THE AE MY OF THE POTOMAC. 26 had known, better than anybody else, the real strength of the rebels at Manassas and Centreville. He was perfectly familiar with the existence of the ‘’wooden cannon” by which it has been pretended that he was kept in awe for six monBs. Hut he also knew that till the month of April the roads of Virginia are in such a state that wagons and artillery can only be moved over them by constructing phmk roads, a tedious operation. during which the enemy, holding the railways, could either retreat, as lie was then actually doing, or move for a blow upon some other point. In any event, had McClellan attacked and carried Centreville, pursuit was impossible and victory would have been barren of results. A single bridge burned would have saved Johnston’s whole army. Such are the vast advantages of a railway for a retreating army—advantages which do not exist for the army which pursues it. We have the right, we think, to sav that McClellan never in tended to advance upon Centreville. His long determined pu pose wa» to make V ashington safe by means of a strong garrison, and then to use the great navigable waters and immense naval resources of the North to transport the army by sea to a point near Richmond. For weeks, perhaps for months, this plan had been secretly maturing. Secresy as well as promptness, it will be understood, was indispensable here to success. To keep the secret it had been necessary to confide it to few per sons, ami hence had arisen one great cause for jealousy of the < lemwl. He this as it may, as the day of action drew near, those who siopectcd the General's project, and were angry at not being inlormod of it; those whom his promotion had excited to envy ; liis political enemies ; (who is without them in .America 0 in short all those beneath or beside him who wished him ill, broke mil into a chorus of accusations of slowness, inaction, incapacity. .McClellan, with a patriotic courage which I havt
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