Year: 1863

Army of the Potomac after its retreat?
and what was the morale of its COM
mander when giving the order to retreat? ?
Answer these questions satisfactorily,
and the people, sorely as they have been
disappointed, will accept the answers as
proudly as q victory.


OF the first there is no longer doubt
l have conversed with eminent official
and unofficial gentlemen who have re-
turned from the army, have seen letters
from Generals in almost every corps,
have heard from officers of every grade;
and from a careful study of all this testi-
mony, | am satisfied that the army is
ready to go into the fight again to-mor-
row. They are not demorahzed, they
are not disorganized, they have not lost
faith in Hooker There are things they
do not understand, they fail especially
to see why they needed to re-cross the
river; but three facts remain, that the
original plan was brilliant, that the more
difficult half of it was brilliantly execu-
ted, and that the hazardous operation of
retreating across a swollen river in the
face of watchtul foe was as brilliantly
managed as the original movement; and
whatever may still be obscure or iuexpli-
cable, on these three solid facts their
faith is grounded So much for the
army.


AS to Hooker? Is he, after all, a
failure


In the first place, important, though by
no means conclusive evidence may be
drawn from the feeling of the army ITSELF
True, an army, as rule, almost always
believes in its General, especially when
he endears himself to them, as Hooker
has done, at once by magnificent person
al courage on the field and by solicitous
care for their welfare in the camp; but
still, the fact that they had come out of
a movement from which they had been
led to expect SO much more than they
realized, with unabated faith in their
leader, and ready at once to brave the
dangers of new fields with him as he
may choose, is at least important auxiH-
ary testimony in that leaders favor


But when We pass beyond the mere
sentiment of the army we are out upon
sea of contradictions There are al
ways few dissatisfied officers, Jealous
of whoever outstripped them on the road
to preferment, and, by consequence, hy-
percritical of everything he does. These
may dwell on the. fact that two corps
were really fought in the main move
ment; that the army needlessly lay idle
while Sedgwick was being overwhelmed,
when the opportunity to press the enemy
in flank or rear was presented; and that
the onset of jackson on Howard's corps
was practically surprise. They insist,
too, that the army was not out of rations,
that the position was perfectly defensi-
bic, and that the retreat was due solely
to the panic-stricken commander.


There are even some who go further,
and, calling up the two notorious stories
of his life in California, insist that Hook
er was unfit for command on the field,
solely because he was drunk; but those
of US who remember how officers swore
that to their personal knowledge, Irwin
Mcdowell was drunk in every action,
will put little faith in calumnies like
that. If such stories could pass into
general credenee, when they affected
man scrupulously temperate through
lifetime, how much more easily might
they be set afoat, without particle of
foundation, in a case like this!


But against these criticisms that may
be Just, and the calumnies that are mani
festly malicious, there are to be set five
facts that no man will dispute:


l. The President, who went down to
the army sorely disappointed, almost
broken down indeed, has returned with
the best of spirits, and 1cith unabated
confidence in Hooker He does not say
that all of Hookers operations were en-
tirely free from error, but he does praise
his Generalship, and he is entirely salts
fed still to trust the army in his hands.
This assert, not as rumor, but as a fact
/ knOto.


2 With equal certainty l add that the
most eminent Cabinet ministers regard
the initial failure of last week as Offering
no reason for losing faith in Hooker.


3. Less important but still not without
significance, is Hallecks opinion. He,
too, went down disappointed and re-
turned satisfied. He SAYS that, if Gen.
Hooker committed any mistake at all, it
was in being led, by what might have
been an undue care for his army, into
re-crossing the river when it was not alb
solutely necessary. Further than that,
he says there was no error whatever.


/. 1t is accepted on all hands that the
original plan was unexceptionable, and
that the execution of at least half of it
displayed consummate generalship.


D. And it is just as universally accept
ed that equal generalship was displayed
in the mastery retreat If Hooker
quailed and aoitted in what Kinglake
would call the crisis of the adventure"
he showed no signs of it in managing the
retreat that followed hard afterward.


With these facts | take it, the people,
like the Government, will not be unwil-
ling to trust Hooker still further. 1t
were folly to expect great generals never
to be worsted; it is from such reverses
that generals really great will pluck oc-
casion to show that elasticity of resource
that meets and overbears the crisis.


For the rest, we shall not have long
to wait l have the best authority for
saying that orders were issued to lay
down the pontoons for once more cross
ing the river last Thursday night The
heavy rains of Thursday and Friday un-
doubtedly wrought some delay. The
weather again appears settled, and Gf it
is not already the army soon must be in
motion.


We anticipate victory of course. vet