April 14, 1863, The New York Herald
The repulse of iron-clads from the gateway of Charleston, though almost bloodless in its results, may be classed among our most discouraging military disasters. After many months of preparation, and with the enormous means and forces at the command of the government, the most prominent and the most painful fact in this affair is that the attempt to reduce the city of Charleston, after two years of defensive preparations, was made with thirty-two cannon on shipboard against three hundred, around an enfilading semicircle of casemated forts and strong earthworks, within range of every vessels engaged, from every side.
We have reason to believe that in entering into this unequal contest not a single officer of our squadron entertained a hope of success, but that the enterprise, against the positive information obtained on the spot by our officers, was peremptorily ordered by our supreme military authorities at Washington. The results of the engagement have demonstrated the splendid fighting qualities of our Monitors, and that they might have passed directly up to Charleston, through the fire of all the opposing forts and batteries, but for those obstructions which were stretched across the channel between Forts Sumter and Moultrie; but it is also demonstrated that our ships cannot pass beyond those obstructions until they are removed. We know at length that, with a cheap network of piles, old hulks, scows, chains, &c., across the Narrows and the entrance to the East river, New York may be easily defended against all the iron-clads of Europe; but the price which we pay for this simple lesson in the art of defensive war, taught by other nations centuries ago, is the repulse of our own iron-clads from the entrance to Charleston.
It was generally expected, before this fruitless attack was made, that Admiral Du Pont would be assisted by a co-operating land force, and it was generally believed that for this purpose General Hunter could bring to the work some thirty or forty thousand men. But it appears that his available force was too small, and that to furnish for South Carolina this insufficient army for any aggressive enterprise General Foster was so weakened in North Carolina as to place him in the greatest danger of a disastrous capitulation, which may involve the loss of every foot of soil we have recovered from the rebellion along the shores of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds.
The fleet of Du Pont and the army of Sherman, which went down to Port Royal some eighteen months ago, we believe, were strong enough to take Charleston, limited as were its defences and open as was its channel to the city at that time. But the War Office and old Mr. Welles, of the Navy Department, thought otherwise. Eighteen months have since elapsed, and during all this time our land and naval forces in South Carolina have been only strong enough to keep the rebels actively engaged all the time in every possible way to prepare Charleston against a threatened attack. Thus the purposes of the enemy in that quarter have been better served than they would have been had Secretary Welles, in November, 1861, officially announced to the rebel chiefs at Charleston that he would not be ready to settle with them until about the middle of April in 1863.
But what is the prospect? In every step taken against the enemy since the battle of Antietam we have had some fresh development of the incompetency of the administration to bring this war to a successful issue. Where are all our seven hundred thousand soldiers, when we have an insufficient force in South Carolina, and when we are in danger of being driven out of North Carolina by less than fifty thousand of the enemy? Can any one tell? Or why does General Hooker continue stationary, with finest army on the planet? Or why is General Rosecrans compelled to stand rigidly on the defensive? The answer is very simple. Our repeated and still continuing military blunders, disasters and failures are due to the strange infatuation of President Lincoln in still retaining in authority a set of military advisers who have over and over again been […..] in the balance and found wanting.”
The results are an incompetent administration, an exhausting war, wasteful expenditures of men and means, time and money, with no compensating results. Nor can we promise anything better short of a reconstruction of the Cabinet, or short of the political revolution which is sure to come in our next Presidential election. The choice is with President Lincoln, and upon it depends a glorious renown or a lasting disgrace to his administration.