The Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1859-1865, 1862-07-31

| vi DOWelI, auQ started py faliroau LOT
| Richmond with 10000 of his best forces.
Such, ut least, is the best information
from the most diverse Southern sources,
rot only from prisoners taken in the late
battles, but from other persons directly
| from the South In the meanwhile, where
was the army of the West? Gen. Mitch
ell was in North Alabama and Tennessee
with $4,000 men. Gen. Buell. was on the
way to Huntsville, Grant to Memphis,
M'Clernand still at Corinth Gen. Wood
was here. Pope there, and Nelson yonder
with their divisions-in the heart Of the
South-the hot season pproaching-in
all 200,0 900 disappointed men lying almost
| idle in the shade, while BeauTegard was
at Richmond, and the army of the Poto-
mac was being overwhelmed on the Pc
ninsula Curtis in Arkansas, Butler at
New Orleans, Hunter in South Carolina,
! Burnside at Newbern-in all probably
about 1000 more. This with some i'm
material exceptions completes the survey
of our forces and their respective dispo-
sitions outside of the Peninsula, just before
and at the time this sanguinary flank
movement became necessary. And here,
to any one who will for moment take
ary late railway map of the country, one
most remarkable and striking fact must
instantly present itself, viz: The unin-
terrupted railroad connections which the
enemy has all along contrived to maintain
with Richmond, thereby keeping all his
departments, outposts, and depots in easily
transportable relations with Richmond and
with each other. This, alone, gives him
an incalculable advantage, and it must be
equally apparent that in the present dis
position of our forces, we have, by no
means, the same facilities of concentration
which we have SO long and so blindly
INDUCED him. And, in this connection,
our intelligence in not having with our
adequate force completely severed the
great Southern thoroughfare of reinforce
ments and supplies, must sometimes strike
all minds, with any military proclivitics
whatever, with overwhelming force
Every military mind knows, every military
eye sees at one glance, that to have done
this would have been to have severed, at
| a blow, the aorta oc the rebellion, and its
great ascending and descending veins -
These extraordinary railroad advantages
which our plan of campaign has thus far
allowed the enemy have been nowhere
more manifest or disastrous than in the
instances of the Richmond railroad toward
Washington and the Potomac. BY means
of the parts of these roads which they
still possess the Confederates are enabled
to strike suddenly out menace Washing
ton, and draw as suddenly back and strike
| Mcclellan. And that before either Of our
| divided armies can know whether they
are come or gone. And this brings US
| directly to the conviction which we think
we may safely say has been entertained
for some time past by nearly the whole
country that the division of MClellan's
army, and the consequent transportation
of the command assigned to him to the
Peninsula, necessitating an of-side advance
upon Richmond, and depriving him Of
rhe all-necessary cooperation of NJ Dowell
with the rebel railroads between them
was, to say the least, an extremely haz-
| ardous, and, as has been conclusively
proved by the six days battle, most un-
wise and disa ivantageous policy. The
Department at Washington, seeing its
grave error in having too much divided
and diffused the forces in Western Vir-
| ginia. the valley of the Shenandoah, and
on the RappahannOck, Immediately de-
termined to re-organize them, and. that
there might be no ill-nature, to subordi-
nate the three independent Major Gener-
| ais then in command under a fourth -
Major General Pope was forthwith ordered
to Washington, and assigned to this
exceedingly important command. In a
few days the President takes the train for
| West Point. A visit to General Scott is
announced. The Presidents mind is
evidently disturbed, at least perplexed.-
! An ominous silence ensues, with dark
hints and apprehensions concerning the
army of the Potomac. At length, the
silence is broken with the laundering
| reverberations OF an almost continuous BAT
tie of six days. Mcclellan finds that
Beauregard, Jackson, Lee, johnson, Ma
gruder-all-have been actually coucen-
trated against him, and sees that to wait
in the White Oak Swamps is to be over
whelmed and annihilated He moves at
once So does the enemy-bearing down
in one compact mass, numbering, as all
must see from the combinations they had
made, not one man less than 220, ,000.-
Then came the six most desperate and
bloody days that ever dawned upon the
New World. We now know, with ap-
proXimate de6niteness, the result that
the special advantages and disadvantages
of these consecutive slaughters, gains and
losses, do not sufficiently swerve the
beam to enable us to determine with GER
tainty the preponderance either way, and
that by dint OF masterly generalship, aud