is to repel invasion and to enforce peace and their recognition. Those objects can only be attained by destroying some of the principal Union armies and by taking the Federal capital; then making peace with the Federal Government, or with the different States separately, by threatening them with invasion. The first object, or the main object of the campaign is, therefore, the destruction of the Union armies or part of them. "Taking the map in hand it will be seen"1. That the Union forces are scattered over a large tract of land; "2. That they are acting on exterior lines; "3. That the rebel forces are acting on interior lines. "Consequently the natural plan of operation, in such a state of things, is to concentrate on the different points successively, and to defeat the Union troops successively and in detail, i.e., before they can unite. In campaigns of this description the principle is to make a break, generally in the centre of the long front of operation, thereby preventing the junction of the two wings, and then to defeat these separately. "They reduce, therefore, the army of Virginia by 27,000 men more, which they send to Tennessee, giving positive orders to the remaining 50,000 to accept no engagement of consequence; to retreat if the army of the Potomac advances; and to be satisfied with defending the passage of the rivers, beating an advanced guard, etc. "The campaign in Tennessee, as the next in importance, they would conduct almost simultaneously with that against Newbern; and this is possible in the present case; first, because the Union armies of Newbern and Murfreesboro are not large; and secondly, because the army sent to Goldsboro is not far from the decisive point, which we will suppose to be Richmond, and might be back there before a Union army could reach it. "The movements against Murfreesboro might be combined in the following way: Army at Tullahoma, 50,000 men; from the army of Virginia, 27,000 men; from the army of Vicksburg, 25,000 men; from the army of Mobile, 5,000 men; from different detachments, etc., 10,000 men. Total, 117,000 men." "In the East the Union army at Newbern, He gives again accurate details of the manand in the West the Union army at Murfrees-ner in which this combination could be made, boro, are excellently posted for the rebels to with the time requisite. In fourteen days, open the campaign by two decisive blows. according to his tables, 117,000 rebels should The army at Newbern especially ought to be be concentrated at Chattanooga :attacked: first, because it is a large detachment greatly exposed; and secondly, because it threatens continually one of the principal lines of communication of the South between the East and West. He gives with great minuteness, the manner and routes by which this concentration could be effected. He supposes this army to attack impetuously and to destroy our forces in North Carolina. Query, whether this part of the supposed plan is not actually now about to be carried out? Meantime, the rebel army in Virginia, greatly diminished, does not give battle, but retreats, fighting and disputing the passage of the rivers, into Richmond, which is supposed to be thoroughly fortified, and able to resist even a siege for some time. "On the 14th, the commander-in-chief should arrive at Chattanooga; and on the same day the offensive operation should be commenced. With 117,000 men against 40,000 to 50,000, a commander can well propose to himself to destroy this latter army; and the only correct way to do this is to execute similar manoeuvres to those executed by Nation of the base of operation of the rebels to poleon in 1805 and 1806-the relative posithat of the line of operation of the Union army facilitating such action." He gives also details of movement by which our army in Tennessee would be beaten. This done, he tells us the rebels would detach a force to send into Kentucky, to march to Louisville, if possible, but at any rate to Lexington, thence through the Cumberland Gap to be transported back to Richmond. The main rebel army of 80,000 men meantime pursues our army westward, beating all forces which oppose it, capturing Memphis; and then, after a short time for repose, hastening part of this army eastward again, for the grand and final operations in Virginia. In the mean time he supposes the siege of Richmond going on; the rebel forces there receive daily accessions, as the operations in a "raid "Arrived at Buckletown, they would march east, and thereby prevent the garrison of Harper's Ferry escaping west or northwest. The main body of the army has meanwhile moved along Loudon Valley; at Aldie Gap about 100,000 pass through it; the remainder (some 40,000) move to Berlin; a detachment takes Loudon Heights; 10,000 men move to Fredericktown, and the remaining 30,000 march into Pleasant Valley, take Maryland Heights, and force the garrison of Harper's Ferry once more to surrender. 66 North Carolina and Tennessee are completed. | eral capital, as a kind of corps of observaThe Union army has a long and exposed line tion: twenty thousand men would be sent of communications from Fredericksburg or through Ashby's Gap against Winchester, and thence against Martinsburg. elsewhere. The moment the rebels are strong enough, 30,000 men are despatched to make on these lines, in the rear of our army. The Union commander dares not detach 50,000 men-half his force-to meet this, for in that case he leaves the other half exposed to the attack of a superior force before him in Richmond. Our author says:"In a case like this the real character of different generals would show itself. A Napoleon or a Cæsar would, at the first notice of the raid, leave their trains and parks and Immediately after the surrender, and if move with their whole army, by forced in the mean while Washington has been capmarches, towards Orange C. H. or Potteis- tured, the entire corps moves toward Chamville, according to circumstances. Executed bersburg, for an invasion of the North; if against them, this raid would be destruction Washington has not been captured, then it to the corps which undertook it. A Welling- moves against Baltimore. The main body ton would probably at first do nothing at all, having passed through Aldie Gap, advances but raise the siege as soon as the reports were to Conrad's Ferry, crosses the Potomac, and fully confirmed, and move with his whole ma- immediately proceeds toward Washington, terial composedly back to his first base. A Jourdan or a Victor would send a detachment after the rebels, staying themselves with the main body before Richmond. A Moreau or Massena would get his trains in readiness, leave a strong detachment to cover them, with orders to retreat as soon as the rebels in Richmond manifest a desire to attack, and with their main body they would march to intercept the rebel corps which has undertaken the raid. "In our case, I think that the undertaking of the raid would be sufficiently justified by the simple fact that a Napoleon or Cæsar would probably not have chosen the line of operation from Fredericksburg to Richmond." We have not space to quote the details by which it is shown that, choose whatever base and line of operations it will, the Union army before Richmond could not escape defeat. 66 Immediately after the decisive defeat of the Union army before Richmond, the offensive should be taken against the North. If the destruction has been complete, the entire rebel army should move. If the defeat has been only such as after the seven days' fight, fifty thousand men left at Richmond would be sufficient to defend the town; the remainder-some 180,000 to 200,000-should move on the day after the battle, by forced marches, to the North. Washington we will suppose strongly garrisoned, as well as Harper's Ferry and Baltimore. At Warrenton thirty thousand men would be detached, to move by way of Centreville against the Fed which place ought to be attacked simultaneously, on the right bank of the Potomac, by the 30,000 rebels coming from Centreville, and by the 100,000 coming from Conrad's Ferry on the left bank. One or two forts carried on the left bank would open the way into the city, and this once occupied, the garrison in the forts on the right would probably be obliged to surrender. "This short exposé will show that the rebels, by taking to grand offensive operations under the present circumstances; by defeating first the smaller Union bodies, and then by concentrating all their forces for the last decisive struggle; by leaving the Union armies in the West, far away from the decisive point, perfectly free to capture cotton plantations and open Western rivers to Northern navigation, while they (the rebels) are dealing decisive blows, and capturing large Union cities in the East, might finish the war to their own advantage, and this simply in consequence of the wrong plan of conquest followed by the Northern troops." This is not an encouraging view. But it exposes the weakness of that plan, or lack of plan, on which we have acted and seem still to be acting. It shows how the rebels, if their leaders have sufficient genius, can with smaller means make the campaign of 1863 shows that while we batter away vainly at very disastrous and disgraceful to us. Vicksburg and Charleston, which places are of slight importance to us if we get them, we do not in all this time strike at the sole defence and reliance of the rebellion,. the It THE CAMPAIGN OF 1863. rebel armies. And if it exposes the false' posing them all successful, nevertheless deprinciples on which our general-in-chief is termine little or nothing. acting, may we not hope that it will induce It is a maxim as old as Julius Cæsar, who the adoption of a sounder plan? applied it to his conquest of Gaul, but it had fallen into disuse among the routinists of the continental armies, when it was revived with brilliant and wonderful triumph by Napoleon. With the instinct of superior genius, that unrivalled commander, in the campaigns of 1805, 1806, 1808, and others, achieved miracles of success, quite as much by the skill of his combinations as by the rapidity of his movements. The armies of all the great powers of Europe united to crush him, in the anaconda fashion; Austria, Russia, Sweden, England, and Naples furnished the troops, five hundred thousand strong, which were destined to surround and overwhelm him; never did a military plan appear more feasible and certain: the position of each corps was marked, their lines of march traced on the map, and the very spot of their final junction indicated; but while they were converging slowly from all the frontiers and seacoasts of Europe, the French emperor shot like a thunderbolt along his interior routes upon one army after another, until the whole were destroyed or dispersed. Like a gigantic spider he sat in the centre of the web, and as each enemy in succession approached his lines, he entangled that enemy in his fatal meshes. Ir is, we trust, not too late in the spring to suggest to our military authorities a careful revision of the plans of campaign which they are now trying, about to execute. We have accordingly prepared for the outside of this sheet a brief notice of a little military treatise, which appears to us to exhibit unusual sagacity, as well as scientific prevision, and to which we direct the attention of strategists. Perhaps we over-estimate the force of the writer's suggestions because they are so entirely in consonance with the views which have been so repeatedly urged in this journal in regard to the proper method of carrying on the war. One is apt to think that those who concur with him are wise, and in this way the judgment may be misled. Our readers will bear witness that, from the beginning, the Evening Post has shown little favor towards that plan of operations devised by General Scott, and followed by Generals McClellan and Halleck, which has been popularly called the anaconda plan. We have never sought to embarrass its execution, though we have openly expressed our doubts of its efficiency. It proposed, if we Let us not, in our war against the rebelare not mistaken, to surround the rebellion lion, fall into the error of the European cowith powerful armies disposed at a dozen alition. The defence of our frontiers is, of different points, East, West, North, and course, an indispensable first step; the blockSouth, which, by gradually closing in upon ade of the rebel sea-coasts, including the it, should crush it to death, as the victim of Texas border of Mexico, is another; the a monstrous snake is crushed by the contrac-opening of the Mississippi, as a means of tion of his folds. Forces were sent in pur- communication for the North-West, is also suance of it to Missouri, Louisiana, Florida, highly important; but these ends secured, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, the proper line of our military operations Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee, each lies, not against detached cities like Richindependent of the other, and no two of mond, Newbern, Charleston, Fernandina, and them within a supporting distance. Now Galveston, but against the heart of the rebel this has seemed to us in violation of one of Confederacy. Fortunately the geographical the most fundamental and inflexible maxims formation of our country renders the attainof war, deduced from the practice of the ment of this central and controlling position best commanders, and illustrated in the ex- easy. The great ribs of mountains which perience of nearly all modern nations. That run from Pennsylvania to Georgia offer a semaxim is, that a nation making an offensive ries of intervening valleys, through which war must concentrate its disposable forces armies may move in security, holding their towards single decisive points, and not scat-communications uninterrupted, and compelter them to every direction of the needle, to ling by their simple movement southward, strike a dozen different blows, which, sup- the evacuation of the Border States by the rebel forces. We have, however, presented | signs of new and formidable activity in North this aspect of the military problem so often, Carolina and Mississippi. Foster is cooped that we shall not dwell upon it here, farther up, and all our garrisons along the coast are than to refer our readers to Mr. Schalk's con- more or less menaced. firmatory exposition of it on another page. It is true, that for much of the time since It may strengthen our argument to add, the year opened the soil and the weather have that thus far the military movements of the not permitted any vigorous movements of our year have not been as encouraging as the troops. Though not nominally in winter masses of the people had hoped. Has it quarters they have been so actually; they been owing to a defect of energy, or to a de- have been compelled to maintain the positions fect of plan? We have failed to acquire the of last fall, or to satiy the impulse of activuninterrupted navigation of the Mississippi, ity with desultory and inconsiderable skirthough our forces have beleaguered Vicks-mishes. The men have doubtless profited by burg and Port Hudson, the only obstructions, the interval of repose; they have acquired for many weary months; we have not reduced Charleston by means of the iron-clad fleet, which has been in preparation all winter; Hooker's grand army lies idle, as it has done since October last, on the banks of the Rappahannock; while Rosecrans, after one or two brilliant but indecisive battles, has passed the long weeks since in securing his positions, and maturing schemes for the future. Meantime the rebels while maintaining their lines of successful defence, give new discipline and better skill; their ranks have been recruited by the return of former deserters, and our cavalry forces in particular, by occasional brilliant raids, have attained a confidence, enterprise, and daring which they never before possessed. All these are incidental advantages not to be overlooked. But they are advantages of little avail if our military rulers do not justify the superior manoeuvres of the field by a superior strategy in the council. poorest judge of money cannot be deceived with regard to their value. The portraits of the first five Presidents or Secretaries of the Treasury, of five gold dollars, and hundreds of other devices, may be so designed as to beautify the national bank-note, and at the same time to indicate the denomination. TO PREVENT ALTERATIONS OF GOVERNMENT | what these objects may be, if they are always uniCURRENCY. Of the legal tender notes recently form in bills of the same denomination, the engraved for the Treasury Department, the chief vignettes of the one, the two, the fifty, the one hundred, and the one thousand dollar notes are each portraits similar in size and appearance, and the vignette of the ten and the one hundred is the American cagle. The vignette of the two and the fifty is the same portrait of Alexander Hamilton, and the general appearance of the two notes is almost precisely alike, and alterations of these notes have already been announced. To prevent such alterations, there exists a remedy, simple, effective, and feasible, which we should be glad to see tested by the Government in the first issue from the National Department. The bank teller detects the worst alterations from association, and if the chief engraving of a note is well remembered he will not be deceived. If for instance, the vignette of the one dollar note is known always to be an engraving of the Monitor, the first glance at the engraving will convey to the mind its value, let the apparent denomination be what it may. In engraving a set or series of bank-notes, the vignette and every engraving on the one dollar note should uniformly consist of one and only one prominent object, and the two, three, and five, in like manner, always of two, three, and five prominent objects, and no matter As the eagle is the sobriquet, the nom de plume of the ten dollar gold coin, an engraving of an dollar note, and a device of a double-eagle should American eagle should always represent the ten represent the twenty, while larger designs of pub-. lic buildings or from historical paintings should always be found upon the notes of larger denom inations. The border of the one dollar note should be narrow and its designs small, while those of the two, three, five, ten, and twenty should gradually increase in size, the vignettes for the fifty covering one-half of the length of the bill, and that of the thousand dollar note its whole extent; and every engraving, whether large or small, at the end or upon the border should indicate the denomination, until to alter a note will be to deface its whole appearance. With beautiful designs, thus gradually increasing in size, the engraver may produce a new series of bank-notes, and by association hereafter prevent all alterations.-Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. CHAPTER XXVI. TWO LETTERS. at the angry glance of her eye, and yet this WHEN it was understood by everybody at the Halting Place that Mary Flaggs had absconded from her home, anger and consternation filled the minds of Drover and his nephew. At first, the latter thought she might have eloped with young Hopton: but he soon felt convinced that Arthur knew nothing about her disappearance. It was evident that she had merely fled from the house to avoid the threatened marriage with himself. To go in pursuit of her at once became his object. For many reasons the girl could not be permitted to escape. He learned from the driver of the Tilby coach that she had taken her One morning, as usual, Maria and her place alone in the vehicle for London, and she father sat together in the apartment which was now in all probability endeavoring to Mr. Lipwell used as a sitting-room; it adconceal herself in the city. It might be pos- joined his bedroom, and was carefully exsible to find her out by searching diligently. cluded from the cold air of passages, being It somewhat puzzled Mat to know where she far removed from the busy portion of the esgot the money to enable her to make her es-tablishment. To this room and his bedchamcape, for he never dreamed that Margaret ber the invalid 'was now entirely confined. had assisted and plotted with her. The The once worldly, fashionable man, who Drovers considered it politic not to speak thought in former days of little save his own much of their granddaughter's flight to the gratification, was rapidly becoming a most villagers; the less notoriety it gained the melancholy spectacle-joyless, spiritless, better. So, when Mat hurried off to London sightless! in quest of her, he did so quietly. The post-bag was brought in. "How many letters to-day for me, Maria?" asked Mr. Lipwell. "There are two, papa," replied his daughter, who looked very steadily at the handwriting of one of them; "and one is very heavy, indeed, more like a packet than a mere letter. Shall I read the smaller one, first?” "Yes, my love." Meanwhile Maria Lipwell found herself placed in a most distressing position as regarded Lord Dulheadie. Her mother, stern and unrelenting, would hear of no objections to her accepting his attentions; and fearful of agitating her father in his present weak state of health, by appealing to him against his wife's mandates, the poor girl suffered great misery. She loved her mother affectionately, and to obey her desires had always And Maria tore open the more shabbybeen her aim; but in the present case, pas-looking of the two letters, reading thus:— sive obedience was impossible. The scenes "HONORED SIR,-You were always a kind that occasionally passed at the manor-house between mother and daughter were heartrending. It has been said that Maria more than once flung herself on her knees to entreat her mother to have pity on her; but Mrs. Lipwell listened in vain to such prayers. She had married for a position herself, sacrificing all heart, all feeling, and she could not sympathize with her daughter's sorrow. It was not easy for a timid, gentle young girl to contend against an authority so supreme as that of Mrs. Lipwell. There was something terrible to her in the thought of her mother's displeasure. From childhood she had quailed friend to me, and full well I believe that, if you had your respected health in this transitory life, you would not suffer me to be annoyed by those people, who I look upon as upstarts in the county, and no more able to hold a candle to the Lipwell family than the lowest grade of rank. It is distressing for a man who has held, with credit and applause, the mastership of the Tilby Almshouse for so many years, to be now bullied and persecuted by enemies anxious for my dismissal. I have Who is Sir Thomas Combely or Mr. Goldie, that they should presume to think your honor did wrong in giving me the post I hold? I feel that anything done against me is a re shed tears to think of such mean treatment. |