| From the Vicksburg Whig |
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| March 27, 1863 |
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| From every quarter where our armies are
massed, from Vicksburg, Tullahoma, Charleston and Fredericksburg, we
have the most gratifying accounts of the condition of our troops and
their certain ability to cope with any force that the enemy may hurl
against them. The only point upon which there is room for apprehension
is that our forces may be forced by want of food for men and horses to
abandon the strongholds from which the enemy could never dislodge
them. And that this is a grave and pressing danger we have many
reasons for believing. It is a fact, as well known to the enemy as to
ourselves, that all the country in the vicinity of our Armies, has
long been striped of its provisions and forage, and that those Armies
depend for there subsistence and the maintenance of their present
positions upon the Rail Roads. These being acts which, none we think
will venture to gainsay, it behooves the Government to keep posted as
to the condition of these Rail Roads and provide that they be kept in
a state of the highest efficiency. It is useless to pass laws putting
men into the Army and returning them to it when they run away, if
measures are not put, the same time taken to support the Army when it
is gotten together. The Government should not be content even to keep
the Rail Roads in the condition in which the War found them. It should
endeavor, and the effort would be necessary to improve upon that
condition. The better the Rail Roads the better supplied would our
armies be and consequently the more certain in the resistance to the
extraordinary efforts for our subjugation which the Enemy proposes to
make during the coming campaign. The Rail Roads of this State are on
the point of giving out. They have decreased their speed to Ten Miles
per hour as a maximum rate, and are carrying Twenty and Fifty percent
less tonnage than formerly. This change in their rate of speed and
quantity of freight has been made through necessity. The woodwork of
the roads has rotted and the machinery has worn out, and owing to the
stringent enforcement of the Conscription Law even to Rail Road
Employees, the Companies have not been able, with all their
efforts, to supply neither the One nor the other. We are not informed
of the actual condition of the rail Roads in the more Southern States,
but conceive that they are little better off than our own, except
perhaps in the matter of Negro Labor. The slaves along their routes
may not have had the same facilities for escaping to the enemy as in
this State. We have ventured to call attention to this subject because
of its vital importance, and from ask knowledge that, owing to the
great measure of finance, impressments, &c., now weighing upon the
Government, it has been overlooked. It is not necessary for Government
to take possession of the Rail Roads. But it should supply them
abundantly with the necessary labor and iron, and then insist on their
being kept in first rate order and being worked efficiently. To this
end Government should appoint an Inspector of Rail Roads. Rail Roads
are a part, and an indispensable part, of our military system, and if
they are allowed to fall to ruin from any cause, Government and people
may prepare for the retreat of our armies, and the surrender of much
of the valuable country now in our possession. |
| Richmond Examiner |
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