A 10 page ALS to Genl. GT Beauregard - I will add a full transcript asap when I correct all my typos (See my next post below)
transcript in part plus image of last page:
Room 38, No 52 Wall Street, February 1877
My Dear General,
Yesterday I gave to Marria a brief of the points which I thought would be of use to you in preparing that paper for the Philadelphia Times. It was not to Soule that you wrote your letter proposing the Western Campaign just after Chancellorsville (inserted blue crayon note by GTB, "2nd & 3rd May 1863"). The plan sent to Soule was written much later, and that plan is published in the Rebellion Record. It was pitched to the same time indeed. Concentration of our masses & by means of no railway interior lines upon exposed fragments of our Enemy - and in opposition to movements like that of Gettysburg. The letter in question, I am entirely satisfied was sent to Porcher Miles, by him thence to Genl Howell Cobb, and others - doubtless Wigfall - Cobb it was that brought it to the attention of Davis, and urged its adoption. I have an assured recollection of hearing you and Miles answer, and his statement of Cobb's participation.
That you made the proposition substantially as I state it is brief is certain and you can confidently write to that effect in the paper Sheridan and myself propose that you shortly write as a matter of interest of history! If Davis or any friend should deny that such a plan was ever submitted - very well, the reply can be made. The plan was so patent, in view of the military situation at the time; that it ought to have occurred to those charged with the public defense, without outsider suggestion! For nothing could be clearer than the utter disability of Hooker, after the battle of Chancellorsville, to make any offensive movement for 60 days at least against Richmond, and the safety with which the Veterans of Lees' army could (in material part) be thrown elsewhere, to cooperate in crushing ... against such exposed federal fragments as that of Rosecrans, or that also of Grant then opening the extraordinary campaign from Port Gibson through Mississippi to the north of Vicksburg. Not to have seen and taken advantage of the plain opportunity then opened, and to go off on such an operation as that which ended in the mortal wounding of the Confederacy at Gettysburg was the climax of Military blindness - What I say about the statements of the Northern Newspapers at the time, you can rely on & confidently assert in your paper! You must remember how carefully I used to search those papers for items concerning the federal forces - and keep you informed upon those points - They also spoke in the most significant terms of the terrible demoralization of Hookers Army after the battle - through correspondence even in papers which at same time in the same column or paper per chance, would claim, as Hooker does, that, after all, his battalion had much fewer disaster to the Federals.
last line of letter reads: "If men will but act together they can clothe these people in fast clinging garments of infamy"
GTB initialed note in crayon on final page "relative to my plan of Campaigns for the West - GTB / For May 1863"
transcript in part plus image of last page:
Room 38, No 52 Wall Street, February 1877
My Dear General,
Yesterday I gave to Marria a brief of the points which I thought would be of use to you in preparing that paper for the Philadelphia Times. It was not to Soule that you wrote your letter proposing the Western Campaign just after Chancellorsville (inserted blue crayon note by GTB, "2nd & 3rd May 1863"). The plan sent to Soule was written much later, and that plan is published in the Rebellion Record. It was pitched to the same time indeed. Concentration of our masses & by means of no railway interior lines upon exposed fragments of our Enemy - and in opposition to movements like that of Gettysburg. The letter in question, I am entirely satisfied was sent to Porcher Miles, by him thence to Genl Howell Cobb, and others - doubtless Wigfall - Cobb it was that brought it to the attention of Davis, and urged its adoption. I have an assured recollection of hearing you and Miles answer, and his statement of Cobb's participation.
That you made the proposition substantially as I state it is brief is certain and you can confidently write to that effect in the paper Sheridan and myself propose that you shortly write as a matter of interest of history! If Davis or any friend should deny that such a plan was ever submitted - very well, the reply can be made. The plan was so patent, in view of the military situation at the time; that it ought to have occurred to those charged with the public defense, without outsider suggestion! For nothing could be clearer than the utter disability of Hooker, after the battle of Chancellorsville, to make any offensive movement for 60 days at least against Richmond, and the safety with which the Veterans of Lees' army could (in material part) be thrown elsewhere, to cooperate in crushing ... against such exposed federal fragments as that of Rosecrans, or that also of Grant then opening the extraordinary campaign from Port Gibson through Mississippi to the north of Vicksburg. Not to have seen and taken advantage of the plain opportunity then opened, and to go off on such an operation as that which ended in the mortal wounding of the Confederacy at Gettysburg was the climax of Military blindness - What I say about the statements of the Northern Newspapers at the time, you can rely on & confidently assert in your paper! You must remember how carefully I used to search those papers for items concerning the federal forces - and keep you informed upon those points - They also spoke in the most significant terms of the terrible demoralization of Hookers Army after the battle - through correspondence even in papers which at same time in the same column or paper per chance, would claim, as Hooker does, that, after all, his battalion had much fewer disaster to the Federals.
last line of letter reads: "If men will but act together they can clothe these people in fast clinging garments of infamy"
GTB initialed note in crayon on final page "relative to my plan of Campaigns for the West - GTB / For May 1863"
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