October 7, 1862, The New York Herald
President Lincoln’s late visit to the army of General McClellan is an incident the importance of which, we are entirely confident, will soon be made manifest in the grandest military movements and Union victories. It was neither holiday recreation nor idle curiosity that took the President on this excursion, but the all-absorbing business of this war. His mission was to see for himself the condition and strength of McClellan’s army, and its efficiency for the immediate resumption of active operations. Having satisfied himself upon these points, and having freely instructed General McClellan in regard to the new campaign about to be inaugurated, and the part therein which he is expected to perform, the President has returned to the White House, and General McClellan will promptly proceed to execute the important task assigned him.
With his army reinvigorated by this late interval of pleasant weather and much needed rest, and immensely strengthened by reinforcements, and amply supplied with subsistence and munitions of war, General McClellan may be expected at any moment to advance upon the enemy. We may safely promise, too, that if, with his hastily collected, severely taxed, rapidly marched and much inferior forces in point of numbers, he was still able to beat, to put to flight and drive out of Maryland the vast and insolent rebel army of General Lee, the remains of that army will soon be driven from the Shenandoah valley, from the country east of the Blue Ridge, from Richmond and out of Virginia into the woods of North Carolina. We have absolute confidence in these results; for while the army of Lee, defeated, cut up, demoralized, in rags and upon half rations, is much weaker now in every respect than it was when it entered Maryland, the army of General McClellan, in every way, is immensely stronger than it was at Antietam. From Manassas across to Winchester the rebel recruiting sergeants have been scouring the country and running down their conscripts like rabbits and foxes; but these reinforcements will not save the army of Lee. It will surely be beaten, captured, dispersed or driven out of Virginia.
At the same time the army of General Buell, in Kentucky, is encompassing that of the redoubtable Bragg; and, looking simply at the question of numbers, there can be no question of the result. The rebels will be expelled from Kentucky, and they must consider well their line of retreat, or in their flight they will be intercepted by the victorious army of General Grant. Nor have we any doubt that Hindman, Rains and Company, who are threatening to march upon St. Louis with a rebel column of forty thousand men, will be driven out of Missouri and Arkansas before Christmas. In a word, so complete and so overwhelming are the Union armies which are now moving against the rebels from the Potomac to the west side of the Mississippi, that we may expect this rebellion to be crushed and the war virtually ended before the expiration of the present year.
Such are doubtless the hopes and calculations of President Lincoln. He has every reason to expect that within sixty days the armed forces of the rebellion will be swept from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and that then the cotton States, with our victorious armies entering their northern counties, and with our iron-clad gunboats invading them from the seaboard, will make a virtue of necessity, and surrender to the Union to escape the perils of a sweeping emancipation of their slaves. This is the end desired and contemplated by President Lincoln’s late proclamation the salvation of our revolted States, and not their destruction the restoration of the Union, and not the bloody overthrow of Southern slavery.
Our vindictive and remorseless abolition disorganizers have their fears, too, that this war may be pushed so far that the cotton States, to save their local institutions, may submit and be restored to the Union, and that thus the emancipation proclamation, having served its purpose as a military act, may become a dead letter before the time appointed for its enforcement. Under these apprehensions, our abolition leaders, managers and organs have been lately doing their utmost to displace our principal generals and to create dissensions between them. But they have failed not only in regard to General Buell, but in all their devices against General McClellan and General Halleck. Each of these officers stands today higher in the confidence of the President than ever heretofore, and all are working in perfect accord with each other.
Best of all, having discovered from experience that the discordant Presidential elements and cliques identified with his present Cabinet are not to be trusted, President Lincoln himself is now the administration. He judges for himself, acts upon his own counsels, and is conducting the war in every department as a unit, and with the great end in view of saving our rebellious States by speedily convincing them of the ruinous consequences of further resistance. Thus, sustaining the steadfast patriotism, consistency and sound discretion of President Lincoln, we predict that the 1st of January, so far from inaugurating an abolition crusade, will proclaim the suspension of that military measure of last resort, in view of the substantial suppression of the rebellion.