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have under their command much more than a hundred thousand men — enough for all practical purposes.
It is not the want of men that has prevented an advance, but the lack of means of transportation, and the lack of food, coupled with sickness.
Beauregard has been almost wholly without means of transportation for his vast army, and proper food in sufficient quantity, as we have reason to believe.
And men who fought the great fight on the 21st, and came out of it without so much as a scratch, were in no condition to do military duty for several days.
With little food of suitable quality, fatigued, worn down, they were in no condition to advance.
In fact, very many of them have been sick since the fight; and it is but truth to say that they, as well as the wounded, have not had proper attention from the medical department, which, so far as we can learn, was organized in the very worst manner, if, indeed, it can be said to have had any organization at all.
Months ago, we called attention to the impropriety of favoritism and politics in the organization of the army, and especially directed attention to the absolute necessity of having the best available ability in the quartermasters' and commissary department.
The sickness, from wounds and otherwise, in our Virginia army, is absolutely frightful, and the insufficiency and inefficiency of the medical department more frightful still.
Only think of our noble boys suffering twenty-four hours after battle without being seen, and then attended perhaps by men unfit for their office, and four days elapsing before the department at Richmond sent any lint or bandages to Manassas, when an abundance ought to have been there a month before the battle.
