Daily Nashville Patriot

From the N. O. Delta.
The situation,

It would be difficult to exaggerate the vast proportions and eventful import which the operations of the war have acquired. The vision aches in contemplating the terrific magnitude of preparations for decisive-action on both sides, and longs for and yet dreads the arrival of the moment when the hostile armies, after exhausting the manoeuvers of strategy, shall meet in the deadly shock of battle. That moment must come at last, unless the war is a hollow mockery; that moment, indeed, from all appearances, is even now approaching with impetuous strides, and the dawn of a great battle day is crimsoning the prophetic horizon.

Two points along the circle of the land campaign divide about equally the strained attention and the acute expectation. The enemy has been concentrating an immense force in western Kentucky, southern Illinois, and eastern Missouri, in order to make a concentric movement from several directions against our position at Columbus. But such a movement is liable to many delays, and it is possible that the enemy's approaches may for some time resemble a siege more than an assault. Yet some circumstance, neither designed nor foreseen at present on one side or the other. may precipitate a terrible battle at Columbus or in its vicinity at an early day.

Looking towards the Potomac, we are met with thickening signs which seem to portend an inevitable conflict between the hostile armies whose lines, sweeping from Fairfax and Centreville along a stretch of miles towards the Potomac, are almost impinging upon each other. McClellan has been for more than three months fighting the Confederate army with the spade. In fact spade work, and an active chess-like sort of contest for advantage of position, have constituted, with two or three sharp episodes. the operations of both armies for the period named. But at last it would seem that, under the persuasion of a military or a political exigency, perhaps of both, McClellan has come to the conclusion that it is necessary to stop digging, at least upon a stationary line, and push forward to test the strength of the Confederate positions. He does not lay down the spade, however, even in advancing. but like a circumspect engineer, entrenches at every half mile of his progress. His plan would seem to embrace a simultaneous attack upon our army at Centreville with his land forces. and upon our batteries at Evansport with land and naval forces combined. Or, it may be that the immediate purpose of his advance towards Centreville is to occupy our forces in that quarter while he throws a force across the Potomac below to move upon Evansport in co-operation with a fleet in the river. Now if this be his purpose, and our Generals penetrate it, they will of course proceed to frustrate it by measures which will compel him to fight on terms not entirely of his own choosing, or to re-arrange his programme upon new combinations. Let this or that eventuality ensue, then a battle near Centreville would seem to be either a necessity or a strong probability.

But, laying special plans and operations aside. it is certain that two such armies can not long lie so near each other in "masterly inactivity." Indeed, McClellan is not inactive, nor can we believe that that the attitude of our army is one of passive observation. Every move of McClellan is intended to gain an important advantage, and a point must at last be reached where our Generals must extricate themselves from the meshes of his strategy by vigorous and decisive action. The present situation on the Potomac cannot long be maintained. The enemy must retreat. our army must retreat, or both must seek a solution of the problem in battle.

The gathering of Federal forces at Port Royal is in fulfillment of a gigantic plan of invasion by land and sea which had been frequently enough sketched in Northern journals to warn our military authorities when and where the heaviest blows would fall. The movements on the seaboard, on the Potomac, and on the Mississippi. proceed with a simultaneousness that shows they are designed to support each other in one grand concentric attack. The relation of the seaboard operations at Port Royal to McClellan's manoeuvers on the Potomac, is perhaps of a still closer nature. Allowing for telegraphic exaggeration, the total Federal force on or sailing for the South Carolina coast may be safely estimated at forty-five thousand, the greater part of it drawn from Maryland; and much of it perhaps from McClellan's immediate command about Washington. Upon this supposition, there would be strong reasons for believing that one of the chief objects of McClellan's threatening advance towards Centreville was to conceal the depletion of his army by drafts upon it for the seaboard expedition, and also, it is possible, for the seat of war in the West, and thus to prevent reinforcements going from our Potomac army to points of greater danger in Kentucky or South Carolina and Georgia.

But let these speculations be worth what they may, the game of mere strategy, of mystifying marching and counter-marching, of digging ditches which the enemy does not come near, and keeping up breastworks which he never thinks of storming, would seem to be almost, if not entirely, played out-and we are heartily glad of it. If the whole of war consisted in a contest of positions merely, in the art of strategical overreaching, it would be quite appropriate to continue masterly spade-work to the end of the chapter. But in that case the musket might as well be laid aside; nay, armies in the field would not be necessary to the performance, and the actual spade itself, by a happy fiction of science, might be superseded by a foudroyant implement purely imaginary. The opposing Generals would only have to compare statistics of available military resources and mark their successive positions on a military map, to decide the contest. But war does not end with strategy. When, that has done its utmost, the soldierly arm, the impetuous courage, the unconquerable soul wooing victory "o'er the impetuous grave"--they must do the rest if the fight is truly won. Surely the time is now, if it is ever to be, for unloosing the organized enthusiasm of our noble volunteers in action commensurate with their high and eager spirits.