The Plan Of The Campaign

From the New York Evening Post.

There is throughout the whole Union north of the cotton states, an eager expectation of some decisive movements of the mighty host of armed men whom we have brought into the field, and who have hitherto been engaged only in a war of skirmishes.  With a considerable part of our population in the Atlantic states this exception has been heightened into impatience, while in the western states both the volunteers and the people are in a fever of what can hardly be called anything less than discontent and chafe, like caged tigers, at the delay.  Everybody feels that there is much to do and that the time is short.  Knowing and feeling this, as we all do, it is but just to those who are entrusted with the administration of public affairs to take for granted that they are as sensible of it as we can be, and as anxious to hasten, by every safe method, the decision of a controversy which has been referred to the dreadful arbitrament of war.

Those, however, who are looking for an advance of our army from Washington, we are confident, look to the wrong quarter.  Washington is no proper base of military operations against the southern states.  The true policy of those who conduct the war is to penetrate the centre of the enemy’s territory by the most direct mode of access.  The attempt to reach it by the lines of march from Washington would be as absurd as if a combatant with a small sword should attempt to pierce his antagonist’s heart through his shoulder.

The lines of march from Washington are difficult – obstructed by the exceeding foulness of the ways at this season and by the strong posts of the enemy.  Suppose these difficulties happily overcome – suppose the rebel forces at Manassas, strong as their position is, beaten from the ground and forced to retire.  They would make their way to the South and the Southwest, tearing up the railways, their army from Richmond our further advance in that quarter would end and we should be met by their army assembled on a new northern frontier.

We think it is agreed by those who understand these matters far better than we can pretend to do, that the true military policy of our government is to break up, divide, and scatter the forces of the enemy, instead of compelling them to collect in a compact body – to oblige them to defend against us the different parts of the territory they occupy, by different fragments of their army separated in such a manner as to have no possible communication with each other and wholly unable to form a junction.  To effect this the base of operations should be far south of Washington, on the flank of the insurgent region, at some point chosen as near as possible to the heart of the country possessed by obstructing the routes they take in every possible manner ravaging the country consuming and carrying off its supplies, and leaving behind them a solitude in which the pursuing army could find no means of subsistence.

What then would be gained by such a victory?  Little more than the credit of a successful engagement.  We should have before us a waste which it would be of no advantage to us to occupy.  The rebel forces in retiring would concentrate themselves within a smaller compass, and there would be no essential [diminution] of their power of resistance.  All the communications between the different divisions of their army and the different parts of the country held by them would still remain open, and would have the advantage of being considerably shortened.  We should have gained possession of no point of which we could say that its occupation was at all decisive of the event of the war. – With the retreat of the enemy, and from which the access to their most exposed parts would be least difficult.  Our great river, the Mississippi, and the communication which we have opened, through Western Virginia with Kentucky, fortunately place such a base of operations in our power, without any previous fighting.  A powerful central force might thus be planted in the midst of the enemy’s territory rendering it wholly impossible to concentrate their forces, prepared to annihilate the separate divisions of their army one after another, and ready to strike immediately and with effect at any point which it may become desirable to occupy.

Inasmuch as it is wholly impossible to do this from Washington, we hold that it is absurd to attribute to the government or to the commanding officer of our army the idea of ordering and advance from Washington.  They must see, even more clearly than anybody else the advantages of such a plan as that of which we have spoke, they must feel the importance of carrying it into effect before the cold season has passed, they must be aware that the longer we delay our preparations the better prepared will the rebels be for resistance.  We cannot suppose that they who are not admitted to the councils of war in which the plan of winter campaign is decided upon, are the only ones who possess the gift of common sense, and with this reflection in our minds we may, we think, confidently look for an early and decisive blow to be struck at the vital parts of the southern rebellion.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 4