common-sense seemed to require. The writer heard, among the Federal
camps, but one reason suggested for Patterson's neglect to occupy
Harper's Ferry in June, which was, that probably the rebels had
concealed sundry infernal machines in its vicinity, which would destroy
thousands of the Union soldiers at the proper time. This was building a
great military policy on a very small basis. If there was running
through Gen. Patterson's policy any such plan of military strategy, or,
in fact, any plan whatever, we have the curious spectacle presented of a
general of an army ignoring common-sense, and building up a plan of a
great campaign solely upon improbabilities. And it strikes us that this
may be the key to the general's system of warfare, and a very plain and
lucid explanation of his failure.

It is not deemed desirable here to treat of Patterson's other faults,
such as his indulgent treatment of rebel spies, his failure to
confiscate rebel property, and his distinguishing between the property
of rebels and loyalists, by placing strong guards over the former, and
neglecting to take equal care of the latter. Such acts only prove him to
be either more nice than wise, or less nice than foolish; unless we
argue him to be, as many do, a secret secessionist. But we leave it to
others to draw inferences as to his loyalty or disloyalty. Our task is
accomplished if we have shown that whether loyal or false, whether a
patriot or a traitor, his three months' campaign in Virginia proves him
unfit to be a commander, by revealing three great faults, each injuring
the cause he professed to aid, all combining to render his campaign a
failure, and two of the three assisting directly in our disaster at Bull
Run, and deepening that dark stain upon our national escutcheon. His
neglect to occupy Harper's Ferry in June, his failure to push on against
Johnston when there was an opportunity to injure him, and his cool
betrayal of the Unionists of Northern Virginia into the clutches of the