March 27, 1863, Richmond Enquirer
It is said that there is a certain gloom and anxiety over our people, greater than that which was observed even during the winter of 1861–1862; that disastrous season which witnessed the reverses of Fort Donelson, Nashville, Roanoke Island, Memphis and New Orleans. Yet there is no cause for despondency in the military situation, nor does any exist amongst military men. It is the peaceable trading citizens who exhibit this sombre gloom. An officer visiting Richmond from the camp near Fredericksburg, declares that it makes him sad to see the long countenances, and he hurries back to his regiment. From the army of Tennessee, from Vicksburg, Fredericksburg, Charleston, the accounts of our armies and of the state of our defences are every day more and more cheering. What, then, is the meaning of this civilian despondency, if any there be?
It is due, in the first place, to the feigned alarms of those who seek to inflate prices still further, under the influence of a sort of general panic, so that they may amass sudden fortunes. The greedy rage of speculation has increased in intensity within twelve months, and seized upon all classes. – Cunning speculators have found, in the disordered condition of the currency, while Congress had not yet matured plans of curing the evil, infinite facilities to gamble in all sorts of products, and make prices to suit themselves. During the preceding winter all were patriotic and the spirit of self-sacrifice was stronger than avarice, both amongst solders and civilians. These last few months a greedy madness has seized on most of the latter class, and that noble patriotism finds finds refuge in the camp.
Another cause of the present collapse of public spirit amongst merchants and politicians is the bursting of the great Northwestern bubble; a foolisher craze, perhaps than even those two previous hallucinations which did us such deadly harm – the King Cotton delusion first, and then the French intervention bowl of Tantalus. Singular as it may appear, many thousands of persons of intelligence did for a while dream and dote, that Vallandigham and the intelligent lady would somehow bring us peace in thirty days – or say thirty-five. The future historian of the struggle will have to relate how this Ignis Fatuus danced and played before men eyes for a season leading them away from the right and straight road, until at last it went out suddenly, leaving them up to the eyes in the dismal swamp of disappointment and disgust. Happily, the army had no concern with this illusion either. Their position right opposite a malignant and powerful foe – their daily duty of watching his projects of plunder and murder, gave them too real an appreciation of the actual position of affairs. They knew nothing of all this drivelling about peace in thirty days, save when they from time to time saw the amazing nonsense in newspapers, and wondered what it was all about. – As our soldiers did not share the excitement of the debauch, so they have escaped the reaction and deboire. They did not hope, and are not disappointed.
Leaving, then, the speculators and politicians to those pangs inseparable from the hours of returning sobriety, and consoling ourselves with the reflection that most of them will find means to indemnify themselves – some in the enormous prices which (they will say) must naturally ensue on such a sad state of things – others in hunting out the person or persons who are to blame, and eloquently […..] those unfortunate wretches – let us see what substantial reality our Confederate forces have in front of them, and take a glance along the whole line. – And what a line it is! From the snowy pine-woods of Fredericksburg all round to the palm-trees of Galveston by land through Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas – and again all round by sea from Galveston to Fredericksburg again, by the mouth of every river and across the front of every harbor! Since first sword was drawn upon this earth, has been no such long line assailed at once by tremendous forces. The invasions of Greece by Darius and Xerxes, Alexander’s grand campaign against Persia and India, Napoleon’s multitudinous advance upon Russia – not one of those movements had anything like the giant proportions of this monstrous Yankee crusade; they all aimed at penetrating the invaded country from one single direction and through one only entrance. When the Persian hosts went to meet the Macedonians at Arbela, if the Persian monarch had been obliged also to provide against simultaneous attacks by sea and land, by river and road, from the side of the Caspian and the Oxus and the Indus and the Sea of Oman, and if, to make head against it all, he had in all Persia but a population of six millions, besides slaves, then the case of Persia would have been somewhat like ours. Even in modern times, when Napoleon with the all-conquering armies of France, marched with seven hundred thousand men to the invasion of Russia, the Russians had only to defend the line of the Niemen, and the Bog, and the Beresina – all on one of the frontiers, and all on a line shorter than the State of Tennessee. It was child’s play in comparison. If there had been at the same time powerful fleets in the White Sea, in the Euxine, and in the Caspian, grand armies breaking through the passes of Caucasus on one side, pouring over the Ural on another; countless swarms of gunboats, ascending the Volga from the Caspian Sea, the Dwina from the Baltic, the Don and Dnieper from the Black Sea, up into the heart of European Russia, then the case would have been somewhat similar to ours, but that Russia had ten times our population to resist the invaders. Never was land so beset by a potent and vindictive foe, with all the improved engines of slaughter, as ours is beset this day. No wonder those who dreamed but lately of peace in thirty days, should start back aghast on opening their eyes and seeing this monstrous feast of carnage spread before them. Fortunately such folks count for nothing, and are nothing, in the grand emergencies of the world’s history; they may speculate and sell and higgle, and snarl at those who will not look through their spectacles, but the real business of the country lies in the field.
Hooker’s forces on the North bank of the Rappahannock may be counted as about 20,000, besides about 30,000 in the forts around Washington. In Western Virginia, we have not the means of estimating the force under Milroy; but passing Westward, we know that Rosecrans disposes of an army of at least 100,000 men. Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, is now a vast depot of stores and provisions for the forces of the West; and the Cumberland river, as well as the Tennessee, is swarming with gunboats and transports. Those rivers will be navigable for all those vessels till June, with perhaps, scarcely an interruption. Besides the troops forming the immediate Army of Rosecrans, there are considerable forces stationed in many towns of Kentucky, and along the lines of railroad to keep communications open. – On the whole, from the Chesapeake, westward to Cairo, there must be in our immediate front, awaiting the spring campaign, about 300,000 men in arms. At Cairo begins that portion of the line which stretches down the Mississippi, partly on the river and partly on either bank, afloat or ashore, on the Yazoo Pass, or the various other sluggish side streams which flow out of the great river and into it again, all these forces tending to concentrate upon Vicksburg and Port Hudson and so open the way to New Orleans, where an army waits to co-operate. The armies on the river, in Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, under Grant, Sherman, McClernand, Banks can not be estimated at less than 300,000 more. They have been diligently employed in exploring routes, accumulating supplies, opening new “of water communication to bring gunboats upon every man’s plantation; and now, with the opening of the spring and the drying of the roads so as to enable land troops to co- operate with the river forces, we have nothing to expect but a renewal of the assaults on our fortified ports.
As for the blockading fleets on the Gulf and the Atlantic, we have less to fear from them than from the immense numbers of gunboats which enable the enemy to hover around and dart, by river or lagoon, wherever they find our people unprepared. – On that side also they have not been idle; they have explored the rivers of North Carolina, and the inlets which indent the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina; in Florida they have chased away the inhabitants houseless and half naked into the interior, and have provided gunboats to ravage plantations and support the atrocities of negro […..]. Another great army is now threatening our communications, distributed between Suffolk, in Virginia, and Newbern, in North Carolina; it may amount, in the whole to sixty thousand men; and is intended to take possession of the railroad somewhere between Goldsboro’ and the Virginia line, thus cutting our communication with a great part of the Confederacy. This last army, with its attendant fleet may be said to complete the circle, as it almost touches the “grand army of the Potomac” on the Chesapeake.
Such is the immense cordon of war which we have to face, and all at once all round. – It would be poor policy to undervalue the resources or the courage of our enemy; it is safest to disbelieve in the stories of […..]”&c., and to assume that these armies of men transplanted from their homes, and placed under the control of Generals, will act as other masses of men in similar circumstances have ever done; and will fight when ordered. They probably care little more about the peace-speculations of their politicians at home than our soldiers care about the corresponding babble of theirs. – The campaign now opening will be a season of heavy and desperate fighting; and it is a gallant sight to see how cheerfully and gaily our noble troops welcome the trial. Wherever the enemy has yet put himself in motion he has found more than his match to meet him. Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry, with the artillery of glorious Pelham sent the first audacious expedition headlong across the Rappahannock again. The thunders of Fort Pemberton, driving back the black gunboats up into the Coldwater, have been echoed by the roar of Port Hudson batteries, beating back the fleet and army of Banks and Farragut. – Vicksburg sits silent on her hills and waits, while Mobile, Savannah and Charleston seem to securely defy all attack. For, so far, the ring of our lines is unbroken. When broken we believe it will be from within, outward. The Confederate people have borne the brunt and scathe of war long enough. It is the turn of Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
In any event, all visions of peace had better vanish; we are about to have the fiercest campaign of the war.