Winter Campaigns.
--We stated yesterday our conviction that there would be no such thing as winter quarters during this war.--That either party will think of winter quarters, at least during the present winter, is hardly probable. The Yankees, at any rate, profess to have laid out a splendid programme for the season, and unless it should be spoiled by some unfortunate repetition of the Bull Runness, they will carry it out. They speak as if there were no doubt about the success of their plan, even in the smallest particular. The misfortune with them is, that combated operations upon so large a scale require a at the head, and talents in the general departments, which they are ill able to furnish. The troops must be veterans who will gand fire, not runners, who will trot off at the alarm. A plan so vast and complicated as that which they propose, was never carried any commander, not even by Napo It is more vast than the invasion of in 1812. It is more complicated than of France in 1814. It would re a superintending genius at least equal to of Napoleon--a man who had been ac to handle enormous bodies of troops Now, the Yankees have no such man. Old Scott never commanded ten thousand men in us life, until he undertook the conquest of the McClellan has the sort of talent required for fortifying a position, and a body of men behind the works. It must be remembered, likewise, that this is a stem consisting of so many parts, that the casters of failure are indefinitely multiplied. The machinery is so ingeniously constructed no one part can be independent of the last. The failure of one involves the destruction of the whole. If McClellan were a second Napoleon., he has no security that Generals have the capacity to comprehend views or his soldiers the courage to carry them out.Yet it admits of no doubt that a Southern campaign will be attempted, and the South should be prepared to encounter it. After a to the army of the Potomac, it still has men enough to defend its soil against any force the Yankees can send against it.--They may land at some unguarded point, as they did at Hatteras, and may do some local We should be ready to guard against all such attempts as well as we can.--They boast loudly of their intention to seize, by means of their fleet. stolen from us like everything else they have,) Charleston, Mobile Pensacola, and New Orleans. They tell us through the New York Times, that they meant to do one or all these things for the purpose of restoring the cotton trade to its channel. They can as soon conquer Virginia, and remove the Sugar Loaf Mountain or the Peaks of Otter, to the centre of New York or Boston. But they are raising men to effect this object. It lies in fact at the bottom of the whole war. By a steady and persistent course of wrong and insult, they drove away this great trade, which made them what they are or what they were twelve months ago. They now begin to experience the consequences of their folly. Their commerce has been curtailed to one-third of its former proportions, their manufactures are gasping for life, their finances are becoming hopeless their whole country is on the verge of bankruptcy. Now they would get back by the wrong hand what their folly drove away for no cause whatever. There can be no doubt that though they have neither the wisdom nor the men to succeed in the vast plan which they are connecting, they will make desperate efforts this winter. Clinton close the winter season for his invasion of the South, and the winters of 79-80 and 81, were seasons of great activity throughout this section of country. Let the South remember this, and be prepared for a winter campaign.
latest, as we remarked yesterday, the idea of water quarters is obsolete, even in less favored climates than ours. There has been scarcely any such thing since the days of of Marcial who sent for Players from Paris. when he went into them. and made other preparations to pass the season comfortably.-- Frederick knocked that sort of sport in the head. He was almost as sad an innovator as Napoleon himself, and paid no respect to ancient military traditions. A strict disciplination, he by no means resembled Moliere's physician, who thought it better for a man to be killed according to rule than to be cured in collation of it. He did not scorn success obtained in the most irregular manner. He made break neck marches through the show, and fought battles when the thermometer was below zero Washington had winter quarters, such as they were, because Howe and Clinian had New York and Philadelphia, and he was obliged to watch them and keep them in check. Had he possessed the means of attacking them. he would have paid no respect to winter quarters as he showed at Trenton and Ponleton During the wars of the French Revolution operations never stopped for the winter innumerable great battles were fought in the dead of winter; as, for instance, Arcole, Rivoli, Hohenlinden, Austerlitz, Eylan, Cormuns, the Beresina, La Rothiere, Brienne, Orthes, Tonlouse, &c. The retreat of Sir John Moore took place in the depth of winter and Mantusa surrendered in February.--In fact the leaders of that day paid no respect to seasons and no respect, as far as we can see, has been paid to them since.
