The Present Position of Affairs

The retreat of the rebels from their strongholds, Columbus and Manassas, fortifications which were supposed to be almost impregnable, and where it was thought they would make a stand, if at any place, and the evacuation of several minor points, has aroused suspicion that instead of falling back and concentrating at some point in the rebel States, they contemplate a bold, offensive movement.  If they have retreated with the intention of thus concentrating their forces, a question possessing a great deal of interest arises in military circles, as to the location they have selected for that purpose.  If there be another point in all rebeldom that is susceptible of being as strongly fortified in the short space of time and with the limited means at their disposal, as the above two places during the long and tedious months when their forces were in strength and their means not exhausted, we are not aware of it.  If Columbus could not be defended, certainly Memphis is not impregnable.  If Manassas were not able to withstand the assaults of the Federal forces, there is no hope for Richmond.

Swiftly the net in which they are enclosed is being tightened around them and the only hope that we can see of the leaders’ escape from the hangman’s knot, is to break through the meshes of that net and with all the desperation which marks the struggles of men in view of the gallows, sell their lives as dear as possible.  If the rebel leaders have retreated with this intention, a question of still greater import presents itself, and that is, at what point will they make the effort to break through the line of military forces that surrounds them?  The war has reached a crisis that commands all the military talent of the nation.  The North is now contending against desperate men, against leaders who have staked their lives on the contest, and who would rather perish on the battle-field fighting in their bad cause than die ignominiously on the scaffold.  So long as these men can delude others to follow them there is no hope of a cessation of hostilities, and when all forsake them they will fly their country sooner than meet the laws which they have so outrageously violated.  Just at this time the acting head of military affairs has a greater responsibility resting upon him than at any time since the war commenced.  Can it be this that has caused Gen. McClellan to resign his position, if he has resigned?  Or if removed, was it the knowledge of his incompetency to grapple with the emergency that has caused his removal?  Or does our dispatch signify, simply that he has taken the field?  As old father Ritchie used to say, nous verrons.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, March 13, 1862, p. 2