k. I say, try; if we never
try, we shall never succeed. If he makes a stand at Winchester, moving
neither north nor south, I would fight him there, on the idea that if
we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage 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 intrenchments of Richmond.

"Recurring to the idea of going to Richmond on the inside track, the
facility for supplying from the side away from the enemy is remarkable,
as it were by the different spokes of a wheel extending from the hub
towards the rim; and this, whether you moved 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, Haymarket, and Fredericksburg, and you
see how turnpikes, railroads, and finally the Potomac, by Acquia 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: Vestala, five miles;
Gregory's, thirteen; Snicker's, eighteen; Ashby's, twenty-eight;
Manassas, thirty-eight; Chester, forty-five; and Thornton's,
fifty-three. 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 point is reached. It is all
easy if our troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say
they cannot do it. This letter is in no sense an order."

A general who failed to respond to such a spur as this was not the man
for