| From the Richmond Dispatch |
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| January 4, 1862 |
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| A Forewarning |
| We are constrained, by an
oppressive sense of the public danger, to second the appeal of a
correspondent from the county of Monroe, in Western Virginia, whose
letter we published yesterday, calling upon the Government for some
adequate protection to that country. The protracted good weather has,
in a great measure, restored the roads in Western Virginia, which,
under the unexampled rains of the summer and fall, were five weeks ago
impassable. Instead of the winter deepening these roads, and rendering
them worse and worse, it has hardened and dried them up; and now there
is a well graded and excellent turnpike road from Fayette Court-House,
where the enemy have two or three battalions of troops, to the line of
the Virginia & Tennessee railroad, not a hundred miles distant. |
| The sequel will soon prove
that the val of the army of the Kanawha to Kentucky was entirely
unnecessary, and that the panic into which the Government fell for the
safety of Gen. Sydney Johnston was wholly without ground. It will
prove that much more good could have been effected by menacing
Cincinnati from Western Virginia through Eastern Kentucky, than by
massing our whole force for mere defence before Bowling Green. True
military genius would have seen a much more effectual mode of
paralyzing the enemy's movements upon Bowling Green, than stripping
Western Virginia of its defence, and leaving our cause there to go to
the dogs. A strong force at Peterstown, sending out detachments into
the valleys of the Kanawha, the Guyandotte, and the Sandy, would, in
co-operation with the movements of Marshall and Zollicoffer, have
given infinitely more aid to Gen. Johnston, while at the same time
protecting one-fourth of Virginia now left at the mercy of the enemy,
than this reckless and soon to prove disastrous measure of stripping
Western Virginia of its own troops. |
| The Government will be
surprised some fine morning very soon by the news of the burning of
the New River bridge, and the blowing up of the Alleghany tunnel, on
the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad, by a force of cavalry and
mounted men dashing up along an unobstructed road from Fayetteville.
Then the value of this great line of road will be known for the first
time by men who take a suggestion now of its great importance in
dudgeon. Then the cry of the whole population of the Atlantic slope
for salt will be loud indeed; and then we shall have all the
inconveniences of inadequate railroad transportation
in very earnest. |
| It almost fills an earnest man
with despair to have to explain the urgency of protecting so important
a line of railway and so valuable a country as we are speaking of to
unwilling and unheeding ears. It fills a whole community with misery
to have to await the actual happening of disaster and destruction
before measures of precaution and protection can be secured. |
| The blow upon the Virginia
& Tennessee Railroad will come. The damage inflicted will be
heavy, and require many months for reparation. The most important
months of spring for freights and transportation,
for army movements and reorganization, will find the road blockaded
and upturn. It is melancholy enough to reflect that a large portion of
Western Virginia, watered by the Kanawha, the Guyandotte, and the
Sandy rivers, which would ere this have been under our sway if our
army had not been sent off to Kentucky, is under the iron heel of the
enemy; it is sad to believe that a still larger portion, lying
contiguous, is at the enemy's mercy, and that the most important
railway line in the Confederacy will soon be broken by his roving,
unresisted troops. When these further disasters shall occur, we shall
at least have this consolation, that we sounded the timely warning.
The more presence of a regiment at Central Depot, commanded by an
enterprising Colonel, would prevent a mischief which may cost millions
in a single night. |
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