[_Furnished by a Friend of the Editor of_ THE CONTINENTAL.]
Three routes of operation are open to an army designing to proceed
against Richmond: first, along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad to
Charlottesville; second, along the railroad from Fredericksburg to
Hanover Court House; and third, by the way of Fortress Monroe. The first
has the disadvantage of presenting a long line of communication,
constantly exposed to inroads from guerillas, and for the purposes of
warfare may be considered as utterly impracticable. It would not, in
fact, be worth considering, had not some critics of Gen. Grant's
movements absurdly insisted that he ought to have adopted this route.
The second route is far more advantageous, and had Gen. Grant's purposes
been confined simply to putting his army before the rebel capital, and
lying there to seize such opportunities as the developments of the
campaign should afford, it might have been expedient to maintain by this
route communications with the Potomac. But the intentions of our
Lieutenant-General were of a much more comprehensive character. While,
therefore, following this route in his march, because it gave the most
direct and shortest line to Richmond, he did not use the railroad as a
means of communication. His aim was fixed on an ulterior object. He
designed to put his army in such a position that it should be constantly
assailing Richmond by its presence, although not a gun should be fired.
He, therefore, tried the strength of the rebel works, in passing, and
finding that time would be spent uselessly in attempting to overthrow
them either upon the north or the east, he proceeded to the new position
south of the James, and adopted the third route mentioned for his
communication with the North, having previously used it, also, for the
transportation to the ultimate scene of conflict of a part of his forces
under Gen. Butler.
Among military men, there have been, since the commencement of the war,
many advocates for an attack on Richmond from the position at
Petersburg. It has many advantages. The facilities for transporting
supplies are easy, it isolates the capital of the Southern government
from its southern and eastern connections, it interferes largely with
the internal trade of the confederacy, it confines the rebel army in a
narrow space, and it necessitates constant efforts on the part of the
confederate commanders to expel the Northern forces, thus constraining
them to leave their works and become assailants. In fine, the position
affords more opportunities for strategically investing Richmond than any
other which is accessible to our armies.
A clear perception of these advantages determined Gen. Grant to adopt
the position at Petersburg. He was aware that Richmond could not be
directly invested except with a very large army. He desired to
accomplish the results which such an investment would give. He sought to
cut off the city from its principal channels of communication--to
deprive it of its main resources. Have these purposes been effected? At
the time we write it is announced that the army occupies the railroad
leading to Weldon, thus breaking the communication with North Carolina;
that our cavalry has destroyed a portion of the road leading to
Lynchburg; that the forces operating under Gen. Hunter have also
destroyed portions of the Virginia Central and the road between
Gordonsville and Lynchburg; they have also damaged the James River
Canal. The only railroad communication now existing between Richmond and
the South is that by way of Danville. Before this reaches our readers we
trust that the effects of these efforts to isolate the capital of the
confederacy will become evident; that the rebel army will be forced to
leave its intrenchments and meet our brave soldiers in the field, and
that the conflict may have resulted in victory for the cause of the
country and of freedom.
The various steps of the process by which the army gained the position
at Petersburg are already well known. From the time the camps at
Culpepper Court House were broken up, until the lines were established
south of the James river, the series of movements consisted in masterly
marches by the left, compelling the enemy constantly to fall back from
his intrenched positions to points farther in his rear. Such movements
were not, however made until after trials of the enemy in the front,
some of which resulted in splendid partial successes. They were,
however, not conclusive. The flank movements of our army belong to that
class which are considered among the most difficult in warfare,
requiring great skill in commanders to arrange their details, and
endurance and discipline in the troops to effect them. It is no easy
matter to change position in the face of a wary and vigorous enemy,
ready to fall upon any exposed point in the long array of a marching
column. Yet, several times, the manoeuvre has been skilfully and
successfully performed, and each time the rebels have learned it too
late to profit by the chances offered for a surprise.
Hundreds of miles distant from the principal point of attraction in
Virginia, the other great army of the Union, under Gen. Sherman, has
also been performing similar feats--turning by well-directed marches,
one after another, the intrenched positions of the enemy in the
mountainous district of Georgia. Atlanta, the object of its toils, is a
great centre of railroad communication, and when our armies obtain
possession of it, the confederacy will experience another severing
stroke, almost as severe as that which cleft it in twain by the capture
of Vicksburg and the reopening of the Mississippi. By such strokes the
pretentious imposture of a Southern nation must be broken into
fragments, even should the armies supporting it remain for a time
organized and defiant; for, under the appliances of modern civilization
and commerce, the possession of a railroad or internal depot of trade is
almost equivalent to the destruction of an army.
The campaigns of 1863 produced great results, as well geographically as
in the capture of men and munitions from the rebels. At the commencement
of the year they held the Mississippi, they threatened Kentucky and the
borders of the Ohio, they were able to draw supplies from Tennessee,
Arkansas, and Texas. They were, moreover, arrogantly defiant toward the
North, and boasted of their ability to march to its great commercial
centres. At the close of the year they were driven to the confines of
Georgia, they were separated from the trans-Mississippi region, their
boasting had been brought to humility at Gettysburg. The objects to be
accomplished in the great campaign of 1864 are to drive in upon each
other the two armies which resist our progress in Virginia and Georgia,
and to compress the rebellion into the Southern Atlantic States. This
done, the existence of secession is practically at an end, though it may
brag as loudly as ever and keep on foot its armies. For without
Virginia, and without the connections of Atlanta, the existence of an
independent government in the South is impossible: sufficient country
would not remain to support so magnificent an affair. The loss of
Virginia in fact would be the fatal blow to the rebellion; for, however
South Carolina may exalt herself, and however the other States of the
South may aspire, yet it is Virginia which gives tone and respectability
to the Southern confederacy. It is for this, far more than because it is
the rebel capital, that the capture of Richmond is desirable.
But should it happen--which fortunately is not a reasonable
surmise--that the objects of this year's campaign should not be
attained, we consider that the Southern confederacy exists only in
pretence. Should its ports be to-day opened, should our armies fall back
to their primary bases of operation, should European Powers formally
declare that a slave republic exists, yet the new nation would be
practically a nonentity. Does any one suppose that the United States
would yield Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, New Orleans, and
the Mississippi; that the freemen of Western Virginia would be forsaken;
that Fortress Monroe and Port Royal would be abandoned? How long would a
nation so surrounded, so intersected, exist, or how could it achieve any
prosperity, character, and stability? Constant war, in the effort to
expand and perfect its borders, would be its necessity; but such a
necessity would be its destruction. There is no possibility of
compromise or arrangement in the contest in which we are engaged, except
with the parallel of the Potomac and the Ohio as the dividing border;
but such an arrangement is impossible; entire reconquest becomes the
imperative; it may be delayed, our present hopes may be disappointed,
but the march of our armies thus far has trodden out the life from the
Southern attempt at independence, and any future existence it may have
will be merely muscular paroxysms--not the steady, regular, automatic
movements of freedom and spontaneity.
Any notice of the operations of our armies would be incomplete without
tributes to the ability of commanders and the valor of our soldiers. In
no previous period of the war have these been more strikingly
exemplified. The capacity of man to endure and his ability to exert
himself continuously without exhausting his energy, are very wonderful.
The reader of military history is constantly struck with this, in
perusing accounts of sieges and marches and battles. War is always
accompanied with a host of terrors--exposures to heat, cold, and
tempests, marches through swamps and snows, suffering by hunger and
thirst and fatigue, lying with bleeding wounds for days and nights
between the lines of friends and foes, toil, danger, privation, pain, in
every form. But among the memorable campaigns in the history of war,
none is more marked for its incessant activity and the cheerful alacrity
with which every hardship was endured, than that in which our army
marched from the Rapidan to the James. From Georgia, too, we have
similar accounts of difficulties met only to be surmounted. Heaven bless
our gallant soldiers everywhere! A nation's hopes and prayers are with
them. May they know the soldier's dearest delight--victory!