The situation.
Such intelligence as we have had with regard to the invasion of
Maryland has come almost exclusively through Yankee sources.
Judging even from these, we perceive that it must have been completely successful.
The invaders went where they pleased, stayed as long as they pleased, departed when they pleased, took away what they pleased, and destroyed what they pleased. --They carried off, for instance, or destroyed one million of bushels of grain, all the horses worth carrying off, and as many cattle as they took a fancy to. They seem to have met with resistance nowhere except at Monocracy bridge, and there they routed the defenders in such a short time, and pursued them with so much vigor, that the like has not been seen since the race of
Bladensburg in 1814.
They went within a few miles of
Baltimore, burnt the bridges, cut the telegraph wires, captured the trains, destroyed
Gov. Bradford's house, under the very noses of the
Yankee officers, and left without molestation.
They went to
Washington, frightened the authorities half to death, besieged the town in the most insulting manner, and fired shells which fell within a mile of the
Capitol.
Having stayed as long as it suited their convenience to stay, they drew off without interruption, apparently scarcely impeded in their retrograde movement, for we take the
Yankee report of the capture of two or three hundred prisoners to be a
fancy of the
Yankees merely.
The expedition appears to have struck the whole population with object terror, rendering them entirely incapable of defence; and when
Forney tells us it is the best thing that could have happened for Yankeedom, inasmuch as it will unite all hearts, and render it easy for
Lincoln to recruit his ranks, we can but laugh at the ludicrous effort to make the best of a very bad business.
We are writing, let it be recollected, from the
Yankee accounts of this business, for we have none of our own. We do not know what the expedition was sent for, what were its numbers, what measure of success it obtained, or whether it has, in point of fact, left the camp before
Washington.
Everybody except the projectors and the
Generals, whoever they were, has been, and still is, in profound ignorance with regard to it, its force, and its objects.
If the
Yankees know, they know more than we do. For a long time, at least, they seem to have been as ill informed as could be desired, if we may judge from the conflicting stories with which their journals abounded.
Taking it for granted that it was not sent to subdue
Maryland, and drive the
Yankees from
Baltimore and
Washington, we think we may presume, even from what the
Yankees themselves say, it has been eminently successful.
What its further objects may be, we know not; nor if we knew, should we feet at liberty to disclose them.
That they are wise and proper, and that they will be pressed with energy and intelligence, we have not the slightest doubt, and therefore wait with patience until time shall have made all things plain.
