June 15, 1863, The New York Herald
The indications that an offensive campaign has not only been resolved upon, but has actually been commenced, by General Lee, similar to that of last years, are so numerous, consistent and conclusive, in our judgment, as to leave no margin for the slightest doubt upon the subject.
The movements of the enemy around Culpeper Court House, which were supposed, on our side, a week ago, to be only the preparations for a grand cavalry raid by Stuart, it now appears were movements involving the whole rebel army. This is pretty broadly indicated in General Lee’s despatch relating to the recent cavalry fight, which shows that on June 9 his headquarters were at Culpepper. But the despatch of June 13, from Mr. Cook, one of our correspondents with the army of General Hooker, settles the question. He says that movements of General Lee in the direction of Culpepper have been on a larger and a more expeditious scale than was at first supposed, and embrace nearly the entire forces of his army, there now remaining opposite Falmouth a force not exceeding ten thousand men. From other despatches it appears that Lee has been heavily reinforced from the neighborhood of Suffolk, and from North and South Carolina. He is thus prepared for offensive operations; and what these operations will be we think may be readily conjectured from certain other facts betraying his preliminary reconnoissances.
Our Harper’s Ferry correspondent reports that at the time of Mosby’s late raid into Maryland from Edwards’ Ferry a powerful body of rebel infantry was not far behind him on the Virginia shore. It is thus evident that Mossy was thrown forward as a feeler. Next, it appears that General Milroy, at Winchester, has wind of an approaching heavy column of the enemy, and is fearful of being cut off; and next, at Middletown, some twelve or thirteen miles higher up the Shenandoah valley, there was, on Friday last, a skirmish between an outlying detachment of Union troops and a squad of four hundred rebel cavalry. All these movements indicate the repetition of General Lee’s Northern campaign of last summer, including the clearing out of the Shenandoah valley, the surprise and capture of Harper’s Ferry, and the invasion of Maryland by way of the Potomac fords, near Poolesville, and this time, in all probability, a desperate effort to get into Washington by the back door.
These are our opinions from the suggestive facts referred to; but it would also appear – which we are glad to believe – that they are the opinions of the War Office. It is reported that the bulk of the supplies of the Army of the Potomac have been removed from Aquia creek to Alexandria; that General Hooker is gradually withdrawing his lines from his old position, and that, whatever direction Lee may take, he will find himself confronted by the Army of the Potomac. There will be no excuse, at all events, to the chiefs of the War Office for another blundering Virginia campaign like that of last summer, with all the instructive misfortunes of that campaign before them. The present situation of the opposing armies, as compared with their situation in last year’s campaign from Culpepper to Centreville gives us many important advantages. Last August, while Pope for two or three weeks was compelled, with some forty thousand men, to resist the pressure of a rebel army of eighty thousand or more, the War Office had troops at Fredericksburg, Alexandria, Washington and thereabouts, which, if promptly thrown forward, would have been sufficient to defeat and disperse the rebel army at Manassas, and follow its fugitive fragments into Richmond. But, between Pope and McClellan and the advancing and victorious rebel army, the chiefs of the War Office were thrown into such a state of consternation and embarrassment as to make confusion in everything they did only worse confounded, until the President came to the rescue, and saved Washington, by putting McClellan at the head of all the troops of all the Union armies around the city.
We have now a concentrated army in front of the enemy, under “Fighting Joe Hooker;” and he, as well as the War Office, knows, or ought to know, from Gen. Lee’s campaign of last summer, how to baffle him in his present designs of repeating the same operations over the same ground. The general condition of the rebellion is exceedingly desperate; and Lee is imperatively called upon to attempt this desperate enterprise of another campaign against Washington, in the hope of turning the tide once more against us. He knows that if he should continue to stand still he is lost; and from his late trial of strategy with General Hooker, and from the reduction of the Union army by the losses of the regiments of our returning volunteers, and from the reinforcements brought forward to his own army, General Lee doubtless has strong hope of recovering, in a single decisive blow in the East, all that has been lost and all that is in danger of being lost to the rebellion in the West.
We have no doubt that within a very few days we shall have intelligence of events in Virginia of commanding importance, and we hope that this time General Hooker and the War Office will be found equal in activity and sagacity to the movements and the strategy of the skilful and daring commander of the rebel army. Our Army of the Potomac is ready to do its duty, and able thoroughly to chastise the presumptuous enemy. Let General Hooker and the War Office do their duty, and the advance of Lee’s army will only precipitate the general collapse of the rebellion.