The Daily Dispatch: October 25, 1864., [Electronic resource]

The Yankee General Sheridan telegraphs from Winchester that he has utterly demolished Early's army, taken all his artillery and sixteen hundred prisoners. Of course, the Valley is now conquered, as it has been so often before, and Early's army, for the fourth or fifth time, destroyed or dispersed never to rally again. This statement, in the usual inflated style of that vain-glorious and self-seeking officer, will no doubt have its effect at the North in making him the hero of an hour. For that people, above all others that ever existed, delight in deceiving themselves and persuading themselves that they are near the completion of the tremendous task which they have undertaken to perform. Hence the cry repeated for three years and a half that the rebellion is on its last legs, that the Confederacy is on the point of starvation, that the rebel army is reduced to a few skeletons of regiments, that the whole country is full of loyal Unionists that are eager to take up arms in support of the best Government under the sun. Three years and a half ago. Seward began to draw his bills of thirty and sixty days, and notwithstanding they have been continually protested as fast as the appointed day has arrived, they are still believed in by the whole population of the Yankee States. When McClellan was making his campaign against Richmond, the Yankee public was fed with the most extravagant lies, all of which they received as gospel, and all of which were to the same tune of taking Richmond and crushing the rebellion in ninety days. In all Yankeedom there were probably not a dozen persons who did not believe, last April, that Grant would take Richmond and crush the rebellion before the first of June. When deferred hope had sickened the heart, and even some Yankees had begun to think that, after all, the job of crushing the rebellion might not be accomplished, hope revived with the trivial success of Sherman at Atlanta. The defeat of Early at Winchester came upon the back of Hood's defeat at Atlanta, and all Yankeedom became absolutely delirious with joy. The Valley was conquered, Staunton was to fall, Lynchburg was to be taken, Sheridan was to co-operate with Grant, Richmond was to surrender with Lee's whole army, and then the rebellion, so often overthrown, and so often rising, like the giant Antæus, stronger from its contact with the earth, was to be held aloft and stilted in the arms of the Yankee Hercules. It turned out that the Valley was not conquered. Early recovered and Sheridan was pressed back. Now, however, it is certainly conquered, and Yankeedom is justified in once more going mad with joy. We are under the impression that their joy is as much out of place now as it has been on so many different occasions before.

For what was this victory, over which such a cry is raised? It appears that General Early, on a certain day last week, attacked two corps of Sheridan's army, routed them utterly, took their camp, their baggage, their wagons, and all their artillery, and pursued them five or six miles. That in the course of the pursuit he captured and sent to the rear nineteen hundred prisoners, fifteen hundred of whom have already arrived here, while five hundred more are expected to-day. That his troops either dispersed to plunder the camp of the enemy, and were attacked while in this condition, or came suddenly, and while they were exhausted from the battle and the pursuit, upon a heavy force of the enemy, strongly entrenched, with formidable batteries of artillery (for both these stories are told).--That they were compelled to fall back in great disorder, and lost all the captured cannon and twelve pieces of their own in the streets of Strasburg. That the whole loss in men was but eleven hundred, killed, wounded and missing; for, from all we can learn, the statement of Sheridan that he had sixteen hundred prisoners is utterly false. In the meantime, Early has so far recovered that he has secured his prisoners and sent them safely here; and Sheridan has so little recovered, that after losing, according to Yankee accounts, five thousand men, killed, wounded and missing, he did not dare to pursue. Early has given no intimation that he means to relinquish his hold upon the Valley; and Sheridan has the whole thing to try over again. We think, when all these things shall have been duly considered, it will appear plain that the crushing of Early and the possession of the Valley are things which are yet to be accomplished. It is remarkable that Sheridan tells the Yankees that it is Longstreet, not Early, whom he has just crushed. He had told them before that he had annihilated Early, and they firmly believed that not a man of his command was left, save as a captive or a deserter. It was necessary to account for the strong force still in the Valley, and he told them it was Longstreet's corps. Vanity is the meanest of all the passions. It made Sheridan, in this instance, guilty of two willful falsehoods. Longstreet is not in the Valley, and Sheridan knows it; Early had not been reinforced before the battle, and he knew that too.

Our people have become so much accustomed to the vicissitudes of war that they are not easily affected by the receipt of unpromising news. They know well, however, that the Valley is not given up and that there is no intention of giving it up. This battle, in all its points, resembles the battle of Eutaw in the old revolution, where General Green, after gaining a great victory, was finally obliged to quit the field, with the loss of all, or nearly all, his artillery, carrying off, however, a large body of prisoners he had taken, and crippling the enemy so badly that he not only did not pursue him, but was never after able to face him in the field again.--General Early appears to have all the pertinacity which distinguished Green; and he has hurt Sheridan far more than Sheridan has hurt him.