How do you beat the Confederate strategy of using interior lines to concentrate its troops at any threatened point? The New-York Times says to use overwhelming numbers at multiple points simultaneously. The Conscription Act of 1863 is conveniently giving the Lincoln administration authority to draft millions of men for this purpose.
From The New-York Times June 3, 1863:
An Early and Large Conscription.
We trust that the Administration will spare no pains to complete the preparations for the conscription by the earliest day possible, and that the conscription when made will be on an extensive scale. The great mistake of the war thus far has been the endeavor to wage it with an insufficient force. It requires no professional eye to see that, during the first year, the rebel army positively outnumbered our own; and through the second year we have had at no time a material preponderance; — for the calls that were made by the President last Summer were nearly balanced by the universal conscription ordered soon after by the rebel Congress. The expiration of the service of the nine months men and of the two years men is fast reducing our numbers to a figure actually below that of the rebel forces. Until this relative strength of the armies is vastly changed, so that we shall have a very great numerical preponderance of soldiers, this war will continue to drag on without result.
The rationale of the rebel system has become so plain that no man of the slightest discernment can mistake it. It all lies in the principle of concentration. Acting on the defensive, the rebels have also the advantage of operating on interior lines. “While we are on the rim of the circle, they move at pleasure over the comparatively short distances within; and, when threatened at any point, they without delay combine their forces, and meet us in at least equal, if not superior, numbers. They do not hesitate to uncover the most important points in order to do this. In fact they have no alternative. When we advance in any direction, they must then and there have a force large enough to cope with us, or we would at once rush to our prize. Of course, they have done their best to disguise this necessity. It is now a settled fact that, in many instances, they have concealed the transfer of their troops by keeping up an imposing line of pickets long after every man behind them had been sped scores of miles away. It is not to the credit of our Generals that they have ever been deceived by such beggarly devices. It ought at the very outset to have been made an axiom that, from the very necessity of the case, the rebels, with their limited numbers, when threatened by an advance upon any point, must concentrate, and that this concentration must occasion a great weakness at all other points.
Plainly there can be but one method of meeting this system of the rebels, and that is an advance upon them with strong force, in different directions, at the same time. This drives the rebel commander at once into a fatal dilemma. He cannot concentrate at any one point without sure ruin at another; and yet, if he does not concentrate, he is just as sure to incur ruin by fighting us in detail with largely inferior forces. Had this indisputable truth been recognized and acted upon, Richmond would have inevitably fallen at HOOKER’s last advance. In fact it might have been grasped by us at any time since the war began.
But the prime requisite for this method is a large preponderance in numbers. If the advance were to be made, for instance, in two directions, the army operating in each should be strong enough to give full employment to the combined rebel force. Thus, the check of the advance in the one direction could be obtained only at the cost of the success of the advance in the other direction. With proper activity and concert of movement on our part, there could be no failure.
We trust we have seen the last attempt to penetrate interior lines in a single direction. In theory it is absurd, and in practice it is suicidal. Richmond must be taken as Pari3 was taken — by joint advance movements with heavy columns in different directions. NAPOLEON, the greatest warrior of modern times, was helpless before that simple operation, and it is certain that LEE could not withstand it.
It would seem that the Government must have been so taught by hard experience, that it will no longer trust to half-measures. For two years it has maintained the contest, practically, as the man with one hand tied behind him fights the boy. This may be legitimate sport for amateurs, but it does not suit a nation struggling for its life. It is high time that the mighty superiority of the loyal part of the country in strength should be turned to some practical account. The Executive, by the act of Congress, is clothed with a power to put into the field any number of men necessary — one, two, nay three millions, if need be. No physical effect can be more surely calculated upon from a physical cause, than the speedy crushing of this rebellion from the force that this Conscription bill empowers the Government to wield. We trust that the Administration will flinch from no responsibility in the promptest and most effectual use of this means. The great body of the people, we are sure, will cheerfully sustain any extent of conscription necessary for the speedy completion of the war. It is only when the Government hesitates and falters that the people fail it — never, when it is bold.
factasy – American Civil War points out that moving the Confederate capital from Montgomery to Richmond put a big Union target a lot closer to the circumference of the imaginary circle. Military History Online describes the effectiveness of Confederate use of railroads in conjunction with interior lines.
