Free Stonewall Goes West: A Novel of The Civil War and What Might Have Been (Stonewall Goes West Trilogy) by R.E. Thomas Page B

to threaten and reverse the enemy’s gains in East and Middle Tennessee.”
    “Some have advocated a more Fabian policy” Davis replied, testing Jackson with an idea he did not really endorse. “Since the most important Yankee objective in the west is now Atlanta, that counsel is to concentrate at Dalton, forestall the enemy advance, and make them pay a high price for every yard of Georgia’s soil.”
    Jackson shook his head in disapproval. “No, no. We must seize and retain the initiative, and that can only be accomplished by advancing. The alternative is, as you say, to fall back upon Atlanta, fighting to delay and in hope that the enemy will make a mistake. Even if the enemy should blunder and provide such an opening, a victory would, in all likelihood, only force a retreat no farther than to Chattanooga, which by all reports is now a fortress and well-stocked with supplies. There would then be no repetition of this past autumn’s siege of that place, Mr. President.”
    “I believe,” Jackson continued, “that victories are won by the party blessed with audacity, celerity and surprise. In this way a weaker army, and our armies will almost always prove weaker in numbers than those of the enemy, might concentrate against only a part of the stronger, and inflict defeat in detail upon it. Many such victories build confidence, and make an army invincible.”
    “How do you propose to accomplish this?”
    “That I cannot say,” Jackson admitted. “As you have said, Mr. President, I am unfamiliar with both the army and the terrain.” Pausing for a moment, he added “I can say that I believe the west offers greater opportunities for maneuver than the east. It is a vast place, compared to Virginia, where our contests with the Army of the Potomac all occur in the rectangle formed by the Blue Ridge, the Chesapeake, Washington and Richmond. That rectangle is bisected by several rivers, not much more than a hundred miles wide for the most part, and makes a severely constrained place for two large armies.”
    Jackson went on. “I also believe that we must take the war to the enemy, and by that I mean we must bring the war into the homes of the civilian population of the northern states. If we hope for them to discontinue their efforts to subjugate our people, we must break the Yankee nation as well as the Yankee armies. Unfortunately, in the west, I believe this is impractical at the present time. Too much occupied territory separates our base from the northern heartland. But if we can reoccupy Tennessee? I would make Ohio and Indiana howl.”
    Davis recalled Jackson’s proposals, from early in the war, to send strong raiding parties into the North, with orders to lay waste to farms, tear up railroads, and destroy factories. Davis was unsure if such measures would break or stiffen Yankee resolve, but he had been certain that raising the black flag at that time would have alienated European support.
    He inquired “But from the sound of it, that is for much later, yes?”
    “Yes, yes, it is neither here nor there. For now, the focus must be on Tennessee.”
    Davis was pleased, even enthusiastic about what he heard. Johnston would have backed away, skillfully to be sure, but still backed away from any fight until he had reached Florida, and then blamed the government for endangering his army, the loss of the entire southern heartland, and not providing him with transportation to Cuba. Davis was certain of that.
    Worse than Johnston, Davis thought, Longstreet wanted to put his entire army corps on mules for a raid into Kentucky, even though there were obviously not so many mules available in all of the Confederacy. Beauregard’s wild, vainglorious schemes scarcely deserved mention.
    Davis had taken his fill of plans that were defeatist or unrealistic. The man before him spoke of advancing northward, but tempered with some sense of the possible.
    “General Jackson, let us begin these labors forthwith. What can this office