoln was
formed, it was feared that its materials were of
such character as to render unity of action and
vigor impossible. 1t was doubted whether Mr..
Lincoln himself was man gifted with qualities
such would entite him, by virtue of a native
force, to stand ut the head of his own Govern
ment. Nothing has occurred, since his inaugu-
ration, to remove those doubts, to demonstrate
his adequacy to the important affairs that have
fallen into his hands, The phenomena of his
Administration indicate multiplicity of heads,
and a partial division of counsels Without
charging actual treachery or fragrant dishonesty,
there is enough to show that individual members
of the Government are playing at cross purposes
each endeavoring to give such direction to af-
fairs as shall best suit with his views of his own
personal interests.
In what is now being done, we are daily gaining
more and more information as to what had been
neglected. and it is perfectly justiable to say that
the sum of all the administrative neglects, over
sights failures and short comings, during the last
five months, which now stand proven or admitted
would, if collected, constitute a chapter of hsto-
ry calculated TO place the President the heads of
departments and the commanding General in a
light anything but enviable.-CincinRati Press
Republican,