an early day, and these were
reasons of economy, which commended themselves to the judgment of almost
every one except the commanding general. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
is the natural and only good thoroughfare along the valley of the upper
Potomac. Harper's Ferry, confessedly the strongest and best military
point in Northern Virginia, and the one best fitted for a base of
offensive operations, is on this railroad, and, of course, of easy
access from Baltimore and Washington. In June last the road was open
from Baltimore to the Point of Rocks, between which last place and the
Ferry were some rebel obstructions easy to be removed. Had Gen.
Patterson occupied Harper's Ferry in June, and opened the railroad to
that point, and from thence carried on the campaign like a brave
general, worthy to command the brave men who filled the ranks of his
army, the government might by this time have made the whole line of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad of use, as a means of transporting troops
and munitions between Cincinnati and Baltimore,--a desideratum then, as
now, very strongly urged, as the shortest route between those points is
the circuitous one _via_ Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. It could have been
of great use, too, to Patterson's division of the army, in transporting
supplies from Baltimore, by the most natural and expeditious route. But
it was his plan to enter Virginia at Williamsport, so that all supplies
for his division must go from Baltimore and Philadelphia to Harrisburg,
and thence by rail to Hagerstown, where they were loaded upon army
wagons, and transported thus to and across the Potomac, and for fifteen
or twenty miles into Virginia, to the Federal camps, at very great
outlay and expense. So earnest did Gen. Patterson seem to be, either in
doing nothing, or else in causing all the expenditure possible.

These are the arguments which address themselves to our reason, as
bearing on the question of Patterson's success or failure, and as
explanatory of the latter. As before stated, they are urged, not to show
that Patterson should have possessed prophetic knowledge or any
extraordinary powers, but to illustrate his failure to understand what
was transpiring before his face and eyes. He is culpable, not because he
did not achieve impossibilities, but because he did not do what plain
common-sense seemed to require. The writer heard, among the Federal
camps, but one reason suggested for Patterson's neglect to occupy