St. Croix Avis (Christiansted, St. Croix [V.I.]) 1844-Current
January 24, 1865
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From the Spectator, December 31. THE RESULTS OF GENERAL SHERMAN’S SUCCESS. Wednesday and Thursday, the 14th and 15th December, were eventful days in the great war on the other side of the Atlantic. On the former day Ge.eral Sherman’s greatanabasis, which the Times has at last ceased to call a retreat, ended in his gaining the sea coast of Georgia, and restoring his communications with his own Government by storming [Fort McAllister at the mouth of the Ogeeche; on the latter day the mere remnant which he left of his “fugitive” army un der Geeneral Thomas to defend East 'l'en nessee, after amusing the gallant General Hood for a month with dim hopes of the capture of Nashville and its vast stores, and the consequent reconquest of all Tennessee and command of the Cumber land River, issued from his lines at Nash ville, and, in a battle lasting two days, completely defeated the foe from whom Grencral Sherman is supposed by some to have fled. The two events are nearly simultaneous, and doubtless not without design. On the 12th the Federal admi ral at Beaufort received news of the ar rival of Sherman’s army in excellent health and spirits within a few wiles of Savannah. On the 15th the intelligence had doubtless reached Nashville by tele graph, and General Thomas knew that the motive for detaining General Hood’s whole army in the west till General Sherman’s march should be beyond the reach of injury from that quarter no longer existed, and that he might ven ture an ergagement. The cousequence will be that if the defeat of the Confede rates before Nashville really amounts to rout, as is reported, their army of the west will have been disposed of by the smaller part of the Federal army of the west, while its main body, under the most Dbrilliant of the Federal Generals, transferred to the Atlantic coast, will form a second great army of the east ready to co-operate closely with the plans of the Commander-in Chiet by con ducting a winter campaign in States where a winter campaign is quite feasi ble,—a campaign which must tell fear fully on the results of the next spring campaign in Virginia. General Sherman with his base on the sea coast will soon be in a position to commence a north ward march on the railway system unit ing Richmond with Auwgusta, of a much less difficalt character than that which carried him during the spring of this year from Chattanooga to Atlanta. And should he succeed, the effect will proba bly be to crush the gallant Virginian army of General Lee out of the interven ing States between the army of the Poto mac and the army of Georgia,—the ujp- Fer and lower jaw of the military double ever. Anguste, too, is the military workshop of the Confederacy, and the Confederate Government will probably thisk it aimost as necessary to defend it as to defend Richmond. We should ex pect, then, to hear that all the remains of General Hood’s army would be sum moned to garrison and defend Augusta, so that Teonnessee will be probably set freo from any invasion more formidable than that of cavalry raids. Thus the “escape’ of Genera{ Sherman from At lanta will probably, as the Times remark ed, be ‘the turning-point’ of the war. But this ‘‘turning-point” will consist in providing the North with a double instead of single military lever for cracking that hard put the Richmond army of General $S$Te. CROLE AV S. Lee, and yet leaving the fortunes of the Union in the west brighter than they have ever been before. With the Sa vannah River opened to the Federal navy, asit now must be whether Savan nah itself was taken or not when the last mail left; with a formidable Federal army, under the most brilliant of their Generals, acting in this new quarter in concert with the gunboats which have always achieved so much for the North ern cause with a disaster so terrible in Tennessee, whete the Counfederates were hoping to retrieve the loss of Atlunta; with a new naval and military expedition aunder Admiral Porter acd Geueral But ler despatched to some new point in the Coufederacy, probably Wilmington, the sole remainig port for the blockade-run ners; with Richmond closely pressed throughout the winter, and a prospect of double pressure, even if 1t stiil holds out, before another harvest,—it is probable enough that the decp gloom which over spread the Confedersey after the fall of Atlanta will return 1u double iutensity, and that the Coufederate Government may have to deal thronghout the coming winter not only with formidable enemies, but still more formidable supporters. All Mr. Davis’s predictions have becn tern bly falsified. General Sherman, ivstead of giving to the world “a new cdition of the disastrous retreat form Moscow,” hus marched quite unopposed ov-r 350 miles of a hostile State to commence a new and more menacing campaign. Ge neral Hood, instead of recovering Ten nes<ee and Kentucky, has been out manceuvred and erushed by a foe he des pised. The Greorgian campaign of the Confederacy has ended as fatally for it as the Vicksburg campaign. In both cases Mr. Davis wus careful beforchand to explain the momentous character of the issne; in both cases his own sapport ers will be apt to let his words, while he stiil hoped tor success, far outweigh the words in which he trivs to depreciate the significance of fuilure. It is probable, we think, that the coming winter will test the mettle of the Southern people’s resistance as it has never been tested yet. On the mind of the North the effect of these great events can scareely be less powerful. Perhaps the most striking tmmediate cffect will be a new confidence, not ouly iu the ability of those Generals whom, after painful sifiing, the war has at length brought to the top, but tatheir ability to cope with the particulur form of difficulty most overpowering to the imagination—the vast spaces over which their strategic combinations mnst extend. General Grant and General Sherman have hoth shown their power not only to mauceuvre, but to operate on a plan of unprecedented magnitude—to kuit to gether the effect of operations hundreds of miles apart, to make victories in Ten nessee tell immediately on the campuizn in Mississippi, victorics n Mis-issipni re-act a:::l;.n on the e 5;3;*» in Ten uessee, and a successful occupation of the north-east of Georga the siipping-. stone to a more honetu!l invision of Virginia. General Graut and General Sherman have both shown that mere space is not so much against them as every one believed,—that they are not limited to pricking a few isolated holes, as it were, in different parts of the Con federacy, but that they can build wp their successes even when divided by the great est breadths of country. The North will not forget that General Grant was no sooner aegointed_ to the command of the army of Tennessee after the disaster at Cheikamauga than within a month he turned the tables on his opponent by the help of the great army and able lieute nant who had won Vieksburg under his direections. Gooeral Sherman’s march from Vicksburg to Chattanooga was, as we showed at the time, one of those brilliant operations from which even ex perienced generals are apt to shrink, aod which in the hands of inferior generals become great disasters. ‘The failure of Sherman’s great expedition into Alaba ma, which fuiled, though without disas< ter, only from the failure of the support ing cavalry not then under his command, was an exception which strengthened the evidence of Lis ability for such opera tions. ‘l'he march to Atlanta was not an operation of this kind. It was a regular and most difficult campaign, but of course one without which the recent expedition would have been Impossible. From Vicksburg to Savannah General Sher man’s career has proved his own and Ge neral Grant’s great capacity for koitting together the most distant successes into one great result more important than all of them taken together, boecause it shows the magnitude of their military concep tions and the practical coherence of their plans. And what is more, the ederal Gene rals find the vastness of the spaces over which they are compelled to pass in making the various campaigns fit into cach other a source of strength as well as of weakuess. This last fact is due no aoubt to the root of the whole matter— the slavery which is the Sonthern crime aud weakuess. Were the South a homo geuneous population of white men, the armies thut might penetrate it would pierce the various States only at the cost of dwindiing visibly with every day’s march. As it is, the invading army is a sponge which sucks up strergth and aid o~ it proceeds General Sherman has reached the coast, we are told, with a lar ger army than with that which he started from Atlanta. The great march has not been a loss, but a gain. This, however, is uot due to any generalship, but to the cause in which the Northis fighting, They have their reward in a much more eff cuive and satisfactory shape than any slave insurrection could have given them. As a general result the North will doubtless feel deeply the encouragement of this great success —and venture 1o in fer from 1t that the disasters of mero military capacity are substantially nassed, and that 10 each fresh campaign they may look fur greater and greater results from the genius of their leaders and theic people’s natural preponderanee in strength. General Lee is now the only Southern commander who can be regard ed as the equ.l of Generals Grant, Sher man, Sheridan, and Thomas; it has been seen that the free States produee a great er crop cven of military ¢ipacity, though they toucd it far more difficult to detect on the spur of the moment, than the Slave States,~that the greatest weight of intellect accompanies the greatest wrigiit of material resources,—that the tendency of every successive eampaign is to increase still more the chances of the North,—that it only needs indomita ble perseverance to succeed in the end. From the London Times, Janzary 2, 1865.) Qur St. Lucia correspondent writes as follows on the 12th of December “Ever since the date of my last letter we have scarcely had a dry day; at times the rain was very heavy. The prospects
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