Year: 1863

Every embarrassment of our national armies
can be traced directly to Washington city
Every failure of our armies to do what tue
country expects them to do; every one of the
many estate, fat and Improbable conclusions"
to which campaigns Of the brightest promise
have been brought, can be traced to the same
source.


In the season now practically past, the coun-
try has seen war on magnificent scale and in
a series OF immense operations; and three times
out of four these great operations have either
ended in failure to US or have been without
any good result, owing simply to the interfer
ence OF the Washington strategists. In the great
Mississippi campaign we had glorious sac-
cess. In the central or Chattanooga campaign
paign, on the Potomac, the hard-earned victory
OF Gettysburg was made barren by Lees es-
cape, and in the failure or the Army of
the Potomac to give battle to General
Lee on his recent advance we have national
disgrace. Throughout the whole land there is
hardly schOolboy who does not now know
that for our success on the Mississippi we are



init the Washington interference with his plans.
No fact of the war is better known than this;
for the President has taken particular paius TO-
tell it, And with this fact in relation to that
success. and another fact in relation to the
three failures that We have associated with it,
we might enunciate the vital law OF our great
struggle, that we shalt always have success
where the Washington authorities cannot inter-
fere and failure where they eau. For to that
interference that General Grant would not SUBJ
NIT to, and which has been the bane Of every
army but his, we are indebted for every one
of our last three failures. Lee was not annihi-
lated on the Potomac because General Meade
was ordered not to give the final blow. Lee
escaped, not because our army was not able and
ready to destroy his, not because General
Meade hesitated to strike, bat because he was
ordered not to do so. If General Meade was
fearful upon any one point, it was lest Lee
should get away. But rom Washington. where
they never have any doubts, he received most
positive assurance that Lee could net cross the
river, and the further instruction to wait until
every man of his reinforcements came up. He
waited, and Lee slipped through his fingers.
General Rosecrans was positively ordered to
make the advance that brought on the battle
Of Chickamauga, though the organs Of the War
Department attempt lamely to deny it; and re-
Gently. in Virginia, General Meade was ordered
not to fight Lee on the Rapidan or the Kappa
hammock, but to withdraw to Centrevlle. UT
And all of these failures the country may
trace to the War Department, and more par
ticularly to General Halleck. For it is but
lust to give to the radical character of Mr..
Secretary Stanton full credit for its particu-
lar virtue in pugnscity-Mr Stanton desires
that our armies should fight. Whether the
armies are in the right place or condition, OF
whether they are not, he thinks they ought to
fight: and for the failure to annihilate Lee on
the Potomac, or to fight him on the Rapidan


General Halleck, and not Mr.. Stanton, is respon.
sble. Through this Washington strategy six
months have been lost, and we are at the com


mencement of another winter. Are all Of these
failures honestly the result Of military blunders


or are they partly military and partly politi


cal. Is it intended to save the war so that il


may be very grandly put down next year, jus


in time to make excellent. capital for the mex


Presidential election!