This is surely something, but it is by no means all. Have we accomplished nothing aggressively? We will call into court a witness from the enemy's camp. Hear the recent testimony of a leading journal, published in the Confederate capital:[A]—
[Footnote A: Richmond Examiner, January 20th, 1863.]
"It is not altogether an empty boast on the part of the Yankees, that they hold all that they have ever held, and that another year or two of such progress as they have already made will find them masters of the Southern Confederacy. They who think independence is to be achieved by brilliant but inconsequential victories would do well to look at the magnitude of Yankee possessions in our country. Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri are claimed as constituent parts of the Confederation: they are as much in the power of Lincoln as Maine and Minnesota. The pledge once deemed foolish by the South, that he would 'hold, occupy, and possess' all the forts belonging to the United States Government, has been redeemed almost to the letter by Lincoln. Forts Pickens, [Sumter?] and Morgan we still retain; but, with these exceptions, all the strongholds on the seaboard, from Fortress Monroe to the Rio Grande, are in the hands of the enemy. Very consoling and very easy to say that it was impossible to prevent all this, and that the occupation of the outer edge of the Republic amounts to nothing. Drowry's Bluff and Vicksburg give the lie to the first assertion; and the onward movement of Rosecrans towards Alabama, the presence of Grant in North Mississippi and of Curtis in Middle Arkansas, to say nothing of Banks at New Orleans and Baton Rouge, set at rest the silly dream that a thin strip of sea-coast only is in possession of our foes. The truth is, the Yankees are in great force in the very heart of the Confederacy; they swarm on all our borders; they threaten every important city yet belonging to us; and nearly two hundred thousand of them are within two days' march of the Confederate capital. This is no fiction. It is a fact so positive that no one can deny it."
But this reluctant recital by no means exhausts the record of our successes. We have put into the field a volunteer force, fully armed and equipped, which, whether we consider its magnitude, the rapidity with which it has been raised, its fighting qualities, its patient endurance of unaccustomed hardships, or its intelligent appreciation of the principles involved in the contest, is without a counterpart in history. And yet more, from the invention and achievements of our iron-clads dates a new era in naval warfare, while in the value and variety of our ordnance we have taken the lead of all civilized nations. Can you find in all this nothing to quicken the pulse of your patriotism? Is here no ground for encouragement, no incitement to renewed effort?
But you complain of corruption among contractors, and of knavery among politicians. Will you point me to a single war, ever waged on the face of the earth, where all the rulers were above reproach and all their subordinates unselfish? But what will you do about it? Grant that many contractors have made dishonest fortunes out of the calamities of their country, and that there are officeholders with whom "Stand by the Constitution!" means, Stand by the public crib from which we are richly and regularly fed, and "Uphold the Administration!" should be translated, Give us our full four years' enjoyment of the loaves and fishes. What then? Shall a few worthless straws here, and a few heaps of offal there, arrest or check the onward march of a mighty army, the steady progression of a great principle? Away with such trumpery considerations! Punish with the utmost severity of the law every public plunderer whose crimes can be dragged into the light of day; send to the Coventry of universal contempt every lagging and lukewarm official; but, in the name of all that is holy in purpose and noble in action, move on! To hesitate is worse than folly; to delay is more than madness. The salvation of our country trembles in the balance. The fate of free institutions for—who shall say how long?—may hang upon the issue of the struggle.
Your catalogue of grievances, however, is still incomplete. You are dissatisfied with our generalship as displayed in the field, and with the wisdom of our policy as developed by the cabinet. Unquestionably you have a constitutional right to grumble to your heart's content; but are you not aware that such complaints are as old as the history of the human race? Do you believe this to be the first war that was ever mismanaged, and that our undoubted blunders are either novel or peculiar to Republics? There never was a greater mistake. If there were brave men before Agamemnon, and wise counsellors before Ulysses, there certainly have been incompetent commanders before Major-General A., and shallow statesmen before Secretary B. We do not monopolize executive imbecility, nor are our military blunders without parallel or precedent. To attribute our occasional reverses and our indecisive victories, our inaction in the field and our confusion in the cabinet, to our peculiar form of government, is as inconsequential as it would be to trace all our disasters to the color of President Lincoln's hair or the number of General Halleck's children.
The enemies of free institutions, hardly yet recovered from their astonishment at beholding an army of volunteers, superior in number and quality to any the world ever saw, spring into existence with such marvellous rapidity as to eclipse, in sober fact, the fabulous birth of Minerva full-armed from the head of Jove, or their still greater surprise at seeing the immense expenses of so gigantic a war readily met without assistance from abroad, by large loans cheerfully made and heavy taxation patiently borne, are reduced to the necessity of exulting over what they term our "total want of military genius," and our "incapacity to conduct a campaign successfully."
It is useless to deny that we may have challenged criticism and provoked a smile by our large promise and our smaller performance. But are we the sole and exclusive proprietors of this experience? Where in the past or the present shall we find a great and powerful nation much addicted to modesty or self-depreciation? Least of all, should we have expected such venomous criticism and such unsparing ridicule from England. To be sure, we have long since ceased to look for sympathy or even justice at her hands. We have come to understand and appreciate the tone and temper of her ruling classes towards this country. In addition to their inherited antipathy to Republics, they believe in sober earnest what one of their greatest wits said jocosely, that "the great object for which the Anglo-Saxon race appears to have been created is the making of calico." And whatever interferes, or threatens to interfere, with this ennobling occupation is sure to incur their passive displeasure, if not their active hostility. We expect nothing, therefore, from their good-will; but we have a right to demand, as a matter of good taste, that, in criticizing our campaigns, they shall not wholly ignore their own military blunders, especially those so recent as to be fresh in the recollection of every third-form school-boy in the kingdom. For, if campaigns carried on with the smallest possible result in proportion to the magnitude of the sacrifice of money and life,—if a succession of incompetent generals in command,—if critical military opportunities neglected and enormous strategic blunders committed,—if indecision, nepotism, and red tape at home, envy, want of unity, and incapacity among officers, and unnecessary and inexcusable hardship among the privates,—if all this declares the decadence of a Government, then was the sun of England hastening to its setting during the Crimean War.
We hear much said abroad about our indecisive battles, our barren victories, our failure to take advantage of the crippled condition of a defeated enemy, and our unaccountable disinclination to follow up a successful attack by a prompt pursuit. Now, not for the sake of excusing or palliating the numerous and grave errors into which we have fallen during our own unhappy struggle, nor yet to exonerate from censure any civil officers or military leaders who may be wholly or in part responsible for these errors, but simply to demonstrate that they are liable to occur under any form of government, and, indeed, have recently befallen the very Government whose rulers now hold us to the strictest account, and are most eager to convict us of extraordinary misconduct and incapacity, we propose, very briefly, and without further introduction, to examine the record of the English army during the Crimean War.
The first important battle fought on the Peninsula was that of the Alma. We will give, as concisely as possible, so much of the history of this engagement, compiled from authentic English sources, as will present a correct picture of the plans formed and the results accomplished.