Edward Porter Alexander, Military memoirs of a Confederate: a critical narrative

Opportunities to do the same upon a larger scale were repeatedly offered between the Confederate armies before Richmond and those about Chattanooga. One had already occurred in the summer just passed. On May 30, Beauregard had evacuated Corinth with 52,000 men, and withdrawn to Tupelo, Miss. He was not followed, and the Federal army under Halleck of 100,000, was dispersed in different directions from Arkansas to Cumberland Gap. Beauregard was allowed two months of idleness and rest. It would have been possible to bring 20,000 of his veterans to Richmond by the 26th of June to reenforce Lee for the Seven Days Campaign. With their assistance McClellan should have been destroyed. Then the Western troops could have returned, and, if necessary, carried large reenforcements with them. Now a second opportunity was offered for similar strategy. Others were offered later, as we shall see, whenever one of the Confederate armies, from any cause, was free from the prospect of an early attack by its opponent.

On this occasion, the joint campaign of Bragg and Smith in Kentucky, and the Maryland campaign, both failed. Had we utilized our interior lines, one of them at the least should have been made sure. It was hoped, indeed, when the campaigns were entered upon, that the Southern sympathies of the Marylanders and Kentuckians would cut real figures in the struggle by bringing thousands of recruits to the Confederates, but this hope proved vain in both cases. There had been already enough observation of the war to destroy its romance, and to make the most careless realize what a grave step one would take who shouldered a musket under the Starry Cross. Many sympathized with our cause, and wished us well. But few were willing to abandon homes and take sides before we had shown ourselves able to remain in their States for at least a few weeks.

And this, in the case of Maryland, wasutterly out of the question for the simple reason that there was no railroad communication possible; and no army large enough to meet the Federal army, could support and supply itself by wagon-trains from Staunton,