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9. Southern press on the battle.
Our telegraphic despatches this morning tell a glorious tale for the
South.
It is not the bulletins of our friends alone which announce a grand victory for the armies of the
South.
It is confessed in all its greatness and completeness by the wailings which come to us from the city of
Washington, the Headquarters of our enemies.
It is told in the groans of the panic-stricken
Unionists of tyranny, who are quaking behind their entrenchments with apprehension for the approach of the avenging soldiery of the
South, driving before it the routed remnants of that magnificent army which they had prepared and sent forth with the boastful promise of an easy victory.
From
Richmond, on the contrary, come the glad signs of exceeding joy over a triumph of our arms, so great and overwhelming as though the God of Battles had fought visibly on our side, and smitten and scattered our enemies with a thunderbolt.
Such a rout of such an army — so large, so equipped, and so commanded — was never known before in the wars on this continent.
Whole corps disorganized, regiments cut to pieces, artillery captured in whole batteries, and a mighty body of disciplined men converted into a panic-stricken mob — such things have not been read of, except on that smaller scale where the disciplined troops who bore
Scott into
Mexico encountered the races of semi-barbarians, who parted before him like sheep before a charge of cavalry.
It is the same iron race which took
Scott upon their shoulders, and carried him into the capital of
Mexico, which now bars his way to
Richmond with a wall of steel and fire.
The leaders may clamor for new and greater efforts for the straining of the resources of the people and the gathering of large armaments, to be precipitated upon the
South in the desperate hope of retrieving the fortunes of a day so deplorably lost.
We will not venture to say to what extent rage, disappointment, baffled cupidity, and thirst for revenge, may carry a deluded people; but the confidence of the
South will rise high, that no continued and often-repeated struggles can be entered upon in the face of such obstacles which have been found in the courage and constancy of the Confederate army, and the genius of its illustrious chief.
In every corner of this land, and at every capital in
Europe, it will be received as the emphatic and exulting endorsement, by a young and unconquerable nation, of the lofty assurance
President Davis spread before the world on the very eve of the battle, that the noble race of freemen who inherit these States will, whatever
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may be the proportions the war may assume, “renew their sacrifices and their services from year to year, until they have made good to the uttermost their right to self-government.”
The day of battle shows how they redeemed this pledge for them, and in adversity as in victory, it is the undying pledge of all.--
New Orleans Picayune, July 23.
The great victory.
The battle annals of the
American continent furnish no parallel to the brilliant and splendid victory won by the
Southern army on Sunday last over the hired mercenaries and minions of the abolition despotism.
With an inferior force, in point of numbers, we have driven back to their dens the boasting invaders of our soil, scattering them before our victorious arms as leaves are scattered before the autumn wind.
The details we publish in our telegraphic column leave no doubt that we have put the enemy to utter rout, and struck him a blow from which it is impossible for him wholly to recover.
The victory is the more significant, from the fact that it is the first general engagement between the opposing forces.
That the
President of the
Confederate States was himself in the thickest of the fight, exposed to all the perils of the battle-field, is another circumstance that adds to the joy of our triumph, and swells our triumphant note of exultation.
All honor to our brave and gallant leader and
President, to the brave
Beauregard, the gallant
Johnston, and our chivalric soldiery.
We have driven the enemy back from our soil, we have mowed down his men by the hundreds and by the thousands, we have captured his batteries, and sent him howling and panic-stricken from the field of the fight.
The blow, in its moral and its physical effects, will prove of incalculable advantage to the
Southern cause.
The first regiment of the enemy that crossed over from
Washington — the Zouaves of
Ellsworth — have fled from the field with only two hundred left of the entire regiment.
Retributive justice has overtaken the first of the enemy who put their feet upon the sacred soil of
Virginia, and from six to eight hundred of them have been cut down dead upon the land which they insolently dared to invade.
Many a brave Southerner has had to fall, too — but our loss, we are confident, is small in comparison to that of the enemy.
Our brave boys fought with heroic courage, but they fell in the holy cause of defence against aggression, and “it is sweet and honorable to die for one's country.”
To the God of Battles let the heart of the whole
South yield its tribute of praise and thanksgiving for this most signal and brilliant victory.--
New Orleans Crescent, July 28.
The dead bodies of the hirelings lay in heaps on road and in field.
We conquered gloriously.
The enemy fought bravely and well, but their valor could not resist the courage of men under the inspiration of a grand and holy cause, and they have been utterly routed by half their number.
Our joy at this signal work of the Divine favor is tempered by the heavy loss we have sustained in the death of those who have taken the first step in a career of glorious usefulness.
We bewail the death of noble spirits.
And other names may be added to the gloomy list.
We forbear to write them down until the mention of them can be accomplished with a fitting tribute to their virtues and valor.
We would rather, at this time, rejoice and give thanks that more of our gallant sons have not fallen upon that bloody field.
It is these strokes that forbid the exultation in which the importance and splendor of the victory prompts us to indulge.
And the death of those noble men causes us to realize our increased obligation to Him who ruleth in the armies of heaven and earth, and to fall down in adoring gratitude, and give the honor of the success to the God whom we serve.
His right arm won the victory for our arms, and to Him would we ascribe the glory.--
Charleston Courier, July 23.
While we rejoice for our success, many homes have the shadow of death round about, and the voice of weeping, the wail of widowhood, the sharp cry of orphanage, are in our land.
We have bought our victory dearly, paid for it the purchase-blood of the brave.
While we drop a tear for the noble, the manly, the gallant heroic, for our
Bartow, and
Bee, and
Johnson, and
Stovall, and the whole long list of glory's children, and while we mourn with their families and friends, let us thus be nerved all the more to strike, strike again.--
Atlanta (Ga.) Sentinel, July 23.
