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Sir:

The experience of the past seems to have supplied no lesson for the present. The generous advice accorded at Montgomery, has passed, like the wind, so that no man may tell whence it hath gone. The sword intended to me, through regard to patriotic sacrifice, rusts in its scabbard. Nearly one hundred thousand men removed from their families, and transported from homes of ease & comfort, if not of wealth & luxury, repine with inaction, or die with disease. The glory of our Generals consists in paste board strategy. In the mean while the enemy have fettered Maryland, paralysed Kentucky & Missouri, and hold every position of strength in Virginia, and advance upon the Capital of our Government. It is time I resumed a pen thrown down for a useless sword. When swords, once bright in their factories, have lost their lustre in the dews of sleeping camps, the rusted pen should be cleansed through exercise. A Commission held in the line of a dormant army, can not be more valuable, or honorable, than a profession, sacrificed to Patriotism six years ago, when danger first seriously impended over the North & their Institutions. When swords become implements of peace, pens should be constituted the instruments of war.

The commonest principle of mechanical philosophy is that understood by every schoolboy. It is this, that velocity must [supply?] the want of gravity; and the fundamental idea

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of military strategy is, that the center of parity f the opposing forces engaged in the fields, must be [illegible] within the enemies lines. Our numbers being less than those of the adversary, it is plain colerity of movement became an imperative necessity for the attainment of power. The centre of gravity was, in the beginning, Washington City; but is now, and has been for weeks, Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg, Winchester, and soon must be the City of Richmond, if our Generals remain inactive & supine.

Six weeks ago Abraham Lincoln was trembling, nightly, in his bed at Washington least he might be made our prisoner before the morn. Now in the Capital our citizens are sleepless, and our wives & Daughters agitated with alarm, through fear they shall be renderedd slaves within a week, and they were toys of Tyrants lust.

Why are Patterson and Cadwallader at Martinsburg, & resting on Winchester, when Johnson & Beauregard should be at Washington & resting on Baltimore?

Is it meant this war shall be prolonged until Imperialism shall be [revetted?] upon the North, and Dictatorial authority shall be established on the North? - the first generated by the tendencies of a false social system;

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but the last begot through a [illegible] management of events in the line of a [illegible] - growing - necessity?

The hand of administration has thrown into the field the forces of a giant; - the hand of execution renders these as futile as an Infant. Pizarro would have been ashamed, in order to conquer a world, to have been found in the ranks of so many men, and such men - as the Planting States alone have poured into the army of the Government.

What is the fatal spell that has wooed our Authorities into a sense of fatal security, and maintained our armies in the Camp of Capua? Is it the Syren song of those politics late so seductive as to destroy the Union & threaten with subversion Society itself? Or is it because the members composing the Government, whether state, or Confederate, are recognized to be men of remarkable goodness of heart, charity of disposition, opposed to the shedding of Christian blood, and look to Washington for the preservative of peace? If so, the answer has come, calling for four hundred thousand men & four hundred millions of dollars for our subjugation.

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Or does it arise from the fact that West Point influences, have served to convert good Engineers into bad generals, when the old civilian Scott lays upon his back & treats them all as [Tyros?] in the art of war?

If we are too weak to fight now when shall we be stronger? Will it be when fifty thousand more troops have been thrown upon Winchester on their way to Richmond? Or shall we wait for Lincoln's message to be answered by four hundred thousand more men?

Cautious Circumspection, when danger impends, is surely the part of wisdom, which all will command; but, it is equally true that untimely [pondence?] is the most rascally of all virtues", whether practiced in politics, or war.

Python

Richmond July 9th 1861.

to the President.