April 2, 1863, The New York Herald
Gold went up yesterday in Wall street to fifty-eight per cent premium. The fact may be embarrassing to Mr. Chase; but it hardly needs an explanation. The […..] expectations” of the country some weeks ago of substantial victories close at hand over the armed forces of the rebellion have come to nothing. The operations against Vicksburg and Port Hudson thus far have resulted only in failures, losses and disappointments. Our land and naval forces assigned to the work of reducing Charleston and Savannah appear to be waiting for […..] to turn up” in their favor in some other quarter, and General Hooker still remains fast in the mud on the Rappahannock.
East and West our fleets and armies remain stationary, or are baffled in all their aggressive movements. We are supposed to have an army of seven hundred thousand men in the field, and from four to five hundred vessels of war of all sorts. How are these tremendous forces bestowed? For, while it appears that the army of Gen. Banks may be too weak to make a deliberate assault upon the rear of Port Hudson, and while General Grant, in the absence of an overwhelming pressure of troops, is compelled to resort to all sorts of tedious experiments of strategy against Vicksburg, it also appears that General Rosecrans, so far from being able to advance, is really in some danger from the possibility of an attack by a rebel army vastly superior in numbers to his own. We infer that President Lincoln is satisfied that in the aggregate he has soldiers enough, from the fact that he has not taken a single step to strengthen his armies through the Conscription act; but still the unsatisfactory reports from the South of the last few days are beginning to create the impression in the public mind that the campaign of this spring and summer will fall lamentably short of the promises of the government and the late reasonable expectations of the country.
We were amused for some time with the idea that the rebels were about to evacuate Vicksburg; but that conjecture is at length set at rest. Next we are told that it is the opinion of General Dix, at Fortress Monroe, that the rebels at Richmond are actually engaged in the preliminary business which indicates their evacuation of their confederate capital. Deserters from the rebel army are reported as bringing some positive intelligence to this effect. General Hooker, however, it is said, has no faith in these wonderful reports; and he is in a position to know whether there is or is not a rebel army of some magnitude on the opposite hills of the Rappahannock. The simple truth is that Richmond, in the East, and Vicksburg and Port Hudson, in the West, are the most important of the strongholds of the rebellion, and that they will not be evacuated without a stubborn resistance.
Had General McClellan last fall been allowed to remain even a week longer at the head of the Army of the Potomac he would, in all probability, have cleared the way to Richmond; for while he was close upon the rear of Lee, on the eastern flank of the Blue Ridge, he had Jackson on the western side cut off, with the occupation by our troops of the mountain passes through which only he could come to the timely support of Lee. That golden opportunity, however, having been lost, it may be useless to dwell upon it. We are called upon to deal with the matter as it now stands. Why, then, does not General Hooker advance? We remember the outcry that was raised last spring against the inactivity of McClellan. What are the causes, then, which still detain General Hooker on the Rappahannock, when he boasts himself that he has finest army on the […..] planet?” We think it likely that he is detained by the superior powers at Washington, and they are pursuing a military policy which it is vain for ordinary mortals to attempt to comprehend.
We cannot, however, discard the suspicion that the ruling powers of the Cabinet have been devoting too much of their attention of late to the petty spring elections of Rhode Island and Connecticut, and too little to the active business of the war, for the accomplishment of any important results. But as little Rhode Island has at length disposed of her election difficulty, and as Connecticut will shortly do so, may we not hope that an active prosecution of the war, including a Monitor or two in the Mississippi river, will then be undertaken? We would respectfully ask of President Lincoln himself, is not this a reasonable demand?