Year: 1863

an foreign inei ichandse W serious osses, as nearly all
controlled by the value of god in
stead Of demand and supply as was formerly the case
The Army OF The Recommendations |,


and How TO Get There.


1t does not appear that the Army of the
Potomac is any nearer Richmond now than it
was before the battle at Bristoe Station. An
commanders of that army find the roads leading
to the rebel capital By the way of Fredericks-
burg or Culpepper hard ones for an army to
travel over.


Richmond is not, in our opinion, as we have
hitherto declared in these columns, point Of
any other than moral Importance in this war
Strategically considered, its possession would
give us no equivalent for the labor and life
that its capture would cost. But the authorities
| OF the War Department are not of this opinion;
for Eve campaigns made against that city must
be accepted as very positive expression of
their desire to capture it. Since the govern
ment desires so intensely the capture of that
city, why is it not taken now, when the rebel
lion is absolutely forced to concentrate its
armies at another point and uncover that city
Longstreet, with one entire third of Lees army,
went to Georgia about month ago, and we
may soon learn of further depletion Of Lees
army. General Lee recently advanced from
the Rapidan to near Neutrality-suspicious.
tally. Had he been resisted there would have
been no battle and no more of his advance;
but, not resisted, he was able. to effect con-
siderable damage to the railroad, upon the line
of which our army must operate as it again ad-
vances. He counts that that damage cannot be
repaired in less than twenty or thirty days,
and he has gained so much time. With no force
at all, he has rendered it impossible that Meade
should strike him within so many days. Before
those days expire Longstreet will return, or
Lee will resort to some other equally good
dodge. And, while all this shows so transpa-
rently the defencelessness OF Richmond at tn e
present time, we hear of no active operations
against it. Is Richmond worth less now than
it was when Pope, Burnside and Hooker, be-
tween them, sacrificed forty-eight thousand men
to get it!


Evidently the reason is not because it would
be less pleasant to capture Richmond now than
then, but because the government has finally
seen the hopelessness of an advance against
Richmond by its favorite route, and will not,
through stubborn pride, try the other way.
Pope had the Army of Virginia to 60 to Rich
mond by that royal road upon which the War
Department smiles it's approval. Burnside had
the Army Of the Potomac for the same pur-
pose, and for the same purpose Hooker had
"the best army on the planet" Before the
close of that campaign which Pope began we
had lost in the armies Of Virginia and the Poto-
mac fully thirty thousand men. Burnside lost
in killed and disabled ten thousand men. And
in the subsequent campaigns on the same line
we have lost. not merely in killed and wounded,
but in killed and disabled, fully thirty
thousand more under the respective CON-
mands of Hooker and Meade. Such is the price
that the country has paid for the governments
persistence in the advance against Richmond
by its favorite route. Such is the price that it
costs the country for General Halleck to "stake
his military reputation" that the overland route
to Richmond is the only feasible one.


General Halleck's military reputation! Now
we are not of the number Of those happy mind
ed persons who consider that a heavy stake,
per Sc; yet it is stake that the nation may rue.
Does the country know what it means when
General Halleck "stakes his military reputa
ton on the overland route?" 1t means that
there is no other way to the rebel capital. 1t
means that If million men will be killed in
that triangle between the Rapidan and the Rap
pahannock in the attempt to do what ten thou
sand might easily do on the peninsula. the
mil Iio pnoo hat al
leck is committed against the peninsula route,
and that he has made the success of the other
route question of pride never to be given up
while the war lasts, whatever il may cost the
country.


Yet, with all the immense and obvious advan-
tagcs that the peninsula route at its worst
had to the other, it presents at the pre-
sent time q chance of success that it did
not present when tried in 1862. General Nc
Clellan's peninsula campaign failed principally
through causes that could not possibly operate
now. II was lost in attendance on the Navy
Department, and through a final necessity to
rearrangc the whole plan Of the campaign, in
consequence Of the failure OF the Secretary Of the
Navy to do what was expected of him. All that
could be done better at Yorktown than higher
up the country. Had the Merrimac been SO
attended to that the gunboats could have gone
up James river, that river would have been, as
contemplated in the original plan, the line Of
our advance. All the line OF Notifications that
began at Richmond and stretched across the
peninsula would have been turned upon the
day Of the army's arrival and we should
have gone on at once, reached Rich
mond early in April, and doubtless
have taken it then. But Gideon didn't
have his lamp" consequently didn't see
his part Of the arrangement and General
Mcclellan, having waited q proper time for
Gideon, had TO change the river, as the country
knows. Now, however, there is no Merrimac
at Norfolk, and that route is open TO Richmond
which the simplest consideration OF strategy
and logistics will convince any reasonable cres-
ture is superior to every other. 1t was lost,