June 26, 1863, Richmond Enquirer
People in civil life cannot pretend to criticise, in its present stage, a grand campaign such as that now entered upon by our army of Northern Virginia. We do not so much as know its object; and therefore still less can we pronounce on the suitableness of the means. – Some of the Confederate newspapers write as if they had expected the cavalry advance into Pennsylvania to have been at once let loose upon a general plundering expedition. But independently of the fact that nothing disorganizes troops and renders them useless like indiscriminate plunder, it is well to recollect that it may be absolutely necessary to the general plan to keep that cavalry force well in hand, so as to cover other movements of the main body. On the great chess-board of war there is a mighty game in progress; and neither we at home, nor Hooker, the opposite player himself, has yet divined the nature of General Lee’s combinations. It is true that Confederates owe no consideration or forbearance to their enemies. It is true, further, that our Generals owe it to their own people to visit a terrible devastation and havoc upon the enemy country, whenever they have the means in their hands to do so effectually, and on a grand scale. But this is not yet the case. General Hooker, with a vast army, is still to be disposed of, and every movement of each composed of, and every movement of each command must, doubtless, be calculated with a view to this needful preliminary business. It may be needful even to deceive the enemy as to the ultimate object of the Confederate General, by adopting the very course complained of – that is, forbearing from plunder now, on the very threshold of the expedition. In order to do the business well and thoroughly, the just retaliation (which we demand and the foe expects,) must be organized and regulated as deliberately as any other military movement; and it might be fatal to the whole campaign if Jenkins’ cavalry were now permitted to load themselves with plunder, and so, for the sake of the paltry booty of Chambersburg, miss perhaps the splendid prize of Philadelphia, or the crushing blow at the enemy’s head in Washington.
These are some of the considerations which should make us all take patiently, for the present, the well-pleased announcements made in Yankee papers, about private property being hitherto respected and payment made in Confederate bills. Certainly if the expedition of General Lee were to end so; if at the very moment when hordes of Yankee brigands are burning and plundering far and wide over our country, not only stealing all they can lay their hands upon, but letting loose bands of negroes with bayonets in one hand and torches in the other, to the work of indiscriminate outrage and devastation, our army in Pennsylvania were to march through the country just as if it were our own; asking permission of Dutch farmers to draw water at their wells; pressing their custom on the smiling storekeepers, and paying them in the best and only kind of money we ever see at home; and should return so, amid the compliments of the Pennsylvanians, and their heartily expressed wishes soon to see again amongst them such courteous and liberal gentlemen – in that unheard of and unsupposable case, the whole world would laugh us to scorn; it would be said to amount to an admission that we do, indeed, feel ourselves to be in unjustifiable rebellion, and have no right to presume to deal with our enemies as they may deal with us. – It would be giving up the cause; formally surrendering our people throughout every State to pillage and oppression; inviting a continuance and aggravation of all the evils of invasion, and virtually offering the necks of our ringleaders to the hangman.
This is so horrible to think of that we may safely conclude it is not the intention of the great chieftain to whom so mighty a task has been entrusted by the President, and who has up to this day discharged his task so nobly. His operations for the present we take to be wholly strategical. He may purposely forbear to alarm the hostile populations, and give them warning to run off their herds and flocks, so as to leave the country waste before him, until, Hooker once well cleared out of his path, he can throw the whole Confederate army into Pennsylvania, wide-winged, far-stretching, in one vast combined movement, enveloping Washington on the one side, Harrisburg on the other, and so forward, forward, till our red battle-flag reflects itself in the Delaware.
Even in this latter case – even if General Lee designs to make Pennsylvania the seat of war, and to make the war support the war, we presume that he would not give his troops a general license to pillage. He would probably order each Major General to call before him the sheriff of each county on his line of march, and impose upon each a certain provision – and no small provision – of beeves, horses, clothing, silver and gold, all to be delivered at given points, at given hours; with the alternative of seeing the defaulting county, and it only, given over to sack and conflagration. This is the way that war supports war, handsomely, humanely, regularly and, as it were, constitutionally.
These are speculations. We know nothing. It may not be the present plan of General Lee to advance his banners in this imposing style into the enemy territory. But we believe that his countrymen may repose confidence in his disposition to do all that the means at his disposal enable him to do for the good and glory of the cause. He knows what those people have done and are doing to us and ours. He knows that thousands of ruined homes look to him to avenge them, and homes not yet ruined to protect them. He knows, if any man knows, what war is, and how to wage it. So, instead of dogging his first steps with peevish criticism, let us ask for him the prayers of the congregation.