Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-04-04

Notces iSs poHttcal MsetipgS TO be charged in all
Marriages, Noticesof Funerals, and announcements
Of sermons, so cents each. nonv11-'69
Will the Route OF the Rebel Armies
End the Rebellion.
[From the New York World.l
IL is known that the conflict with the
two great rebel armies-one in Virginia,
and one in North NIississippi-canuot be
far distinct; and it is firmly believed that
these engagements must end in their COM
plete overthrow. 1t that expectation is
realized, may we regard the rebellion as
etfectually closed? Would -pacifcatiou
speedily follow? There is vague notion
in the Pablic mind to the contrary, which
We think wholly without reason ~ rka
The apprehension is that the destruction
of the grand armies would only change,
the character of the war-would simply
transform it into ;nsuppressible and intol-
erable partisan fighting. tbs only feared
that regular would only give place to Ire
Irregular warfare; enCampments, entrench-
ments, field batteries and lines of battles
to cOverts in the tmountains,s to rowing
squads, to forays and raids, with carbine
and torch; battling all calculation by their
suddenness, and producing incessant alarm
among the friends of the government
which would end in "a despair that would
hold peace cheap ut any price, All such
fears nre grOundless. Guerilla warfare
never yet effected the dcliverancc of any
people. Without doubt it is a useful ad-
junct to regular warfare, but when it be-
comes the sole stay, it fails enevitably, and
always must so long as human nature re-
mains unchanged. The reason is plain.-
Its essential principle is imdepeNdeMt action .
1t can impose no such discipline and SUI
bordination as necessarily belong to reg
ulNr army. 7
When-any man is permitted to make war
in his own way, the worst characters are
ever the foremost to engage in it-those
who seek plunder and revel in violence,
rather than those who are controlled by
patriotic purpose. Habits of unbridled Ii.
Cense are quickly formed, and no distinc-
ton is made between the property and per-
sons of friend and foe. The consequence
soon is that the whole population come to
| regard them MS common enemies, and will
welcome any mems ofputtihg them down.
When Spain was invaded by Napoleon,
there were, mt one time, no less than fifty
thousand of these irregular soldiers en-
gagged against him but their indiscrimi-
nate violence upon Spani0rds aud French
men alike was such that, as Napier tells
us, sit may be assumed US truth that if
test, one of the surest means BY which the
French could have gained the good will of
the nation would have been the extirpating
OF the pGrtidGS."
We have already seen the expedient!
work in just this manner in Missouri
While the regularly enlisted troops under
Price were in general kept closely to the
rules of war, the guerilla bands, with
which at one time a large portion of the
State swarmed, acted without restraint In
their sp6ilations and iDpressments, ma
| king victims of rebels and loyalists alike.
1t soon ended in all classes hailiug with
gladness the vigorous measures Of Major
General Helleck against the guerilIas, and
they have now nearly, if not quite, disap.
peured from the State. This guerilla war.
fare, SO far from being an injury, would,
we believe, prove an actual benefit to the
Union cause. 1t would drive the great
! body OF the population to seek and well
come the protection Of the Federal gov
ernment, and bring home, quicker than any
thing else, the sense that patriotic duty
and personal interest are identical a
If guerilla warfare has always been un.
aVailing to prevent conquest, it must be
doubly SO to prevent restoration of law,
full and just authority. If people rather
than accept 1t, will submit to the arbitrary.
rule of the harshest conqueror, they would
infinitely less endure it when the alterna-
tive was simply a return to a condition of
constitutional equality. Moreover, it SO
happens that the mountainous districts in
the South, which ssalone are adapted to
guerilla purposes, are inhabited by loyal
population. ALI tho Alleghanian chain,
in Western Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
and North Carolina, where only can be
found the defiles aud the fastnesses iudis-
pensa6le to this sort of warfare, is held by
men. who would fight to- the deathi there
| wers need, for the old flag Guerillas
can never get any lodgment within their
limits, They would have to stick to the
plains, where they would be speedily
swept to destruction. If the heroic Hofur,
with his unequaled riaemen, could not
keep the .strongholds of the Tyrol; if
Charette, whom Napoleon himself pro.
nopnced a. genius, had to give up the hills
and marshes of LaYendee, itiisgvsry GER
tain that no guerilla chiefs would find sue
cess in the pine barrens aud alligator
swamps of the Gulf States. 1t will never
be seriously attempted.
We may consider it as certain that so
soon as the great armies of the rebels are
overthrown, the rebellion itself will be sub
stautially at an end. By overthrow we of
course do not mean an entire destruction,
| but such a discontinue az shall put their
material of,Rariin our hands, and SO scat
tetthem as to thoroughly break up their
organization. 1t is a single yictery of
this character that always terminates a
great struggle. .As Zama fixed the tdes-
tiny Of Hannibal, PultoWa of Charles
XIII, GuIIoden' Of the Pretender, Water
loo of Napoleon, Yorktown of Brit
ish power in America, and SoIferino
of Austrian power in Italy, so one or
two battles, perhaps one in the, East and
one in the West, whose names, yet un-
known, ara soon to be'iuscribed imperish=
ably ON the, historical page, will settle the
fate of this reballion, aud close the strife
OF course certain refractorinOss will for