Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper/Volume 18/Number 450/The War in Virginia

The War in Virginia—The Prospect a Short and Decisive Campaign.

We are on the verge of the most momentous struggle of the war. Before this article shall have passed into the hands of our readers the chosen battleground of old Virginia, if not precipitately evacuated by the enemy, may be baptised anew in a deluge of blood, and her ancient hills may be shaken as by the throes of an earthquake. We believe that from the smoke of the conflict the flag of the Union will be advanced to the high places of the rebel capital; that the armies which Gen. Grant has summoned around him cannot be successfully resisted; that his plans and combinations are adapted to meet all possible emergencies; that he has the enemy within his powerful grasp; that the campaign will be "short, sharp and decisive," and that the fatal hour to the rebellion is near at hand.

We have not forgotten our disappointments resulting from each of the Virginia campaigns of 1861, '62 and '63. But all those reverses may be traced to that one grand mistake of scattering instead of concentrating our forces, and if the dearly purchased victories of our Potomac Army have been without substantial fruits, it has been in consequence of wasting delays in following up the enemy. This was the Austrian system of warfare against the little Corsican. The opposite or Napoleonic system of concentration and activity, which has reclaimed an Empire in the

West, has with Gen. Grant, been introduced into the East, and with such advantages for aggressive operations against such, drawbacks and embarrassments to the enemy, as the Army of the Potomac has never before commanded.

Through the year 1861 the people of the so-called Southern Confederacy were bountifully sustained from the fruitful grain, cattle and swine-producing States of Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Western Louisiana and Texas. At the end of the year 1862, though dispossessed of Kentucky and Missouri, Western Tennessee and a part of Louisiana, their lines of communication from Texas to Richmond were still uninterrupted. But what is the present situation of their "Confederacy?" With the trans-Mississippi States completely cut off, it is now practicably reduced to Southern Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, excepting those parts of each of these States occupied by the Union forces. This restricted and beleaguered Confederacy by land and sea, comprising some 4,000,000 of inhabitants (one-half African slaves), is now practically all that is left of a rebellious Confederation, originally comprehending 11,000,000 of souls.

The armies of Davis within this diminished empire, drawn from all the slave States, and variously represented as making a sum total of from 200,000 to 300,000 men—these armies are now mainly subsisted from the last year's Indian corn crop of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. And here lies the fatal weakness of Jeff Davis in undertaking, against all the adverse circumstances suggested, still to maintain the prestige of his authority at Richmond. For 100 miles around that city the country is exhausted, and North Carolina has been so impoverished by Confederate foragers that the scanty supplies still held by her planters are hardly equal to the extremest necessities of her destitute people. The armies of Davis in Virginia draw their supplies of food mainly from Georgia; and the capacities of their two life-sustaining lines of rickety railroads are taxed to the uttermost to meet the necessities of Richmond and Gen. Lee from day to day.

Under such a state of things the elaborate entrenchments which enclose the army of Davis on the Rapidan, and the formidable network of fortifications which encircle his capital are literally no defences at all. The protection of their railroad lines between the Rapidan and Richmond, and thence to Atlanta, in Georgia, is the first essential to the security of Davis and Lee in Virginia. Hence the mustering of all their available forces for the inevitable work of open field fighting, but the danger at Atlanta is also imminent. The army of Gen. Thomas, at Chattanooga is a powerful army, and with Longstreet removed from East Tennessee, Gen. Joe Johnston must be strengthened as well as Gen. Lee, or the evacuation of Richmond may be enforced upon Davis by the loss of Atlanta.

From the relative situation of the opposing forces in Virginia; from the decided superiority in numbers, equipment and efficiency of the legions of Gen. Grant, as compared with the highest estimates (90,000 men) of the enemy's strength; from the necessities which will compel Gen. Lee to abandon his entrenchments, to protect his lines of subsistence; from every point of view in which we have considered the subject, we are confirmed in our opinion that in the Virginia campaign of 1864 all the misfortunes of '61, '62 and '63 will be repaired, and that the grand object of a crushing blow to the rebellion will be fully achieved. The wisest combinations of war, we know, are frequently overthrown by the most trivial accidents or mistakes; but still, in this instance, we have no fear that our foreshadowings as a prophet will be marred by the facts of the historian. We anticipate an unexampled and exulting celebration of the coining 4th of July.