Newspaper Comments.
From an editorial in the New York
Times, of the 12th instant, in relation to the recent
battle at Cedar Mountain, we extract the following:
‘
The rebels, most certainly have nothing to beast of in this engagement.
Neither, however, has
Gen. Pope.
He knew at least two days before the battle that the rebels were marching to attack him; he knew that they had a very numerous force, and that it was under command of
Stonewall Jackson, whose penchant for surprises and sudden movements is well enough known; he knew that
Gordonsville and the line of the
Rapidan would inevitably be contested to the last by the rebels.
On Friday morning our pickets were driven across and beyond the river, and on the same day the rebel column passed over, and took up a strong position some five miles to the north, on the slope of a wooded mountain.
Nothing, one would imagine, could be clearer than that they intended to give battle, and nothing could be less likely than that they would throw a feeble force on a position strong in itself, but, if inadequately defended, hazardous in the extreme to their whole army.
And yet it seems that
Gen. Pope sent forward less than one-quarter of the forces under his immediate command and ready to his hand to give them battle.
The enemy, according to an authorized telegram from
Washington, had in the battle a force of 20,000 men, while "our own, exclusive of cavalry and artillery, did not exceed 7,000." Seven, or eight, or ten thousand men were thus dispatched against an enemy numbering 20,000, strongly posted and hidden behind woods, and well supported by artillery!
At 7½ o'clock in the evening, after the unequal struggle had been raging for nearly five hours, and after the battle was substantially over,
Gen. Pope, --accompanied by
McDowell and a part of his corps," arrived on the field from
Culpeper, some six miles to the north of the battle ground, and where if previous authorized telegrams were true, they had been stationed for several days.
It adds to the already well-earned fame of
Gen. Banks as a brave soldier and an accomplished strategist, that he was able to maintain his ground for such a length of time against such odds; but it cannot add to
Pope's repute that, in his first field essay in
Virginia, he should have failed so to concentrate his troops at the point of danger and bring them up to time, as to imperil the safety of one of the finest corps of his army.
If the rebels could quickly throw 20,000 men from
Gordonsville to the
Rapidan, and from thence forward to
Cedar Mountain, while we were forewarned both of their purpose and movement, it was surely possible for
Pope to throw forward to meet them at least with a half of the twice twenty thousand men under his command, which has been represented as so located that the different columns could be easily concentrated at the shortest notice.
We suppose that reasons for the failure to do this will be as plenty as they have been for the hundred previous mishaps of the same kind.
But it will require more convincing arguments in this case than on previous occasions; for the facts as recited, taken in connexion with previous statements, make it appear the most unaccountable failure we have yet known.
And the fact will stand, that while
Pope had a force twice as great as that credited to the rebels, he brought on an engagement with them with a force not half as large as theirs, and less than a quarter of that of his command.
As already said, we have had this kind of strategy too often already.
We thought that under the new military
regime we had got quite through with it — that we were to hear of no more surprises; no battles voluntarily begun by us in which the rebels had two to our one; and that no more apologies were to be needed.
The country has anticipated so much from
Gen Pope that its disappointment will be proportionate to previous expectations.
Success in the field is the soldier's only little to public applause and confidence.
’
