Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1863-10-08
THURSDAY, OCTOBER $, 1868
MILITARY CRITICISMS.

1t was to be expected that the public press would
make the recent reverse which has befallen our
arms in Northern Georgia the ttpic of comment
and animadversion That such disaster should
result from a paucity of troops at the very point
where it was easy for all to foresee Gas there were
many to predict and indicate) that the iusurgent
military authorities were massing their forces, is
confessed on all sides to be cause of just COM
plant against the general military direction to
which our armies are subject, whether that d.
rection proceeds from the President, or the Gene
ral-in- Chief or the Secretary Of War, or from all
three combined or sometimes from one and some
times from another of these high military func-
tionaries.
| 1t is a part of the misfortune of the military
critics that they do not know, in any given
case, who is responsible for the military direction
which has controlled the situation, it is, we fear
in great degree, the secret of military disas
tiers that in some cases there has been such a con-
fusion in the relations that exist between the Gen
erals in the field and the military authorities in
Washington that there has been no direction at
all in the proper sense of the term When the
titular Generalin- Chief of all our forces has for
weeks been left in total ignorance respecting the
movements and plans of the army nearest to him,
it was impossible that he could give any intelligent
ensemble to our military arrangements throughout
the whole extended field of operations and this
we know has been the case more than once. Mill
tary plans the most important have been concerted,
and military demonstrations the most formidable
have been arrested by the President without the
privity of Gen. Halleck, or without even impart-
ing to him knowledge of the situation resulting
in particular field from the dispositions that had
been made or oyerruled And all this while he was
presiding or is supposed TO have been presiding,
over the general operations of our armies in other
ields--at what disadvantages the reader will rea-
Oily conceive when he takes into account the fact
that in long line of operations concert Of action,
if not simultaneity of movement, is indispensable
to success at any and every point And what con-
cert of action can there be, or what simultaneity
of movement where there is no single presiding
mind who is responsible, and aoho is kno~n to be
responsible ? For responsibility which has no
kmt~a depositary is not responsibility which is
worth much to the nation. In the State Depart
ment, in the Navy Department, in the Treasury
Department, and in every other Executive Depart
ment of the Government, there is known respon-
sible head, and hence in great part, doubt not,
the superior success which has attended their adj
ministraton. Who supposes, for instance, that the
navy would have been as efficiently managed as it
is now admitted to be, if its operations had been
subject to the underlined and intermittent control
of the President, Mr. Secretary Weles, and some
Rear Admiral-in- Chief-each and all perplexed in
their several spheres by Committee of Congress
sonal aud.lubbers charged with the /" conduct"
of all the fleets?
| Whoever is responsible for the military situation
which superinduced the disaster of Chickamaugs, it
is now easy to see that that situation one
which could not have been created if there had
been that intelligent forecast in the general con-
duct of our military operations which the country
has right to expect from those to whom it has
committed treasures SO immense, interests so vast,
and issues so tremendous And in SO speaking
we do but reflect the concurrent voice of con-
| tcmporaries without distinction of party. The
comments of that leading Administration paper,
the New York Times, are as follows. We quote
from its number of Wednesday last
"The public has learned with astonshment that the
very fret time Rosecrans came in contact with Bragg
ten miles outside Chattanooga he found himself far out
numbered and compelled to suspend his march, after
fe engagement And this establishment s perfectly
reasonable, nasmuch the object OF this onward move
not simply the OF Chattanooga but the
capture Of Atlanta, and with it the whole system of
Southern railroad communcatonthe suhugation Of the
whole State Of Georgia. the isolation Of South Carolina
and the turning Of Virginia and North Carolina. If this
not the object Of the movement it either idle
promenade great waste of human life; and If this
it's object its stOppage at the very outset by supe
ror force proves it have been commenced with great
want Of forethought we'll as nadeq uate means.
1t is useless to tell u.s. in reply TO this that the rebels
having possession Of the interior lines able to
centrate troops any given point with greater rapdty
than We This might have furnished an excuse for
such checks Chckamauga at the beginning of the
when the rebel batteries all masked, and when
Fire Zuuaves climbed up the backs of the rebel cavalry
horses when at full galop, and remorselessy cut the
threats Of their riders. But the nature and value Of in
terror lines well known, aud the possession OF
them by the rebels notorous that it lie absurd for
the War Department the Generals in the field to omit
this from their calculations preparing for
any operation to take count of the rebel cavalry
artillery Of the badness Of the roads, thickness Of
the woods The problem have to solve is not how TO
defeat the rebels under certain conditions but how t, de-
feat them under the conditions that actually exist and
with the advantages that they actually They have
the interior nes just they have cotton to raise money
and slave, to do their hard work. and forest covered
and thiny settled country TO mansuvre in. 1t is OF