The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1862-11-01
What Our Navy Can Do
From the N. Y, Evening Post.

We pointed out yesterday that with East
Tennessee in our possession, as it ought to be
within thirty days or less, the whole southern
tier of States would at once be opened to our
armies; and that in fact henceforth, the bat
tie would be transferred to the cotton States.
But it is not only our land forces the rebels
have to tear during the coming winter.
We have recently laid before our readers
statement of the condition of our navy In
few words, we may say that by the lst of De-
cember, or perhaps the middle of November,
our naval force will consist of not less than
three hundred and eighty six vessels of differ
ent classes, of which fifty two are iron .clads.
The force which, with an industry, foresight
and rapidity for which it has not received full
credit, the Navy Department has so to speak
,improvised, in the last eighteen months, does
not seem very formidable to European powers;
we have built no immense hundred and twenty
gun ships, because we do not fret ourselves
about the empire of the seas, which our fleets
of merchantmen will maintain very we'll. tits
home defence we work for, and not aggression;
and the ships we are building and have built
are admirably calculated for that. They are
fit to enter our bays and rivers, the shallowest
as well as the deepest; and under command of
such gallant men as Dupont, Farragut, Por-
ter, and we should like to add Foote, they
have sharp winters work before them.
From every direction, from the north as we'll
as south, and from west as we'll east, the cot
ton States are intersected by navigsble rivers
These numerous streams have been Justly
counted one great source Of the prosperity
of those States. Without them the culture of
cotton would long ago have received fatal
check. In an agricultural country like the
Southern States, railroads are not the most
promising investment; and the bulky cotton
has for the most part reached the shipping
ports by way of the rivers. On the river
margins, too, were found the most fertile lands
those which would longest and best bear the
ruinous drain Of slave culture and constantly
repeated crops. For these two reasons 1t is
along the river banks, in the cotton States
that the richest plantations are found and the
densest slave population is gathered.
Now it is precisely these rich plantations We
want to reach and these dense slave popula-
tons, now growing corn and wheat for the reb-
ell armies, instead of cotton, on these rich soils
whose loss the rebel leaders can least bear
To disorganize that labor system which now
supports the rebellion, is to destroy the COM
missariate of their armies, and the confidence
and spirit of their soldiers; and it is this which
our navy can so we'll do-and, doubtless what
it is intended to do. The mere presence of two
or three of our nimble and well protected Nom
itors in the Alabama river, moving up and
down from Mobile, would at once send the ne
gro population away from their plantations and
their crops.
This has been the effect at Port Royal, in
North Carolina, on the Mississippi. A we'll
known planter, living not far from New Or
leans, wrote last spring that four of his slaves,
who ran away to the Yankees had returned.-
They have had enough of liberty and were
glad to come back" But in his next letter to
the North he told different tale; the four had
run away again-and had taken with them two
hundred more. Indeed, the pIauter suspected
that the four had come back with only this OBJ.
ject-and he probably guessed correctly.
We hope the Navy Department will hasten to
commence those preliminary operations which
are to open to Us still more of the river system
Of the South. Mobile and Savannah guard two
rivers commanding vast regions, from which
the rebels now derive great part Of their sub.
tence. These taken, and the navy NAV omen
upon the rebels such . fire in the rear q they
have from the first most dreaded.