Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-06-10
The Eastern and Western Armies


health.
The Eastern and Western Armies.
There is something in the different sue
cess of our Western and Eastern armies
that sets everybody to thinking. The diff
ference is so obvious that people try to ac-
count for it and explain it, some one way
aud some another. Ever since the war
began we have maintained in Eastern Vir-
ginia what may without immoderation of
language be termed magnificent army
vast in numbers aud splendid in its APP
pointment. The country has been ram
sacked for two years to find a man who
would successfully command that army
So far the search. has been vain. That
army has consigned more generals to OBJ
security than all the others combined
With all the grand reviews, and gas and
bOmbast OF general orders that have eman-
ated from its successive commanders, the
honest Gods truth is that its career has
been only succession of failures that have
made the heart OF the country ache with
their costly price of blood. Has it been
the fault of the commanding generals, or
has it been the fault of the men they COM
manded? or has it been as some affect to
believe that some malign hand behind the
screen has always withheld the means OF
success At the critical moment, and still
holds cur army suspended midway between
Washington and Richmond till some other
game can be successfully played2-still
holds powerless the avenging army of the
Union aud prolongs the war fer political
ends?
In the West our brave aud intrepid men
have gone on from couquering to conquest,
and have reclaimed territory that would
make an empire. "No Utica contracts their
Pent up powers" There is no heroism in the
world that will compare with that of our
Western armies; and Vicksburg and Port
Hudson have but given us new aud immor-
tai examples oft There is an energy
and intrepidity ia Western generalship that
has no Counterpart in that of the East
Western Generals are less for grand re-
views and orefosbusiness. There is less
kid glove, and lavender water, and fault
less uniform and shining boots, aud fire..
quent fulloughs to Washington than in the
Potomac army, but there is more of every
thing brave and soldierly-more courage
and dash-more grit, more muscle, more
hardihoOd, more fight, and consequently
more success, in the armies made up from
the Western States.
Whatever other causes there may be
for difference OF result, it cannot be denied
that there is a radical difference in the
material of Western and Eastern armies.
Western men are all different from Eastern.
and in the main attributes of the soldier
superior to them. Manhood attains a
larger growth on the Western prairies than
in the Eastern shops and factories. There
is more pluck and dash and daring. The
bold energetic men in every community
are always found among the emigrants to
the frontier. This class of men prefer
frontier life so that it will be found as a
general rule western people who emigrated
FROM the East will make better soldiers
than those they left behind. The gradual
removal of the frontier further and further
West has peopled all that country we call
the West with holder and drawer class,
possessed Of better physique, speaking
IN general terms, than that from which the
Army of the Potomac is chiefly drawn in
the Eastern States. Their officers partake
of the Western characteristics, SO that in
the Western campaigns the men are better
led and the officers better followed than
in other quarters. With few exceptions
the rank and file of the Potomac army has
Away displayed logged courage, but it
was different from Western courage. 1t
was more like that of the English, which
would ooolly stand in range of battery
and be moved down without flinChinC.
while the courage of our Western men is
more French in its nature-impulsiye
gO-ahead-atiYe, stormiug and sweeping
everything before it. That is the sort of
that wins.
We have long believed that the failure
of the Potomac army is not to be attribu-
ted to want of good lighting material il
The rank and file, so much as a waNt of
good commanding material at its head
And This is not all the source to which its
allure is to be attributed. Something is
lue to the geueralsbip and lighting quail.
les of the rebel armies with which it has