June 2, 1863, The New York Herald
Our Baltimore Correspondence.
BALTIMORE, May 31, 1863.
I have come into possession today of the following facts in regard to the present actual condition of the Southern railroads and the rolling stock on them, which have an important bearing on the present military operations both at the West and in the East.
When the war broke out the Southern railroads were in perfect order, and their equipment in rolling stock was enormous in amount and of the best possible construction. With a few trifling and unimportant exceptions, none of this equipment has been lost or destroyed during the progress of the war. On the other hand, it has been considerably increased. At Macon and Atlanta, in Georgia; at Fayetteville, in North Carolina; at Knoxville and at one other point, there are extensive shops where both locomotives and cars are built, and where they are taken for repairs. The railroad from Memphis to Chattanooga, running along the north of Mississippi and Alabama, is very much broken up and damaged, except the fifty-one miles between Chattanooga and Bellefonte, which are in a perfect state. But the railroad from Tullahoma to Vicksburg, by the way of Stevenson, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Montgomery Meridian and Jackson – a distance of 673 miles – is in perfect order and has abundance of rolling stock. The same may be said of the great Southern railroad from Gordonsville to Chattanooga, by the way of Lynchburg and Knoxville – a distance of 526 miles; and of the two railroads from Charleston to Vicksburg, one by the way of Atlanta and Opelika, and the other by the way of Savannah and Montgomery. The distance by the latter route is 737 miles; by the former 763 miles.
These facts show that, although troops in large numbers have been sent from Charleston, and from Bragg’s army at Tullahoma to reinforce Gen. Johnston before Vicksburg, yet it must require some time for them to reach him. They show also that while it would probably be impracticable for any of General Lee’s troops to be sent to take part in the operations before Vicksburg (the distance being eleven hundred miles), it would be quite practicable for twenty thousand of General Lee troops to be sent to Tullahoma, only six hundred miles, to aid General Bragg in holding Rosecrans in check, while Bragg sends fifty thousand of his troops to aid General Johnston. They will show also, with the aid of a good map of the United States, that all the lines of railroad I have mentioned constitute interior lines of military operations, over which troops can be transported a great deal more rapidly than our troops can be sent either from Charleston to reinforce Banks or from Washington to reinforce either Grant or Rosecrans. Besides which, the two railroads leading north from Nashville are pretty much broken up and destroyed. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad particularly, one hundred and eighty five miles long, built on trestle work almost entirely, has been demolished to an extent that renders it utterly useless.
From a very different source from that from which I have derived the above facts I have also learned the following, which shows how great a blunder Hooker is committing in keeping his army quiescent, and how criminal the administration is in not compelling him to attack Lee’s army at once.
And now for my facts. General Lee has now on the line of the Rappahannock just 40,000 troops. At the time the battles near Chancellorsville were being fought, there were 10,000 of General Longstreet’s troops near Suffolk, and 10,000 of D. H. Hill’s troops in North Carolina; and those 20,000 troops are there yet. Gen. Lee had in these battles 80,000 of General Longstreet’s troops, 20,000 of General D. H. Hill’s, 40,000 under General Jackson, and 10,000 of General Stuart’s cavalry, in all 100,000 men. These were the troops, and the only troops, with which he fought and defeated Hooker, whether the latter had 120,000, 130,000 or 140,000 men; and in order to get them he had to leave Richmond entirely defenceless, and to draw troops north from Suffolk and from North Carolina. His losses in those battles were 15,000 men. Immediately after the battles he sent 25,000 troops to Richmond and the peninsula, where they now are. And between the 20th and 25th inst. he sent 20,000 troops to Chattanooga to reinforce General Bragg and to help him to hold Rosecrans in check. This leaves him just 40,000 troops, and with these he is now holding the line of the Rappahannock. This account comes direct from Richmond, and it states that the idea of the Confederate authorities there is that Hooker’s forces in the late battles amounted only to 98,000 men; that his losses in battle were 15,000, and by subsequent expiration of the time of old regiments 30,000 more, making 45,000, and reducing his army now to 55,000 or 65,000 men; that he might possibly be reinforced from Washington up to 75,000 strong, but that is the utmost figure at which he could attain, and that with that he will not dare to again assume the offensive; that he will therefore lie still near Falmouth until the conscription has filled up his army, which they think will certainly not be before the end of July. Satisfied, therefore, that they have nothing to fear from Hooker during the next two months, the Confederates have turned their whole attention and sent almost their whole strength towards Vicksburg; and therefore it is that General Lee now has only forty thousand men on the line of the Rappahannock. If Gen. Hooker and Gen. Halleck cannot see through the flimsy artifice of Gen. Lee in making a few days ago such a parade of strength and bustle – such a beating of drums and blowing of trumpets – it does not speak very well for their sagacity.
If Gen. Hooker, then, with his one hundred thousand veteran troops, should make a sudden movement against Gen. Lee, he could either certainly defeat the latter’s forty thousand men or else drive them to Richmond. In the meantime his thirty thousand reserve, under Heintzelman, could keep between him and the capital. Even if Lee should discover his design and bring up all his reserves, he could only get the twenty-five thousand from Richmond and the twenty thousand from Suffolk and North Carolina, making eight-five thousand in all. And to do this Richmond would again be left defenceless; and Gen. Dix, Gen. Keyes, and Gen. Peck, with nothing in their way, could march straight into the rebel capital, while Hooker and Heintzelman, with one hundred and thirty thousand troops, were fighting Lee with eighty-five thousand; for that is now the utmost rebel force in Virginia.
But if Hooker does not seize this golden moment it will soon pass away from him. The event of the siege of Vicksburg will be decided by the 5th of June, and the fate of Rosecrans by the 10th. And, result as these battles may, the middle of June will see both Beauregard’s and Lee’s troops (now in the West) again back in the East and then, indeed, the […..] aggressive movement” of General Lee, now feared by General Hooker, will take place. Only then General Lee will move with one hundred and fifty thousand troops.
I have some news from Vicksburg up to May 26. This account states that two general assaults on the enemyf’s ortifications had been made by the whole of General Grant’s army – one on the 22d and one on the 24th; that they were both compete failures, both having been repulsed with terrible loss on the Union side; that General Grant was occupying a strong position, which he had intrenched, in the rear of Vicksburg, where he believed he could maintain himself against General Johnston; that General Johnston had at Canton, besides his original 25,000 troops, 10,000 from Mobile, 30,000 from Bragg’s army at Tullahoma and 25,000 from Charleston. With these 90,000 troops it was believed that General Johnston would attack General Grant on the 27th.
It was understood that General Price and General Marmaduke had 25,000 troops near Helena, and that a movement on their part was on foot towards Memphis, with the ultimate object in view of either gaining possession of that place or else of seizing some other point on the Mississippi which would enable them to cut off all supplies intended for General Grant’s army. According to this account no reinforcements had reached General Grant, and none were expected.