| From the Southern Banner (Athens,
Ga.) |
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| April 24, 1863 |
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| The War a Failure -- Plans for Future
Success |
| Senator Wade, from the joint
committee of the two Houses of Congress, consisting of three members
of the Senate and four members of the House of Representatives,
appointed in December, 1861, with instructions to inquire into the
conduct of the present war, has presented a report with the testimony
taken. The committee came to the conclusion that during last spring,
summer and winter, the "Union" armies did literally nothing,
and wind up their report with the following work which remains to be
done: |
| We now see clearly what we
have to do. We must obtain uninterrupted control of the Mississippi.
We must reach those great railroad arteries the one bordering on the
Atlantic seaboard {the Wilmington & Weldon
RR}, the other stretching through the Virginia and Tennessee
valleys to the West and South {Virginia &
Tennessee, East Tennessee & Virginia, and East Tennessee &
Georgia RRs}. We must, as soon as possible, take the few
fortified seaports remaining in possession of the rebels; and then we
shall have virtually disarmed the rebellion, cut it off from all
external sources of food and arms, and have surrounded it by forces
which can press upon it from any quarter, at the same time severing
into isolated portions the rebel territory and destroying their means
of intercommunication, by which alone they have hitherto been enabled
to meet us in force wherever we have presented ourselves, and by which
alone they have been able to feed and supply their armies. |
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