tage of coming to us, we never can when we
bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth,
and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. In coming to us
he tenders us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so
operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere or fail
finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If we
cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within
the entrenchments of Richmond.

[And, indeed, the enemy was let back into Richmond and it took another two
years and thousands of dead for McClelland cowardice--if that was all that
it was. I still suspect, and I think the evidence is overwhelming that he
was, either secretly a supporter of the South, or, what is more likely,
a politician readying for a different campaign: that of the Presidency of
the United States.]

Recurring to the idea of going to Richmond on the inside track, the
facility of supplying from the side away from the enemy is remarkable, as
it were, by the different spokes of a wheel extending from the hub toward
the rim, and this whether you move directly by the chord or on the inside
arc, hugging the Blue Ridge more closely. The chord line, as you see,
carries you by Aldie, Hay Market, and Fredericksburg; and you see how
turnpikes, railroads, and finally the Potomac, by Aquia Creek, meet you at
all points from WASHINGTON; the same, only the lines lengthened a little,
if you press closer to the Blue Ridge part of the way.

The gaps through the Blue Ridge I understand to be about the following
distances from Harper's Ferry, to wit: Vestal's, 5 miles; Gregory's, 13;
Snicker's, 18; Ashby's, 28; Manassas, 38; Chester, 45; and Thornton's,
53. I should think it preferable to take the route nearest the enemy,
disabling him to make an important move without your knowledge, and
compelling him to keep his forces together for dread of you. The gaps
would enable you to attack if you should wish. For a great part of the
way you would be practically between the enemy and both WASHINGTON and
Richmond, enabling us to spare you the greatest number of troops from
here. When at length running for Richmond ahead of him enables him to
move this way, if he does so, turn and attack him in rear. But I think he
should be engaged long before such a point is reached. It is all easy
if our troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say they
cann