The War in Virginia—The Prospect a Short and Decisive Campaign.
We are on the verge of the most momentous struggle of the war. Before this article shall have passed into the hands of our readers the chosen battleground of old Virginia, if not precipitately evacuated by the enemy, may be baptised anew in a deluge of blood, and her ancient hills may be shaken as by the throes of an earthquake. We believe that from the smoke of the conflict the flag of the Union will be advanced to the high places of the rebel capital; that the armies which Gen. Grant has summoned around him cannot be successfully resisted; that his plans and combinations are adapted to meet all possible emergencies; that he has the enemy within his powerful grasp; that the campaign will be "short, sharp and decisive," and that the fatal hour to the rebellion is near at hand.
We have not forgotten our disappointments resulting from each of the Virginia campaigns of 1861, '62 and '63. But all those reverses may be traced to that one grand mistake of scattering instead of concentrating our forces, and if the dearly purchased victories of our Potomac Army have been without substantial fruits, it has been in consequence of wasting delays in following up the enemy. This was the Austrian system of warfare against the little Corsican. The opposite or Napoleonic system of concentration and activity, which has reclaimed an Empire in the
1. Major C. Von Hermann. 2. First Lieut. Charles E. Sargent. 3. Col. James Grant Wilson. 4. Col. Horace B. Sargent. 5. Lieut.-Col. William S. Abert. 6. Col. E. G. Beckwith. 7. Brig.-Gen. Charles P. Stone. 8. Col. John S. Clark. 9. Major-Gen. N. P. Banks. 10. Col. S. B. Holabird. 11. Brig.-Gen. Richard Arnold. 12. Captain J. S. Crosby. 13. Brig.-Gen. A. S. Lee. 14. Capt. Wm. B. Roe. 15. Lieut.-Col. George W. Stipp. 16. Major G. Norman Lieber. 17. Major R. H. Alexander. 18. Captain Charles L. Bulkley.
Major-General Banks and Staff.—From a photograph by E. Jacobs, New Orleans.—See page 119.
