The "Rebellion" not to be Crushed by "Mere Weight."
--The New York
Herald, in an article on the new calls of
Lincoln for troops, says:
‘
We ought to crush the
Confederacy by mere weight.
But it is not the first time that our armies have doubled those of the enemy in force, and we have seen that it is futile to place a blind reliance on numbers.
Seven hundred thousand men in six armies, operating on different lines, at different times, will be wasted in detail against two hundred thousand concentrated under an active General.
Every great war shows this over and over again, and, above all, our own war shows it. It is as simple as that two and two make four; yet it is from a neglect of this very simple principle that we have hitherto failed to destroy the rebel armies.
Organization is necessary, men are necessary, and material is necessary; but concentration and concerted action are more necessary than all. Enough men have been assembled at
Washington city, under the orders of the
President, to have gone to
Richmond over every armed man in the
Confederacy; but instead of concentrating there a sufficient force for the purpose, that great strength has been dissipated in useless efforts all along the
Atlantic coast.
We have had
Hatteras expeditions and Big Bethel,
Roanoke Island and
Florida campaigns;
Port Royal has been taken, and
Fort Pulaski, and there have been sieges of
Charleston, and all to no purpose, except to murder men; and all this effort, with the effort wasted in the Shenandoah valley, added to even the very worst of our advances against
Richmond, must have taken that city.
All the effort made in the
East has failed for want of concentration.
’
